Link to the University of Pittsburgh Homepage
Link to the University Library System Homepage Link to the Contact Us Form

How Do Comprehenders Obtain Non-veridical Understanding of Structure? An Examination of Mechanistic Accounts

Getty, Douglas John (2024) How Do Comprehenders Obtain Non-veridical Understanding of Structure? An Examination of Mechanistic Accounts. Doctoral Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh. (Unpublished)

This is the latest version of this item.

[img]
Preview
PDF
Download (1MB) | Preview

Abstract

Given that both spoken and written language are subject to corruption from speech errors, disfluencies, and environmental noise, successful language comprehension sometimes requires deriving a non-veridical understanding of the linguistic input. Recent work has demonstrated that these non-veridical understandings are not merely semantic, but that, when licensed, these non-veridical understandings are also syntactic. For example, implausible dative sentences like “The man gave the apple the child” may be re-interpreted as the man gave the apple to the child. Several recent studies have found, using an implicit measure of structural understanding (structural priming), that comprehenders tend to obtain an understanding of these implausible datives more in line with the re-interpreted form. Across studies, I used structural priming to investigate two possible mechanistic explanations for how this may occur: plausibility-based syntactic prediction, and post-hoc revision. In Study 1 and 2, I find evidence that comprehenders can modify their structural representation of implausible datives on the basis of post-hoc visual context, but not from visual context accessible during online prediction. In Study 3, I find that comprehenders do not obtain non-veridical structural understanding when sentence interruptions ought to entrench structural predictions. Further, this study shows that comprehenders do indeed gain a structural representation that is more like the non-veridical alternative structure than the veridical structure. Study 4 is a novel re-analysis of existing studies, where I find that comprehenders are structurally primed more from the non-veridical interpreted structure than the veridical structure. Altogether, these results support a world where non-veridical understanding of structure is better explained by a post-hoc revision mechanism rather than an online prediction mechanism. These findings are discussed in the context of higher-level accounts of non-veridical understanding, frameworks of communication in dialogue, and figurative language comprehension.


Share

Citation/Export:
Social Networking:
Share |

Details

Item Type: University of Pittsburgh ETD
Status: Unpublished
Creators/Authors:
CreatorsEmailPitt UsernameORCID
Getty, Douglas Johndjg94@pitt.edudjg94
ETD Committee:
TitleMemberEmail AddressPitt UsernameORCID
Committee ChairFraundorf, Scott Hsfraundo@pitt.edusfraundo
Committee MemberWarren, Tessa Cwarren@pitt.eduwarren
Committee MemberPerfetti, Charles Aperfetti@pitt.eduperfetti
Committee MemberBuxó-Lugo, Andrésbuxolugo@buffalo.edu
Date: 27 August 2024
Date Type: Publication
Defense Date: 10 May 2024
Approval Date: 27 August 2024
Submission Date: 20 July 2024
Access Restriction: No restriction; Release the ETD for access worldwide immediately.
Number of Pages: 123
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: structural priming, non-veridical understanding, semantic processing, communication
Date Deposited: 27 Aug 2024 13:21
Last Modified: 27 Aug 2024 13:21
URI: http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/46805

Available Versions of this Item


Metrics

Monthly Views for the past 3 years

Plum Analytics


Actions (login required)

View Item View Item