Self-Organized Sentence Processing and Reading Ability

描述(申请人提供)：当个人阅读或听到语言时，他们必须构建一个句法分析，将句子中的各种单词连接在一起，并允许个人理解信息。然而，这个过程可能并不像直觉所暗示的那样简单。句子处理的自组织模型声称，大脑花费大量时间处于部分聚集状态，形成部分连贯的句法分析，而不是从一个连贯的整体。该框架还预测，部分连贯句法结构的干扰在句子层面上导致阅读困难。本研究的目的是考察部分连贯在人类句子处理中的作用，并调查部分连贯结构作为阅读困难的来源所起的作用。目前的项目使用了视觉世界眼球跟踪技术，参与者在观看视觉场景时通过耳机听到语言。通过测量表情分布的趋势，我们可以找出人们在视觉场景中理解语言的过程，我们可以发现参与者未能达到完全连贯状态的方法。我们对口头形式和书面形式中的刺激进行系统的比较，以了解阅读可能会出现多大的错误。在某些设计中，我们使用自定进度的阅读来测量单个单词的阅读时间，即读者一次看一个单词，然后按下按钮移动到下一个单词。在其他设计中，我们首先让参与者阅读句子，然后执行涉及视觉场景的任务，以测试他们对语言的理解。目前的项目研究了各种能力的人的阅读困难，包括年轻人，他们的阅读困难一直是教育成功的障碍。我们认为，人们在部分阅读成功的状态下停滞不前，是因为大脑可能陷入僵局。这个项目探讨了阅读领域中出现这种僵局的情况，作为通向理解个人和社会的灵活性/僵化的一般步骤。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): When individuals read or hear language, they must construct a syntactic parse that connects the various words in a sentence together and allows the individual to comprehend the message. However, this process may not be as straightforward as intuition might imply. Self-organizing models of sentence processing claim that the mind spends significant amounts of time in states of partial aggregation, forming partially coherent parses that do not from a cohesive whole. This framework also predicts that interference from partially coherent syntactic structures plays a role in the comprehension difficulties of poor readers at the level of the sentence. The aim of the current research project is to examine the role of partial coherence in human sentence processing, and to investigate the role of partially coherent structures as a source of difficulty in poor readers. The current project uses the technique of Visual World eye tracking, in which participants hear language over headphones while looking at a visual scene. By measuring trends in the distributions of looks, we can figure out the process by which people make sense of the language in the context of the visual scene, and we can discover ways in which participants fail to reach states of complete coherence. We make systematic comparisons between stimuli presented in the spoken form versus the written form to understand how reading specifically may go awry. In certain designs, we measure reading times on individual words using Self-Paced reading, where readers see the words one at a time and push a button to move to the next word. In other designs, we first have participants read sentences, and then perform tasks involving visual scenes that test their comprehension of the language. The current project studies reading difficulty in individuals with a wide range of abilities, including young adults for whom difficulties with reading have been a hindrance to educational success. We believe that people plateau in states of partial reading success because the mind can fall into a state of gridlock. This project probes the circumstances under which such gridlock arises in the domain of reading as a step toward understanding individual and societal flexibility/rigidity generally.