UMD Theses and Dissertations
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Item SELECTIVITY IN LEXICAL ACCESS AMONG BILINGUALS OF ORTHOGRAPHICALLY DISTINCT SCRIPTS AND THE ROLE OF EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS(2020) Al Thowaini, Buthainah M; Jiang, Nan; Second Language Acquisition and Application; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)A fundamental inquiry within bilingual processing research addresses the underlying mechanisms of lexical access. Research involving bilinguals of orthographically similar scripts has revealed that cross-language activation is non-selective, which supposedly causes the bilingual brain to regularly manage the activation of two languages. Such continuous management of two languages has led some researchers to argue that the bilingual experience contributes to enhanced executive control. The research on selectivity in lexical access, nevertheless, has overwhelmingly involved bilingual speakers of orthographically similar scripts, with a scarcity of studies involving bilingual speakers of orthographically distinct scripts. Additionally, while active management of both languages is expected for bilinguals, little is known about whether language selectivity is related to individual variation in executive control. Instead, research investigating executive functions (EFs) in relation to bilingual processes has primarily been conducted within the context of switch costs, which has been associated with methodological issues. In light of the issues outlined above, the current study investigated selectivity in lexical access among bilinguals of orthographically distinct scripts and the relationship between the degree of selectivity and EFs (i.e., top-down goal maintenance, interference resolution, and working memory capacity). In addition to adopting an individual differences approach to lexical access, the study manipulated the degree of language task demands (comprehension and production). The study employed alternative non-switch tasks to investigate the relationships between EFs and cross-language activation. One hundred and thirty-eight Arabic-English bilinguals, 25 English native speakers, and 24 Arabic native speakers participated in a phoneme monitoring task and a masked primed lexical decision task involving monolingual materials. Bilingual participants also completed non-verbal visuo-spatial and visual single n-back tasks, as well as an AX-CPT task. The analyses revealed non-selective lexical access in language production but were inconclusive for language comprehension, where participants varied in the degree of selectivity. In addition, the results, although preliminary, demonstrated that top-down goal maintenance partially accounted for some of the variances in the degree of selectivity in language comprehension and production. The results suggest that selectivity is influenced by task-dependent variables as well as individual differences in executive functions.Item Understanding and remembering pragmatic inferences(2018) Kowalski, Alix; Huang, Yi Ting; Hearing and Speech Sciences; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation examines the extent to which sentence interpretations are incrementally encoded in memory. While traditional models of sentence processing assume that comprehension results in a single interpretation, evidence from syntactic parsing indicates that initial misinterpretations are sometimes maintained in memory along with their revised counterparts (e.g., Christianson, Hollingworth, Halliwell & Ferreira, 2001). However, this evidence has largely come from experiments featuring sentences that are presented in isolation and words that are biased toward incorrect syntactic analyses. Because there is typically enough sentential context in natural speech to avoid the incorrect analysis (Roland, Elman, & Ferreira, 2006), it is unclear whether initial interpretations are incrementally encoded in memory when there is sufficient context. The scalar term “some” provides a test case where context is necessary to select between two interpretations, one based on semantics (some and possibly all) and one based on pragmatic inference (some but not all) (Horn, 1989). Although listeners strongly prefer the pragmatic interpretation (e.g., Van Tiel, Van Miltenburg, Zevakhina, & Geurts, 2016), prior research suggests that the semantic meaning is considered before the inference is adopted (Rips, 1975; Noveck & Posada, 2003; Bott & Noveck, 2004; Breheny, Katsos, & Williams, 2006; De Neys & Schaeken, 2007; Huang & Snedeker, 2009, 2011). I used a word-learning and recall task to show that there is evidence of the semantic meaning in the memory representation of sentences featuring “some,” even when the pragmatic interpretation is ultimately adopted. This raises two possibilities: first, the memory representation was of poor quality because both interpretations were available during encoding, or the semantic meaning was computed and encoded first and lingered even after the pragmatic interpretation was computed and encoded. Data from a conflict-adaptation experiment revealed a facilitating effect of cognitive control engagement. However, there was still a delay before the pragmatic inference was adopted. This suggests that only the semantic meaning is available initially and the system failed to override it in memory when the pragmatic interpretation was computed. Taken together, these findings demonstrate the incrementality of memory encoding during sentence processing.Item Toward a Psycholinguistic Model of Irony Comprehension(2018) Adler, Rachel Michelle; Novick, Jared M; Huang, Yi Ting; Neuroscience and Cognitive Science; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation examines how listeners reach pragmatic interpretations of irony in real-time. Over four experiments I addressed limitations of prior work by using fine-grained measures of time course, providing strong contexts to support ironic interpretations, and accounting for factors known to be important for other linguistic phenomena (e.g., frequency). Experiment 1 used a visual world eye-tracking paradigm to understand how comprehenders use context and frequency information to interpret irony. While there was an overall delay for ironic utterances compared to literal ones, the speed of interpretation was modulated by frequency. Participants interpreted frequent ironic criticisms (e.g., “fabulous chef” about a bad chef) more quickly than infrequent ironic compliments (e.g., “terrible chef” about a good chef). In Experiment 2A, I tested whether comprehending irony (i.e., drawing a pragmatic inference) differs from merely computing the opposite of an utterance. The results showed that frequency of interpretation (criticisms vs. compliments) did not influence processing speed or overall interpretations for opposites. Thus, processing irony involves more than simply evaluating the truth-value condition of an utterance (e.g., pragmatic inferences about the speaker’s intentions). This was corroborated by Experiment 2B, which showed that understanding irony involves drawing conclusions about speakers in a way that understanding opposites does not. Opposite speakers were considered weirder and more confusing than ironic speakers. Given the delay in reaching ironic interpretations (Exp. 1), Experiments 3 and 4 examined the cognitive mechanics that contribute to inhibiting a literal interpretation of an utterance and/or promoting an ironic one. Experiment 3 tested whether comprehending irony engages cognitive control to resolve among competing representations (literal vs. ironic). Results showed that hearing an ironic utterance engaged cognitive control, which then facilitated performance on a subsequent high-conflict Stroop trial. Thus, comprehenders experience conflict between the literal and ironic interpretations. In Experiment 4, however, irony interpretation was not facilitated by prior cognitive control engagement. This may reflect experimental limitations or late-arriving conflict. I end by presenting a model wherein access to the literal and ironic interpretations generates conflict that is resolved by cognitive control. In addition, frequency modulates cue strength and generates delays for infrequent ironic compliments.