Search PubMed⌕ Search
Home/Archive/PubMed

PubMed · 16050443

Interface problems: structural constraints on interpretation?

Lyn Frazier·Charles Clifton·Keith Rayner·Patricia Deevy·Sungryong Koh·Markus Bader
View original source ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

Five experiments investigated the interpretation of quantified noun phrases in relation to discourse structure. They demonstrated, using questionnaire and on-line reading techniques, that readers in English prefer to give a quantified noun phrase in (VP-external) subject position a presuppositional interpretation, in which the noun phrase limits or restricts the interpretation of an already available set, rather than giving it a nonpresuppositional or existential interpretation, in which it introduces completely new entities into the discourse. Experiment 1 showed that readers prefer a presuppositional interpretation of three ships over the existential interpretation in Five ships appeared on the horizon. Three ships sank. Experiment 2 showed longer reading times in sentences that are disambiguated toward the existential interpretation than in sentences that permit the presuppositional interpretation. Experiment 3 suggested that the presuppositional preference is greater when the phrase three ships occurs outside the verb phrase than when it occurs inside the verb phrase. Experiment 4 showed that Korean subjects marked with a topic marker received more presuppositional interpretations than subjects marked with a nominative marker. Experiment 5 showed that German subjects in VP-external (but nontopic) position received more presuppositional interpretations than VP-internal subjects. The results suggest the syntactic position of a phrase is one determinant of its interpretation, as expected according to the mapping hypothesis of Diesing (1992).

Explore related subjects

Eye MovementsHumansLanguageSemanticsJournal ArticleResearch Support, N.I.H., ExtramuralResearch Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

Lyn Frazier, Charles Clifton, Keith Rayner, Patricia Deevy, Sungryong Koh, Markus Bader. 2005. Interface problems: structural constraints on interpretation?. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-005-3638-1

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related citations

PubMed2006

The temporal and spatial limits of compensation for fixational eye movements.

High-fidelity eye tracking is combined with a perceptual grouping task to provide insight into the likely mechanisms underlying the compensation of retinal image motion caused by movement of the eyes. The experiments describe the covert detection of minute temporal and spatial offsets incorporated into a test stimulus. Analysis of eye motion on individual trials indicates that the temporal offset sensitivity is actually due to motion of the eye inducing artificial spatial offsets in the briefly presented stimuli. The results have strong implications for two popular models of compensation for fixational eye movements, namely efference copy and image-based models. If an efference copy model is assumed, the results place constraints on the spatial accuracy and source of compensation. If an image-based model is assumed then limitations are placed on the integration time window over which motion estimates are calculated.

Eye Movements↗
PubMed2006

Pursuit and saccadic tracking exhibit a similar dependence on movement preparation time.

Data from previous human and primate studies on saccadic and smooth pursuit eye movements suggest that there are shared internal inputs (for example, perception, attention, expectation, and memory) for the initiation of the two types of movements. Additional reports examining the effect of preparation time on movement responses have shown that when ample time is allowed subjects usually generate long-latency "reactive" responses. When the time allowed to prepare a movement is short, however, subjects respond with reduced latency and often anticipate the stimulus ("predictive" response). Based on these findings, we believe that the shared internal inputs at early stages of movement preparation may result in saccade and pursuit eye movements demonstrating the same dependence on preparation time despite acting through different neural pathways further downstream. Previously we demonstrated a behavioral "phase transition" when normal subjects tracked alternating targets with saccades. When preparation time was long (low-frequency pacing) subjects made reactive saccades (latency approximately 180 ms). As preparation time monotonically decreased (pacing frequency increased), there was an abrupt transition to a predictive response (latency <100 ms). In the present study we show that a similar transition exists in smooth pursuit tracking and that the point of transition between the two behaviors is the same for both systems. In other words, the same behavior (reactive versus predictive) is selected when pursuit and saccade tracking are tested under the same time constraints. This provides further evidence that the two types of movements are different motor outcomes of a common decision process.

Eye Movements↗
PubMed2006

Systematic perceptual distortion of 3D slant by disconjugate eye movements.

When an observer pursues an object moving away from him or her, both eyes rotate in the opposite direction, and this type of disconjugate eye movement can generate eye movement-induced disparities in the case of dynamic objects that are present around the pursuit object. Such disparities are not usually generated by conjugate eye movement. The aim of this study was to determine whether eye movement-induced disparities could be calibrated with eye position information. Observers were requested to judge the slant of an object defined by the spatiotemporal pattern of occlusion during disconjugate eye movement. Interestingly, the observers' perception of the slant of the target object was systematically distorted, although the perceptual distortion decreased somewhat in the presence of a salient reference around the target. This suggests that eye movement-induced disparities are not calibrated properly with eye position information.

Eye Movements↗