Language I: Comprehension

Question 1

Eye-tracking

Answer 1

• fixations, saccade (jumping), regressions (back-tracking)
• perceptual span: around 4 characters to the left and 12-15 to the right of our fixation

Question 2

Immediacy/eye-mind hypothesis

Answer 2

• brain starts processing a word immediately, moves on when complete

Question 3

Parsing

Answer 3

• computing syntactic structures implicitly

Question 4

Local vs. global ambiguity

Answer 4

• partway vs. after reading a full sentence

Question 5

Garden-path model

Answer 5

• syntactic categories are assessed by semantic knowledge
• revised if necessary

Question 6

Discourse processing

Answer 6

• language in multiple sentences e.g. a lecture or article

Question 7

Construction-integration model

Answer 7

• surface form: text itself (rapidly forgotten)
• text-base/propositional: formed from text
• situation model: describes an event

Question 8

Inferences: logical, bridging, elaborative

Answer 8

• logical: formal rules
• bridging: linking old and new info
• elaborative: by real-world context

Question 9

Anaphor

Answer 9

• a word referring to a previously mentioned noun (pronouns)