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Spring 02, Exam 3 |
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Part 1: Multiple Choice. Circle the letter corresponding to the correct answer. Only one answer is correct for each question. (1 point each) 1. According to the parsing strategy known as _____, incoming words should
be attached to the phrase structure tree using the fewest nodes possible.
2. The idea that transformations have to be undone during comprehension
is called the _____. 3. The principle of _____ states that we prefer to attach incoming words
into the clause or phrase currently being processed rather than beginning
a new clause or phrase. 4. In _____ models of parsing, all possible sources of information are
used to select among alternative syntactic structures. 5. According to Grice's maxim of _____, speakers should make their contributions
to a conversation as informative as required, but no more. 6. In the sentence, "The kindly old magician charmed the naive young
waitress." The proposition (KINDLY MAGICIAN) does not share
an argument with the proposition _____. 7. MacWhinney, Bates, and Kliegl's (1984) _____ strategy suggests that
the agent of the pseudo-sentence, "The teenagers drives the truck."
is "truck". 8. In a(n) _____ the literal and contextual meanings of an utterance
are not the same. 9. Which of the following models assumes that text comprehension is primarily
a bottom-up process? 10. If Slobin (1966) had found that non-reversible active sentences (e.g.,
"The fish swallowed the hook.") are understood more quickly
than non-reversible passive sentences (e.g., "The hook was swallowed
by the fish."), then _____ would have been supported. Part 2: Definitions. In just 1 or 2 sentences, give an operational definition for each of the following concepts. Your definition may come from an experiment you are familiar with or you may make up your own definition (as long as it accurately defines the concept and is operational). (2 points each) Grading Criteria:
11. Reversible versus Nonreversible Sentences To determine if sentences are reversible or nonreversible I would present them to a group of participants and ask them to judge whether they still make sense when the agent and object are reversed (e.g., "The dog ate the bone." --> "The bone ate the dog."). Those for which a majority responded "yes" could then be classified as reversible while those for which a majority responded "no" could be classified as nonreversible. 12. Sentence Verification Time As in a typical sentence verification experiment, I would ask show participants some sentences on a computer screen and ask them to indicate whether each is true or false by pressing a YES or NO button as quickly as possible. Sentence Verification Time could then be defined as the time that elapses between the presentation of a sentence, and a correct button press.. 13. The Difficulty of Understanding a Sentence To measure the Difficulty of Understanding a Sentence, I would show it to a group of participants on a computer screen and ask them to indicate whether it is true or false by pressing a YES or NO button as quickly as possible. I would then calculate the reading rate for the sentence by dividing the average reading times (i.e., the time that elapses between the presentation of the sentence and a correct button press) by the number of words in the sentence.. 14. Memorability of a Text I would first ask a group of 20 participants to read the text at their own normal reading speed, then try to recall it in writing. I would score the number of propositions correctly recalled by each participant (giving credit only when the predicate and all its arrguments are explicitly mentioned) and then use the average (mean) number of propositions recalled as my measure of the memorability of the text.. 15. Psychological Distance Between Two Events in a Story To measure the psychological distance between two events in a story I would present the story to a group of participants along with several other stories then ask them to make speeded true/false judgements by pushing a TRUE or FALSE button as quickly as possible in response to test sentences presented on a computer screen. I would measure the reaction time for the second of the two events under two conditions, when it is preceeded by a the first event and when it is preceeded by an event from another story, and use the difference between these two times as my measure of the psychological distance between the two events. Part 3: Short Essay. Answer each of the following questions using no more than half of a page for each. (5 points each) 16. Trabasso and van den Broek (1985) found that statements with many causal connections to other statements in a story are remembered better than otherwise similar statements with fewer causal connections. They interpret this result as evidence that readers naturally construct causal models of stories as they read. Propose an alternative explanation for this finding and design an experiment to determine which explanation is correct. Be sure to describe your independent and dependent variables, using operational definitions and/or examples where they are appropriate. What pattern of results would you expect if Trabasso and van den Broek are correct? What pattern of results would you expect if your alternative explanation is correct? Grading Criteria:
Example Answer: One potential alternative explanation is that the number of causal connections is confounded with the story grammar categories identified by researchers such as Mandler and Johnson (1977) who found that narrative events categorized as "settings" or "beginnings" are recalled better than "outcomes" or "attempts", which in turn are recalled better than "endings" or "reactions". If this is the case, then statements with many causal connections may be recalled better simply because they belong to more memorable story grammar categories. To find out, I would design a set of stories in which the endings (which are usually recalled poorly) have more causal connections than the beginnings (which are usually recalled well). I would then ask a group of participants to read and recall the stories. The dependent variable would be the probability of recalling the statements classified as endings or beginnings. The independent variable would be the category of the statement (ending or beginning). If Trabasso and van den Broek are correct, the endings will be recalled better than the beginnings. If the alternative hypothesis is correct, the beginnings will be recalled better than the endings. 17. Savin & Perchonock (1965) took advantage of the tradeoff between storage capacity and processing complexity in short-term memory in their experimental test of the derivational theory of complexity. How would you change their experiment to test the hypothesis that syntactic processing is facilitated by semantic constraint? Be sure to describe the independent and dependent variables in your modified experiment, using operational definitions and/or examples where they are appropriate. What pattern of results would you expect if the hypothesis is true? What pattern of results would you expect if the hypothesis is false? Grading Criteria:
Example Answer: I would present participants with a list of unrelated sentences. Each sentence would be followed by a list of eight randomly selected words unrelated to the sentence. Participants would be required to repeat back each sentence verbatim, then repeat back as many of the eight words as they could remember. All of the sentences would be passive sentences taken from Slobin (1966) except for some filler sentences that wouldnot be scored. The dependent variable would be the number of randomly selected words recalled correctly (0 - 8). The independent variable would be the reversibility of the sentences (as in Slobin, 1966). Half of the passive sentences would be reversible, meaning that the subject and object could potentially reverse roles (as in, "The girl was chased by the boy."). The other half would be irreversible, meaning that the subject and object could not change roles (as in, "The bagel was eaten by the boy."). If the hypothesis is true, I would expect more words to be recalled when the sentence is irreversible. If the hypothesis is false, I would expect to find no difference between the reversible and irreversible sentences. |
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