Eye Tracking

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Links

  • TruesWellLabs: eye-tracking reading, connectionist simulation of language, videos of head-mounted eye-tracking, directed by John C. Trueswell

Readings

[Sturt03]
Patrick Sturt. The time-course of the application of binding constraints in reference resolution. Journal of Memory and Language, 48(3):542--562, 2003. [ .pdf ]
Abstract: We report two experiments which examined the role of binding theory in on-line sentence processing. Participants' eye movements were recorded while they read short texts which included anaphoric references with reflexive anaphors (himself or herself). In each of the experiments, two characters were introduced into the discourse before the anaphor, and only one of these characters was a grammatical antecedent for the anaphor in terms of binding theory. Both experiments showed that Principle A of the binding theory operates at the very earliest stages of processing; early eyemovement measures showed evidence of processing diffculty when the gender of the reflexive anaphor mismatched the stereotypical gender of the grammatical antecedent. However, the gender of the ungrammatical antecedent had no effect on early processing, although it affected processing during later stages in Experiment 1. An additional experiment showed that the gender of the ungrammatical antecedent also affected the likelihood of participants settling on an ungrammatical final interpretation. The results are interpreted in relation to the notions of bonding and resolution in reference processing.
[SnedekerTrueswell03]
Jesse Snedeker and John Trueswell. Using prosody to avoid ambiguity: Effects of speaker awareness and referential context. Journal of Memory and Language, 48(1):103--130, 2003. [ .pdf ]
Abstract: In three experiments, a referential communication task was used to determine the conditions under which speakers produce and listeners use prosodic cues to distinguish alternative meanings of a syntactically ambiguous phrase. Analyses of the actions and utterances from Experiments 1 and 2 indicated that Speakers chose to produce effective prosodic cues to disambiguation only when the referential scene provided support for both interpretations of the phrase. In Experiment 3, on-line measures of parsing commitments were obtained by recording the Listener's eye movements to objects as the Speaker gave the instructions. Results supported the previous experiments but also showed that the Speaker's prosody affect the Listener's interpretation prior to the onset of the ambiguous phrase, thus demonstrating that prosodic cues not only influence initial parsing but can also be used to predict material which has yet to be spoken. The findings suggest that informative prosodic cues depend upon speakers knowledge of the situation: speakers' provide prosodic cues when needed; listeners use these prosodic cues when present.
[KamideEtal03]
Yuki Kamide, Gerry Altmann, and Sarah L. Haywood. The time-course of prediction in incremental sentence processing: Evidence from anticipatory eye movements. Journal of Memory and Language, 49:133--156, 2003. see Corrigendum. [ .pdf ]
Abstract: Three eye-tracking experiments using the visual-world paradigm are described that explore the basis by which thematic dependencies can be evaluated in advance of linguistic input that unambiguously signals those dependencies. Following Altmann and Kamide (1999), who found that selectional information conveyed by a verb can be used to anticipate an upcoming Theme, we attempt to draw here a more precise picture of the basis for such anticipatory processing. Our data from two studies in English and one in Japanese suggest that (a) verb-based information is not limited to anticipating the immediately following (grammatical) object, but can also anticipate later occurring objects (e.g., Goals), (b) in combination with information conveyed by the verb, a pre-verbal argument (Agent) can constrain the anticipation of a subsequent Theme, and (c) in a head-final construction such as that typically found in Japanese, both syntactic and semantic constraints extracted from pre-verbal arguments can enable the anticipation, in effect, of a further forthcoming argument in the absence of their head (the verb). We suggest that such processing is the hallmark of an incremental processor that is able to draw on different sources of information (some non-linguistic) at the earliest possible opportunity to establish the fullest possible interpretation of the input at each moment in time.
[ArnoldEtal03]
Jennifer E. Arnold, Maria Fagnano, and Michael K. Tanenhaus. Disfluencies signal theee, um, new information. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 32(1):25--36, 2003. [ .pdf ]
