scholarly journals Lexical Access in the Processing of Word Boundary Ambiguity

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Józef Maciuszek
Keyword(s):  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Semantic Context ◽  
Word Boundary ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Syntactic Ambiguity ◽  
Boundary Ambiguity ◽  
Priming Paradigm ◽  
Interactive Models ◽  
Segmentation Problem ◽  
Special Case

Language ambiguity results from, among other things, the vagueness of the syntactic structure of phrases and whole sentences. Numerous types of syntactic ambiguity are associated with the placement of the phrase boundary. A special case of the segmentation problem is the phenomenon of word boundary ambiguities; in spoken natural language words coalesce, making it possible to interpret them in different ways (e.g., a name vs. an aim). The purpose of the study was to verify whether the two meanings of words with boundary ambiguities are activated, or whether it is a case of semantic context priming. The study was carried out using the cross-modality semantic priming paradigm. Sentences containing phrases with word boundary ambiguities were presented in an auditory manner to the participants. Immediately after, they performed a visual lexical decision task. Results indicate that both meanings of the ambiguity are automatically activated — independently of the semantic context. When discussing the results I refer to the autonomous and interactive models of parsing, and show other possible areas of research concerning word boundary ambiguities.

Automatic Stereotype Activation Is Context Dependent

2010 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 131-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catharina Casper ◽  
Klaus Rothermund ◽  
Dirk Wentura
Keyword(s):  
Lexical Decision ◽  
Context Information ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
Priming Effects ◽  
Stereotype Activation ◽  
Social Stereotypes ◽  
Priming Paradigm ◽  
Automatic Activation ◽  
Mental Schemas

Processes involving an automatic activation of stereotypes in different contexts were investigated using a priming paradigm with the lexical decision task. The names of social categories were combined with background pictures of specific situations to yield a compound prime comprising category and context information. Significant category priming effects for stereotypic attributes (e.g., Bavarians – beer) emerged for fitting contexts (e.g., in combination with a picture of a marquee) but not for nonfitting contexts (e.g., in combination with a picture of a shop). Findings indicate that social stereotypes are organized as specific mental schemas that are triggered by a combination of category and context information.

The Human Attack in Linguistic Steganography

Cyber Crime ◽  
2013 ◽  
pp. 1130-1146
Author(s):  
C. Orhan Orgun ◽  
Vineeta Chand
Keyword(s):  
General Public ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Semantic Context ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Function Words ◽  
Linguistic Steganography ◽  
Original Message

This chapter develops a linguistically robust encryption system, Lunabel, which converts a message into syntactically and semantically innocuous text. Drawing upon linguistic criteria, Lunabel uses word replacement, with substitution classes based on traditional linguistic features (syntactic categories and subcategories), as well as features under-exploited in earlier works: semantic criteria, graphotactic structure, and inflectional class. The original message is further hidden through the use of cover texts—within these, Lunabel retains all function words and targets specific classes of content words for replacement, creating text which preserves the syntactic structure and semantic context of the original cover text. Lunabel takes advantage of cover text styles which are not expected to be necessarily comprehensible to the general public, making any semantic anomalies more opaque. This line of work has the promise of creating encrypted texts which are less detectable to human readers than earlier steganographic efforts.

Situationally independent prosodic phrasing

2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shari R. Speer ◽  
Paul Warren ◽  
Amy J. Schafer
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Speech Production ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Task Demands ◽  
Syntactic Ambiguity ◽  
Prosodic Phrasing ◽  
Constituent Structure ◽  
Syntactic Form ◽  
American Midwest ◽  
The Impact

AbstractA series of speech production and categorization experiments demonstrates that naïve speakers and listeners reliably use correspondences between prosodic phrasing and syntactic constituent structure to resolve standing and temporary ambiguity. Materials obtained from a co-operative gameboard task show that prosodic phrasing effects (e.g., the location of the strongest break in an utterance) are independent of discourse factors that might be expected to influence the impact of syntactic ambiguity, including the availability of visual referents for the meanings of ambiguous utterances and the use of utterances as instructions versus confirmations of instructions. These effects hold across two dialects of English, spoken in the American Midwest, and New Zealand. Results from PP-attachment and verb transitivity ambiguities indicate clearly that the production of prosody-syntax correspondences is not conditional upon situational disambiguation of syntactic structure, but is rather more directly tied to grammatical constraints on the production of prosodic and syntactic form. Differences between our results and those reported elsewhere are best explained in terms of differences in task demands.

