Retrieval dynamics and interference in anaphoric resolution: Skilled and unskilled readers

描述（由申请人提供）：根据2003年关于成人读写能力和生活技能的报告（加拿大统计局和经合组织，2005年），估计美国16-25岁的成年人中有51%的人只能达到“低于基本”的阅读水平，这不足以达到更高的教育和职业目标。因为阅读能力差会对个人、社会和经济产生巨大的负面影响，这是一个真正值得关注的公共卫生问题。阅读困难的来源多种多样，但最近在增量句子加工过程中的记忆检索干扰已被确定为理解困难的来源（Van Dyke & Johns 2012）。我的项目将研究在代词-先行词依赖关系构建过程中的检索干扰是如何导致理解不良的。代词依赖在自然语言文本中普遍存在（25%-35%的语言参考使用代词——Hardie 2007），它们的成功解决对于构建连贯和正确的解释至关重要。代词依赖关系受到许多结构约束，这些约束限制了它们的先行词的位置。虽然关系约束在语言行为的理论描述中发挥着不可或缺的作用，但在增量句子理解过程中，将代词分布的理论认识与检索机制联系起来的研究却很少。目前的研究重点是研究个体读者在先验检索过程中如何有效地抵抗结构不合适但特征匹配的np的干扰。我的具体目标1是确定理解者从记忆中检索先行词的机制。到目前为止，还没有研究直接解决这个问题，目前的建议试图填补这一空白。实验将对比两种候选机制：直接访问检索机制和使用速度-准确性权衡范式的串行搜索机制（例如Sternberg 1966）。在我的论文中，我提出熟练的理解者能够采用策略来抵抗检索干扰。具体目标2将系统地研究不同复杂性的结构约束，以确定检索干扰发生的条件。最后，本文的具体目标3考察了

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): According to the 2003 report on Adult Literacy and Life Skills (Statistics Canada & OECD, 2005) an estimated 51% of US adults aged 16-25 can read only at a "below-basic" level, which is insufficient for attaining advanced educational and occupational goals. Because, poor reading ability has tremendous negative personal, social, and economic consequences for individuals, it is an issue of real public health concern. The origins of reading difficulty are many and varied, but recently memory retrieval interference during incremental sentence processing has been identified as a source of comprehension difficulty (Van Dyke & Johns 2012). My project will investigate how retrieval interference during the construction of pronoun-antecedent dependencies contributes to poor comprehension. Pronominal dependencies are pervasive in natural language texts (between 25%-35% of all reference in language uses pronouns - Hardie 2007), and their successful resolution is crucial in constructing coherent and correct interpretations. Pronominal dependencies are subject to a number of structural constraints which restrict the positions of their antecedents. Though relational constraints play an indispensable role in theoretical descriptions of linguistic behavio, there has been little work to link the theoretical understanding of the distribution of pronouns with mechanisms of retrieval during incremental sentence comprehension. The current proposal focuses on investigating how effective individual readers are at resisting interference from structurally inappropriate but feature-matching NPs during antecedent retrieval. My Specific Aim 1 is to identify the mechanism that comprehenders employ to retrieve antecedents from memory. To date, no research has directly addressed this question, and the current proposal seeks to fill in this gap. The experiments will contrast two candidate mechanisms: a direct-access retrieval mechanism and a serial- search mechanism (e.g. Sternberg 1966) using the Speed-Accuracy Tradeoff paradigm. In my dissertation I proposed that skilled comprehenders are capable of employing strategies to resist retrieval interference. Specific Aim 2 will systematically investigate structural constraints of differing complexity to identify conditions under which retrieval interference occurs. Finally, Specific Aim 3 of the proposal investigates the extent to which poor and inhibitory control abilities are significant predictors of retrieval interference across all of the experiments proposed. In order to have broad impact, the studies will target a community-based sample comprised of both non-college-bound individuals (age 16-24) and college students of the same age. This broad population constitutes a more representative sample of reading ability in the population at large. I anticipate that the project will result in a new understanding of a significant source of individual variability in reading comprehension, which will perhaps inform clinical remediation methods.