Coordinating Information in Sentence Processing

描述（由申请人提供）：本研究监测眼睛运动到视觉工作空间中的对象，这些对象与语言产生和理解密切相关，因为参与者执行自然任务，例如遵循生产和遵循指令，以及使用对象进行对话以解决问题。我们的目标是了解听众如何协调语言和非语言信息，因为他们理解语言。协调信息是语言理解的核心，因为语音是一个快速变化的瞬态声学事件。 因此，听众在语言表示的多个层次上遇到歧义（例如，语音、词汇、句法、语义/话语模型等）。许多歧义是暂时的，因为随后的语言信息很快就解决了歧义;另一些歧义是通过诉诸非语言语境来解决的，即一个话语被听到或读到的特定环境;另一些歧义是通过诉诸现实世界的知识来解决的。歧义问题是普遍存在的：即使是明确的单词和短语也会暂时产生歧义。 然而，随着演讲的展开，翻译者会迅速协调多个信息来源，得出临时的解释。 本研究的结果被用来开发和评估明确的机制模型，支持实时的理解，并可以占主要的经验现象。 这些模型对于理解正常理解及其发展、发育障碍和可能由脑损伤引起的理解障碍至关重要。从这项调查中产生的结果和方法也变得越来越相关的通知和评估基于计算机的口语对话系统。这些系统开始在健康相关领域（例如，使用口头语言与人互动以回答询问的系统）和原型正在开发中，例如，在协调对医疗紧急情况的快速反应方面提供咨询意见。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This research monitors eye movements to objects in a visual workspace, which are closely time-locked to language production and comprehension, as participants perform natural tasks, such as following producing and following instructions, and conversing to solve problems using the objects. The goal is to understand how listeners coordinate linguistic and non-linguistic information as they understand language. Coordinating information is central to language comprehension because speech unfolds as a rapidly changing transient acoustic event. As a consequence, listeners encounter ambiguities at multiple levels of linguistic representation (e.g., phonetic, lexical, syntactic, semantic/discourse model, etc.). Many ambiguities are temporary in that subsequent linguistic information soon resolves the ambiguity; others are resolved by appeal to non-linguistic context-the particular circumstances under which an utterance is heard or read; others by appeal to real-world knowledge. The ambiguity problem is pervasive: even unambiguous words and phrases are temporarily ambiguous. Yet, comprehenders quickly coordinate multiple sources of information to arrive at provisional interpretations as the speech unfolds. The results of this research are used to develop and evaluate explicit mechanistic models that support real-time comprehension and can account for the major empirical phenomena. These models are essential for understanding normal comprehension and its development, developmental disabilities, and comprehension impairments that may arise from brain injury. The results and methods that arise from this investigation are also becoming increasingly relevant to informing and evaluating computer-based spoken dialog systems. These systems are beginning to find applications in health-related domains (e.g., systems that interact with humans using spoken language to answer queries) and prototypes are under development that offer advice, for example, in coordinating rapid response to medical emergencies.