An investigation of how multiple sources of information are integrated during online reading

The current project investigates the online processing consequences of a conflict between different levels of linguistic representation, specifically focusing on the relationship between the mechanisms supporting word recognition and the information conveyed at the sentence level. The first set of studies asks how readers comprehend compound words containing transposed letters that are swapped between the word’s morphemes or that stay within a single morpheme, when these words are encountered in a meaningful sentence context. Will readers weight word- level information more heavily (i.e., letter order, morpheme boundaries), or will the general semantic support of the sentence context allow readers to overcome this type of disruption with relatively small costs? The second set of studies investigates how effectively readers can use syntactic cues to resolve the ambiguity associated with noun/verb homographs, the downstream consequences of their resolution processes, and how these effects differ in older adults. Will readers be able to use constraining syntactic information to select the context-appropriate meaning of the word, especially if the intended meaning occurs less frequently? Furthermore, will the effects observed on the target word itself predict the later availability of the word’s context-inappropriate meaning, and does this relationship between early and late effects change with advancing age? The current study addresses these questions through the use two temporally sensitive online measures of language processing, eye-tracking and event-related brain potentials (ERPs) collected during natural reading, as a way to observe how readers integrate and adjudicate between different sources of information as online language comprehension unfolds.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2014

Author dc:creator

• Stites, Mallory

Contributors dc:contributor

• Federmeier, Kara D.
• Christianson, Kiel
• Dell, Gary S.
• Garnsey, Susan M.
• Stine-Morrow, Elizabeth A.L.

• Language Comprehension
• Eye-tracking
• Event-related Potentials (ERPs)
• Transposed Letters
• Lexical Ambiguity Resolution
• Aging

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2014 Mallory Stites

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/50555

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/50555