On-line sentence processing, aphasic impairments, computational modelling

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Shravan Vasishth
• Subject Area: General and Comparative Linguistics, Experimental Linguistics, Typology, Non-European Languages
• Term: from 2010 to 2014
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 183894836

This proposal addresses an important open question in aphasic sentence processing: does the syntactic comprehension impairment in aphasia reflect aberrant processing mechanisms (Grodzinsky, 1995, 2000), or rather normal comprehension processes that are merely delayed (Piñango, 1999)? We address this question from two perspectives. First, we plan a series of eye-tracking experiments (visual-world paradigm) involving aphasics and normals that aim to disentangle the two theoretical claims. In previous studies by e.g. Dickey et al., 2007; Thompson & Choy, 2009 and also by our own group (Hanne, Sekerina, Vasishth, Burchert, & De Bleser, accepted) it has already been shown that the visual-world paradigm provides an excellent method for investigating on-line sentence processing in aphasia. The results of theses studies provide new evidence in favor of structurally unimpaired but delayed sentence processing. Second, we plan to explore the two theoretical claims mentioned above in a series of computational models of sentence comprehension. These models, which will be developed within the cognitive architecture ACT-R (Anderson et al., 2004; Lewis & Vasishth, 2005), will provide a functionally complete account of sentence comprehension and eye-movements while engaged in the visual world task; they will allow us to precisely and quantitatively compare the predictions of the two theories. To our knowledge, this is the first computational investigation of aphasic eye-movements in the service of on-line sentence comprehension.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Participating Persons: Professorin Dr. Ria de Bleser; Privatdozent Dr. Frank Burchert