Adaptation in syntactic comprehension: a replication

Harrington Stack, Caoimhe M

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Description

Title

Adaptation in syntactic comprehension: a replication

Author(s)

Harrington Stack, Caoimhe M

Issue Date

2016-07-22

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

Watson, Duane G.

Department of Study

Psychology

Discipline

Psychology

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

M.A.

Degree Level

Thesis

Keyword(s)

• syntax
• adaptation
• comprehension
• psycholinguistics

Abstract

Language comprehension requires successfully navigating through a great degree of variability that is encountered on all linguistic levels. One hypothesis of how this variability is successfully dealt with is that listeners can rapidly update their statistical knowledge of how likely a linguistic event is to occur in a specific context. This process, called adaptation, allows listeners to better predict upcoming linguistic input. In previous work, Fine et al. (2013) designed an experiment to test for adaptation to uncommon syntactic structures. Subjects repeatedly encountered temporarily ambiguous RC/MV sentences. They found that subjects who had more exposure to the unexpected RC interpretation of the sentences had an easier time reading RC sentences but a harder time reading MV sentences. They concluded that syntactic adaptation occurs rapidly in unexpected structures and also results in trouble processing previously-expected, alternative structures. However, a power analysis revealed that Fine et al. (2013) ran an underpowered study. This thesis was designed to serve as a replication of Fine et al. (2013) with appropriate power. There was a failure to replicate Fine et al. (2013). The findings suggest instead that syntactic adaptation does not happen as rapidly as previously thought.

Graduation Semester

2016-08

Type of Resource

text

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/92980

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2016 Caoimhe Harrington Stack

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