Learning to parse and its implications for language acquisition

2007 ◽  
pp. 634-656 ◽  
Author(s):  
John C. Trueswell ◽  
Lila R. Gleitman
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Real Time ◽  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Syntactic Ambiguity ◽  
Adult Listener ◽  
Processing Abilities ◽  
Time Reading ◽  
Theory Of Language

This article describes what is known about the adult end-state, namely, that the adult listener recovers the syntactic structure of an utterance in real-time via interactive probabilistic parsing procedures. It examines evidence indicating that similar mechanisms are at work quite early during language learning, such that infants and toddlers attempt to parse the speech stream probabilistically. In the case of learning, though, the parsing is in aid of discovering relevant lower-level linguistic formatives such as syllables and words. Experimental observations about child sentence-processing abilities are still quite sparse, owing in large part to the difficulty in applying adult experimental procedures to child participants; reaction time, reading, and linguistic judgement methods have all have been attempted with children. The article discusses real-time sentence processing in adults, experimental exploration of child sentence processing, eye movements during listening and the kindergarten-path effect, verb biases in syntactic ambiguity resolution, prosody and lexical biases in child parsing, parsing development in a head-final language, and the place of comprehension in a theory of language acquisition.

scholarly journals “When being specific is not enough”: Discrepancies between L2 learners’ perception of definiteness and its linguistic definition

2021 ◽  
pp. 123-148
Author(s):  
Sugene Kim
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Second Language ◽  
Task Performance ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Semantic Context ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Korean College Students ◽  
English Articles

This paper explores the sources of difficulties that second language (L2) learners encounter when using English articles. Eighty-four Korean college students completed a forced-choice elicitation task before and after receiving instruction on article use and provided written accounts of article choices. The analysis of the task performance and written accounts indicated the participants’ noticeable tendency to prioritize specificity over definiteness, resulting in the overuse of the with specific indefinites. Not infrequently, the participants estimated a “nonspecificity hierarchy” for nonspecific definites, often leading to the infelicitous use of a(n). The overuse of the with modified noun phrases suggests that L2 learners attempt to construe semantic context (i.e., ±definite) on the basis of the syntactic structure. Furthermore, the participants’ correct use of a(n) for singular count indefinites sometimes stemmed from assuming the number of a target noun to be single rather than considering its multiple existence and, thus, its indefinite nature. These findings underline the necessity of teaching the specificity feature to indicate to learners that (1) English articles are prototypical realizations of encoding definiteness, which requires the mutual identifiability of a unique referent, and (2) specificity, which presupposes identifiability assumed by the writer/speaker alone, is not marked by articles in English.

Modeling Individual Differences in Automatic Evaluation Measured by Evaluative Decision Task

2013 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 143-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Blaž Rebernjak ◽  
Vesna Buško
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Automatic Processing ◽  
Affective Processing ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Analytic Framework ◽  
Affective Stimuli ◽  
Confirmatory Factor ◽  
Priming Paradigm ◽  
Time Variables ◽  
The Stability

The study concerns the measurement of individual differences in the automatic processing of affective stimuli within an affective priming paradigm. Automatic processing measures, termed processing tendencies, were defined by parcels composed of difference score items of the Evaluative Decision Task reaction time variables. Confirmatory factor analytic framework was used (1) to construct parcels of individual items and to evaluate them in terms of unidimensionality and temporal invariance, (2) to examine the structure of relationships among the processing tendencies, and (3) to test the stability of individual differences in processing tendencies over a 4-week period. Random assignment of items to parcels showed unidimensionality as well as invariance over time. Processing tendencies relating to same-valence targets – facilitation and inhibition of positive targets as well as facilitation and inhibition of negative targets – showed a positive relationship at both timepoints not predicted by theory. Furthermore, evidence in favor of stability of individual differences in processing tendencies was obtained for positive targets, while the results for negative targets were less clear. The results are interpreted in light of current theories of automatic affective processing.

