Work

Knowing What's Going On. The Influence of Contextual Knowledge on the On-line Resolution of Structural Ambiguity

Year: 2006

Type: article

Abstract: Can world knowledge modulate on-line parsing preferences?This was investigated in two off-line experiments and an online reading study.World knowledge was manipulated through the discourse context.More specifically, it concerned the mental representation that readers build up of the state of affairs described by the text.The results showed that this "contextual knowledge" immediately influenced the initial analysis of the critical sentence.Second, contextual knowledge appeared to overrule not only syntax-based principles, but the influence of topic-structure as well.These results provide evidence for the notion of an interactive parser that deals with different sources of information at the same time.

Source: eScholarship (California Digital Library)

Authors: Ben Sandbank, Niki Vershueren, Jeannette M. Whitmore

Language: English

Topic: Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism

Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience

Field: Neuroscience

Domain: Life Sciences

Open Access status: green

OpenAlex ID: W2767394778

FWCI:

Cites: 6

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Related to: 10