The parts of the whole story: The role of linguistic regularity, knowledge, and context in language processing

Mech, Emily Nicole

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/120115 Copy

Description

Title

The parts of the whole story: The role of linguistic regularity, knowledge, and context in language processing

Author(s)

Mech, Emily Nicole

Issue Date

2023-04-26

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Federmeier, Kara D.

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Federmeier, Kara D.

Committee Member(s)

• Willits, Jon A.
• Montag, Jessica L.
• Benjamin, Aaron S.
• Laszlo, Sarah

Department of Study

Psychology

Discipline

Psychology

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• language comprehension
• ERPs
• semantic memory

Abstract

The way in which concepts are represented, processed, and accessed in semantic memory to enable language comprehension has been of great theoretical interest and debate in cognitive science. Across six experiments, this dissertation weighs in on the nature of conceptual representations across four key dimensions – the degree to which conceptual representations are 1) amodal vs. modality-specific, 2) local vs. distributed, 3) innate vs. experience-dependent, and 4) stable vs. flexible. Chapter 2 used event-related potentials in conjunction with the visual half field paradigm to examine concreteness effects and concluded that multiple mechanisms, sensitive to modality, context, and processing effort, are responsible for conceptual processing of concrete and abstract information. Chapter 3 tested whether the cerebral hemispheres fundamentally differ in their representations of semantics and found that they do not differ as a function of local vs. distributed networks. Rather, the findings suggested that the cerebral hemispheres are capable of flexibly representing semantic information, depending on the task constraints. Across two experiments, Chapter 4 investigated the degree to which conceptual representations can be characterized by experience-dependent linguistic regularity, world knowledge, and flexible fit to context. In a single framework, these studies characterized the dynamics by which pragmatic informativeness, knowledge, and local context influenced language comprehension and suggested that experience-dependent, probabilistic information shapes both the degree and the timing with which knowledge influences comprehension. Collectively, this dissertation contributed to the breadth of knowledge by characterizing the distribution, time course, and dynamics of semantic representation and processing in service of language comprehension.

Graduation Semester

2023-05

Type of Resource

Thesis

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2023 Emily Mech

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