scholarly journals Semantic interpretability does not influence masked priming effects

2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (6) ◽  
pp. 856-867
Author(s):  
Hayley Tseng ◽  
Shane Lindsay ◽  
Colin J Davis
Keyword(s):  
Lexical Decision ◽  
Lexical Decision Task ◽  
Masked Priming ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Priming Effects ◽  
Priming Paradigm

Much of the recent masked nonword priming literature demonstrates no difference in priming between affixed and non-affixed nonword primes (e.g., maskity-MASK vs. maskond-MASK). A possible explanation for the absence of a difference is that studies have used affixed primes which were semantically uninterpretable. Therefore, this explanation indicates semantic interpretability plays a fundamental role in masked priming. To test this account, we conducted an experiment using the masked priming paradigm in the lexical decision task. We compared responses with targets which were preceded by one of four primes types: (1) interpretable affixed nonwords (e.g., maskless-MASK), (2) uninterpretable affixed nonwords (e.g., maskity-MASK), (3) non-affixed nonwords (e.g., maskond-MASK), and (4) unrelated words (e.g., tubeful-MASK). Our results follow the trend of finding no difference between affixed and non-affixed primes. Critically, however, we observed no difference in priming between uninterpretable and interpretable affixed primes. Thus, our results suggest that semantic interpretability does not influence masked priming.

Facilitating Word Recognition: Evidence for Strategic and Automatic Factors

1981 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
James R. Tweedy ◽  
Robert H. Lapinski
Keyword(s):  
Word Recognition ◽  
Lexical Decision ◽  
Lexical Decision Task ◽  
Present Experiment ◽  
Semantic Context ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Facilitation Effect ◽  
Semantic Relationships

An appropriate semantic context has been demonstrated to facilitate word recognition in a variety of paradigms. The present experiment examined the consequences of varying the probability that word pairs presented in a lexical decision task would be related in meaning. Early in the 20-min session, the recent density of semantic relationships between words had little influence on the size of the contextual facilitation effect, but later the influence was marked. The results suggest that the processing facilitation provided by an appropriate semantic context consisted of both a relatively automatic component and a labile strategic component with an influence that was modulated by the recent usefulness of the information provided by semantic context.

Lexical aspects of standard dialect bilingualism

1994 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 447-473 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mirjam Woutersen ◽  
Albert Cox ◽  
Bert Weltens ◽  
Kees De Bot
Keyword(s):  
Repetition Priming ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Auditory Modality ◽  
Repetition Effects ◽  
Language Background ◽  
Auditory Lexical Decision ◽  
Priming Paradigm ◽  
Two Age Groups ◽  
Do So

ABSTRACTWeinreich (1953) distinguished three types of bilingualism: the compound, the coordinate, and the subordinative. In this article, we use his partition to describe the effects of a small typological distance on the organization of the bilingual lexicon. In order to do so, two relatively closely related varieties were used, standard Dutch and the dialect of Maastricht. Subjects had to carry out an auditory lexical decision task using the repetition priming paradigm. Stimuli under investigation were cognates and noncognates. There were two age groups (13 and 17 years old) and two language backgrounds (standard Dutch and Maastricht dialect). The results indicated no differences depending on age. With regard to language background, no interlingual repetition priming was found for the dialect speakers. However, in contrast with earlier findings on visual repetition priming, there were interlingual repetition effects not only for the cognates, but also for the noncognates when the standard speakers were concerned. Therefore, we concluded that, at least in the auditory modality, the dialect speakers in question are coordinate bilinguals and the standard speakers are subordinative bilinguals. Finally, it is shown that Weinreich's model in his pure form leads to unexplainable processes in language acquisition. For that reason, his distinctions are incorporated into the lexico-semantic model of Levelt (1989).

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