BUTTON2 -- Investigating conscious reanalysis in garden-path sentences with scanpath analyses and multinomial processing trees

• Applicant: Dr. Dario Paape
• Subject Area: General and Comparative Linguistics, Experimental Linguistics, Typology, Non-European Languages
• Term: since 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 428960187

The main goal of the project is to gain a better understanding of the reading and comprehension processes in locally ambiguous "garden path" sentences ("Since Jay always jogs a mile seems like a short distance to him"). The project's particular focus is on the conscious re-reading of individual sentence sections, as well as on the possible role of contaminating factors such as inattention or a lasting impression of ungrammaticality. The use of bidirectional self-paced reading (BSPR) ensures that re-reading is conscious: Subjects make the decision to go forward or backward in the sentence by pressing specific keyboard keys. The data are analyzed using common reading measures as well as with scanpath methods that capture the reading process across the entire sentence. In addition, multinomial processing tree models are used to capture the latent cognitive processes during garden path processing.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Co-Investigator: Professor Dr. Shravan Vasishth