Colvin, Michelle
(2021)
Adaptation to semantic violations of varying strengths within and across texts.
Doctoral Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh.
(Unpublished)
This is the latest version of this item.
Abstract
Language comprehension is remarkable in that we adapt easily to different forms of language use, from adapting to speakers’ dialects, meanings of new slang words, and fictional worlds described in novels. While there is growing evidence comprehenders adapt their expectations for text during reading, the nature of these adaptation mechanisms remains unclear. Some comprehension accounts maintain adaptation results from error-driven learning, such that larger errors lead to greater changes in expectations than smaller errors. Yet, the relationship between strength of error and the rate by which one adapts to semantic information during reading (i.e. whether larger errors lead to greater and faster adaptation) is an open question. The present dissertation tested this by investigating the time course by which younger and older adult readers adapt their expectations for fantasy-based texts. Participants read twenty short narratives, each containing five instances of semantic, or meaning, violations. Varying strengths of semantic violations–stronger (larger error) and weaker (smaller error) semantic violations–served as cues for readers to adopt a fantasy-world perspective on the text; adaptation was evident through decreased disruption to violations across instances within a single narrative and between narratives. The first experiment examined whether readers predict more fantasy-related content in subsequent parts of narratives with stronger than weaker violations during a cumulative cloze task. The second experiment used eye tracking to examine whether readers adapt faster to stronger than weaker violations within and across narratives. The third experiment took a broader cognitive approach to comprehension by investigating whether different aspects of readers’ cognitive control ability associate with their degree of adaptation. Results indicate readers quickly adapt their expectations for a given fantasy text containing stronger violations. However, there was no evidence for adaptation to weak violations in fantasy narratives. There was considerably stronger evidence for adaptation to stronger violations within narratives than across narratives, suggesting there may be a limit to which comprehenders adjust their expectations during reading. Taken together, these findings are partially supportive of an error-based account of comprehension and leave open questions. This work highlights the importance of assessing comprehension from both language-specific and cognitive-general perspectives.
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Details
| Item Type: |
University of Pittsburgh ETD
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| Status: |
Unpublished |
| Creators/Authors: |
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| ETD Committee: |
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| Date: |
20 January 2021 |
| Date Type: |
Publication |
| Defense Date: |
28 August 2020 |
| Approval Date: |
20 January 2021 |
| Submission Date: |
3 December 2020 |
| Access Restriction: |
1 year -- Restrict access to University of Pittsburgh for a period of 1 year. |
| Number of Pages: |
140 |
| Institution: |
University of Pittsburgh |
| Schools and Programs: |
Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences > Psychology |
| Degree: |
PhD - Doctor of Philosophy |
| Thesis Type: |
Doctoral Dissertation |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: |
language, comprehension, semantics, adaptation |
| Date Deposited: |
20 Jan 2021 18:24 |
| Last Modified: |
20 Jan 2022 06:15 |
| URI: |
http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/40097 |
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Adaptation to semantic violations of varying strengths within and across texts. (deposited 20 Jan 2021 18:24)
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