Fraizer and Rayner (1982) put forward the garden-path model as a method of sentence processing, used when encountering ambiguous sentences. The model states that when a reader or listener comes across an ambiguous sentence only one syntactical structure is primarily considered. When reaching a key point in the sentence, if the meaning attributed does not work, we must backtrack and rebuild the structure of the sentence. After reparsing the sentence we can then arrive at the right explanation of the sentence (Harley, 2008). A vast amount of investigative research has been conducted to support the garden-path model and specifically the main principles it uses (Harley 2008). Studies looking at eye-movements (Ferreira & Clifton, 1986) and word-by-word self paced reading (Ferreira & Henderson, 1990) have also found evidence that we use the garden-path model of parsing when we come across ambiguous sentences. However since the garden-path model was first introduced, there has been a great amount of evidence that disputes the major claims the model adheres to. Studies using EEG data have found that we use world knowledge and word meaning very early in sentence processing, which strongly contradicts the distinct ideas of the garden-path model (Hagoort, Hald, Bastiaansen & Petersson, 2004). There are also many theories that state we parse difficult sentences in a different way to the one the garden-path model suggests. For example the constraint based theory suggests that we compute more than one syntactical solution at once, (MacDonald, Pearlmutter & Seidenburg, 1994) and the unrestricted race model, (Van Gompel, Pickering & Traxler, 2000) proposes that semantic information is also used in sentence processing. Therefore this essay will d...
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... comprehension. Science, 304, 436-441.
Harley, T.A. (2008). The physiology of language. From data to theory. Hove: Psychology Press.
Jackendoff, R. (2003). Foundations of Language: Brain, Grammar, Evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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Pickering, M.J., & Traxler, M.J. (1998). Plausibility and recovery from garden-paths: An eye-tracking study. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory & Cognition, 24, 940-961.
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Van Gompel, R.P.G., Pickering, M.J., & Traxler, M.J. (2001). Reanalysis in sentence processing: Evidence against current constraint-based and two-stage models. Journal of Memory Language, 45, 225-258.
According to Ben Zimmer, in “Chunking,” many people greatly benefited from lexical chunks of words more logically and realistically. Zimmer claimed that at an early age, commonly set of phrases were memory enhancer and it actually improvised our ability to proficiently remember these sets of information because it gets processed and stored in our brain as single units. However, Zimmer also emphasized that one well-known critic was not favorable of lexical chunking because overstressing scripted words were not as effective as learning English language the usual and conventional technique such as: ordinary vocabulary, correct punctuation and proper grammar. Nonetheless, he believed that lexical chunking had been making a very promising approach
Over the years, memory have been researched and debated, however there are two theories that have explained extensively and are highly recognised by psychologist in the cognitive field of psychology and scientist alike, on how we process experiences and turn them into memories. These theories include the Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968) Multi-store Model of Memory and Baddeley and Hitch (1974) Phonological Loop Model of Memory. This essay aims to compare, contrast and evaluate these models of memory, with supporting evidence and empirical research.
Experiment one was a word-search task extending past research by Marsh and Bower (1993). It aimed to test two different concepts. Firstly, to test how rela...
McCloskey, M. & Glucksberg, S. (1979). Decision processes in verifying category membership statements: Implications for models of semantic memory. Cognitive Psychology, 11(1), 1-37.
Experiment 1 represents a replication of an experiment done by Bransford & Johnson in 1972. During their experiment they invoked a schema which is an organizational or conceptual pattern in the mind. They gave their participants different titles, some received a specific title and some received a non-specific title, some participants were given the title before the passage was read and some after the passage was read. After determining who got which title they read them a passage looking to see how many different ideas from the passage they could recall. They came to the conclusion that those who were given specific titles and that had them given to them prior to the passage was read were able to recall more then those that received a non-specific title or those that were given the title after the passage was read. The results do show that schemas do help with recall depending on how they are used and when. For our first replication of the experiment we decided to use one of their techniques of experimenting, which involved giving a specific title and a non-specific title.
Over the past fifty years ago, followed the prevailing theory see Plato, saying that language is an innate ability ...
Sharpley, C. (1984) Predicate matching in NLP a review of research on the preferred representation system, Journal of counselling psychology, Volume 31, issue 2 p.51
Prarthana,S. & Prema, K. (2012). Role of Semantics in the Organization of Mental Lexicon. Language in India.259-277.
There are many types of polysemy, some of which view the polysemous word as having primary meaning and secondary meaning, i.e. the meaning which a word refers to in the external world and what it refers to in the second understanding of the word. Other types of polysemy can be dealt with lexically, i.e. these types view the literal meaning and the figurative meaning of the polysemous word. Accordingly, there is referential polysemy, and lexical polysemy which is subdivided into linear polysemy and subsuming polysemy.
Schachter, Jacquelyn. Some semantic prerequisites for a model of language. Brain & Language. Vol 3(2) 292-304, Apr 1976.
Bransford and Johnson (1972) also showed that schemas assist us in memorization and interpretation. Macrae et al. (1994) demonstrated how schemas in terms of schemas information processing by simplifying it and thus enabling more effortless and efficient processing. Thus, reconstruction memory is not always inaccurate. Life is full of repetitive patterns and by capturing essential regularities, schemas help us predict future occurrences and fill up the general missing blanks instinctively.
Squire, Larry R.. "Short-term and Long-term Memory Processes." Memory and brain. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. 134-145. Print.
In this paper the writer is going to present an overview of the field of neurolinguistics which is the study of the mental faculties involved in the perception, production, and acquisition of language. In other words, the neurobiological factors that enable humans to acquire, use, comprehend and produce language.
Still today, it is the commonly held belief that children acquire their mother tongue through imitation of the parents, caregivers or the people in their environment. Linguists too had the same conviction until 1957, when a then relatively unknown man, A. Noam Chomsky, propounded his theory that the capacity to acquire language is in fact innate. This revolutionized the study of language acquisition, and after a brief period of controversy upon the publication of his book, Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, in 1964, his theories are now generally accepted as largely true. As a consequence, he was responsible for the emergence of a new field during the 1960s, Developmental Psycholinguistics, which deals with children’s first language acquisition. He was not the first to question our hitherto mute acceptance of a debatable concept – long before, Plato wondered how children could possibly acquire so complex a skill as language with so little experience of life. Experiments have clearly identified an ability to discern syntactical nuances in very young infants, although they are still at the pre-linguistic stage. Children of three, however, are able to manipulate very complicated syntactical sentences, although they are unable to tie their own shoelaces, for example. Indeed, language is not a skill such as many others, like learning to drive or perform mathematical operations – it cannot be taught as such in these early stages. Rather, it is the acquisition of language which fascinates linguists today, and how it is possible. Noam Chomsky turned the world’s eyes to this enigmatic question at a time when it was assumed to have a deceptively simple explanation.
Just, M.A., & Carpenter, P.A. (2010). The psychology of reading and language comprehension. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon, Inc.