scholarly journals Computational Models of Retrieval Processes in Sentence Processing

Author(s):  
Shravan Vasishth ◽  
Bruno Nicenboim ◽  
Felix Engelmann ◽  
Frank Burchert
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shravan Vasishth ◽  
Bruno Nicenboim ◽  
Felix Engelmann ◽  
Frank Burchert

Sentence comprehension requires that the comprehender work out who did what to whom. This process has been characterized as retrieval from memory. This review summarizes the quantitative predictions and empirical coverage of the two existing computational models of retrieval, and shows how the predictive performance of these two competing models can be tested against a benchmark data-set. We also show how computational modeling can help us better understand sources of variability in both unimpaired and impaired sentence comprehension.


2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (11) ◽  
pp. 968-982 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shravan Vasishth ◽  
Bruno Nicenboim ◽  
Felix Engelmann ◽  
Frank Burchert

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shravan Vasishth ◽  
Felix Engelmann

Sentence comprehension - the way we process and understand spoken and written language - is a central and important area of research within psycholinguistics. This book explores the contribution of computational linguistics to the field, showing how computational models of sentence processing can help scientists in their investigation of human cognitive processes. It presents the leading computational model of retrieval processes in sentence processing, the Lewis and Vasishth cue-based retrieval mode, and develops a principled methodology for parameter estimation and model comparison/evaluation using benchmark data, to enable researchers to test their own models of retrieval against the present model. It also provides readers with an overview of the last 20 years of research on the topic of retrieval processes in sentence comprehension, along with source code that allows researchers to extend the model and carry out new research. Comprehensive in its scope, this book is essential reading for researchers in cognitive science.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Felix Engelmann ◽  
Lena A. Jäger ◽  
Shravan Vasishth

We present a comprehensive empirical evaluation of the ACT-R-based model of sentence processing developed by Lewis & Vasishth (2005) (LV05). The predictions of the model are compared with the results of a recent meta-analysis of published reading studies on retrieval interference in reflexive-/reciprocal-antecedent and subject-verb dependencies (Jäger, Engelmann, & Vasishth, 2017). The comparison shows that the model has only partial success in explaining the data; and we propose that its prediction space is restricted by oversimplifying assumptions. We then implement a revised model that takes into account differences between individual experimental designs in terms of the prominence of the target and the distractor in memory and context-dependent cue-feature associations. The predictions of the original and the revised model are quantitatively compared with the results of the meta-analysis. Our simulations show that, compared to the original LV05 model, the revised model accounts for the data better. The results suggest that effects of prominence and variable cue-feature associations need to be considered in the interpretation of existing empirical results and in the design and planning of future experiments. With regard to retrieval interference in sentence processing and to the broader field of psycholinguistic studies, we conclude that well-specified models in tandem with high-powered experiments are needed in order to uncover the underlying cognitive processes.


2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-131
Author(s):  
Scarlett Child ◽  
Alan Garnham ◽  
Jane Oakhill

AbstractWe investigated whether emotional information facilitates retrieval and whether it makes representations more salient during sentence processing. Participants were presented with sentences including entities (nouns) that were either bare, with no additional information or that were emotionally or neutrally qualified by means of adjectives. Reading times in different word regions, specifically at the region following the verb where retrieval processes are measurable, were analysed. Qualified representations needed longer time to be build up than bare representations. Also, it was found that the amount of information and the type of information affect sentences processing and more specifically retrieval. In particular, retrieval for emotionally specified representations was faster than that for bare representations.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan L. Frank

Although computational models can simulate aspects of human sentence processing, research on this topic has remained almost exclusively limited to the single language case. The current review presents an overview of the state of the art in computational cognitive models of sentence processing, and discusses how recent sentence-processing models can be used to study bi- and multilingualism. Recent results from cognitive modelling and computational linguistics suggest that phenomena specific to bilingualism can emerge from systems that have no dedicated components for handling multiple languages. Hence, accounting for human bi-/multilingualism may not require models that are much more sophisticated than those for the monolingual case.


2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 698-699 ◽  
Author(s):  
ELSI KAISER

Based on a detailed review of existing studies of high-proficiency second-language (L2) learners who acquired the L2 in adolescence/adulthood, Cunnings (Cunnings, 2016) argues that Sorace's (2011) Interface Hypothesis (IH) and Clahsen and Felser's (2006) Shallow Structure Hypothesis (SSH) do not explain the existing data as well as his memory-based approach which posits that memory-retrieval processes in the L1 and L2 do not pattern alike. Cunnings proposes that L1 and L2 processing differ in terms of comprehenders’ ability to retrieve from memory information constructed during sentence processing. He concludes that L2 processing is more susceptible to interference effects during retrieval, and, most relevantly for this commentary, that discourse-based cues to memory retrieval are more heavily weighted in L2 than L1 processing.


2021 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Paula Lissón ◽  
Dorothea Pregla ◽  
Bruno Nicenboim ◽  
Dario Paape ◽  
Mick L. het Nederend ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Erik D. Reichle

This book describes computational models of reading, or models that simulate and explain the mental processes that support the reading of text. The book provides introductory chapters on both reading research and computer models. The central chapters of the book then review what has been learned about reading from empirical research on four core reading processes: word identification, sentence processing, discourse representation, and how these three processes are coordinated with visual processing, attention, and eye-movement control. These central chapters also review an influential sample of computer models that have been developed to explain these key empirical findings, as well as comparative analyses of those models. The final chapter attempts to integrate this empirical and theoretical work by both describing a new comprehensive model of reading, Über-Reader, and reporting several simulations to illustrate how the model accounts for many of the basic phenomena related to reading.


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