Abstract: Speakers are often disfluent, for example, saying ”theee uh candle” instead of ”the candle”. Production data show that disfluencies occur more often during references to things that are discourse-new, rather than given. An eyetracking experiment shows that this correlation between disfluency and discourse status affects speech comprehension. Subjects viewed scenes containing four objects, including two cohort competitors (e.g., camel, candle), and followed spoken instructions to move the objects. The first instruction established one cohort as discourse-given; the other was discoursenew. The second instruction was either fluent or disfluent, and referred to either the given or new cohort. Fluent instructions led to more initial fixations on the given cohort object (replicating Dahan et al., 2002). By contrast, disfluent instructions resulted in more fixations on the new cohort. This shows that discourse-new information can be accessible under some circumstances. More generally, it suggests that disfluency affects core language comprehension processes.
[TraxlerEtal02]
Matthew J. Traxler, Robin K. Morris, and Rachel E. Seely. Processing subject and object relative clauses: Evidence from eye-movements. Journal of Memory and Language, 47:69--90, 2002. [ .pdf ]
Abstract: Three eye-movement-monitoring experiments investigated processing of sentences containing subject-relative and object-relative clauses. The first experiment showed that sentences containing object-relative clauses were more difficult to process than sentences containing subject-relative clauses during the relative clause and the matrix verb. The second experiment manipulated the plausibility of the sentential subject and the noun within the relative clause as the agent of the action represented by the verb in the relative clause. Readers experienced greater difficulty during processing of sentences containing object-relative clauses than subject-relative clauses. The third experiment manipulated the animacy of the sentential subject and the noun within the relative clause. This experiment demonstrated that the difficulty associated with object-relative clauses was greatly reduced when the sentential subject was inanimate. We interpret the results with respect to theories of syntactic parsing.
[SpiveyEtal02]
Michael J. Spivey, Michael K. Tanenhaus, Kathleen M. Eberhard, and Julie C. Sedivy. Eye movements and spoken language comprehension: Effects of visual context on syntactic ambiguity resolution. Cognitive Psychology, 45(4):447--481, 2002. [ .pdf ]
Abstract: When participants follow spoken instructions to pick up and move objects in a visual workspace, their eye movements to the objects are closely time-locked to referential expressions in the instructions. Two experiments used this methodology to investigate the processing of the temporary ambiguities that arise because spoken language unfolds over time. Experiment 1 examined the processing of sentences with a temporarily ambiguous prepositional phrase (e.g., Put the apple on the towel in the box) using visual contexts that supported either the normally preferred initial interpretation (the apple should be put on the towel) or the less-preferred interpretation (the apple is already on the towel and should be put in the box). Eye movement patterns clearly established that the initial interpretation of the ambiguous phrase was the one consistent with the context. Experiment 2 replicated these results using prerecorded digitized speech to eliminate any possibility of prosodic differences across conditions or experimenter demand. Overall, the ndings are consistent with a broad theoretical framework in which real-time language comprehension immediately takes into account a rich array of relevant nonlinguistic context.
[PickeringEtal00]
Martin J. Pickering, Matthew J. Traxler, and Matthew W. Crocker. Ambiguity resolution in sentence processing: Evidence against frequency-based accounts. Journal of Memory and Language, 43(3):447--475, 2000. [ .pdf ]
Abstract: Three eye-tracking experiments investigated two frequency-based processing accounts: the serial lexical-guidance account, in which people adopt the analysis compatible with the most likely subcategorization of a verb; and the serial-likelihood account, in which people adopt the analysis that they would regard as the most likely analysis, given the information available at the point of ambiguity. The results demonstrate that neither of these accounts explains readers performance. Instead people preferred to attach noun phrases as arguments of verbs even when such analyses were unlikely to be correct. We suggest that these results fit well with a model in which the processor initially favors informative analyses.

Total: 7

-- MichaelDaum -- 25 Nov 2004
 
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