shallow processing

Question 1

why do people shallow process?

Answer 1

need for system tolerance

language we encounter everyday so full of ambiguities and contradictions that we need to be able to get the gist of a message even when its delivered badly

even though the context of the speech, when fully analysed, doesn’t really make sense, can generally still follow what the speaker is trying to communicate with us as have some tolerance in language processing system

if was the case that always analysed language input fully and deeply during processing, would struggle to interpret language input like this and with the ambiguity and mistakes that are common in everyday speech

Question 2

what are the traditional models and assumptions?

Answer 2

based on assumption that overarching goal of language comprehension system is to deliver accurate and detailed representation of speaker’s or writer’s utterance

full lexical retrieval and integration into a fully specified syntactic structure

fully analyse meaning of every word and integrate it into a fully specific grammatical structure

we process each word fully and completely as we can before moving one (process language fully and deeply)

Question 3

what did Just & Carpenter (1980) say on incremental interpretation?

Answer 3

“readers interpret a word while they are fixating on it and they continue to fixate it until they have processed it as far as they can”

Question 4

what did MacDonald, Pearlmutter & Seidenberg (1994) say?

Answer 4

acknowledged “the communicative goal of the listener can be achieved with only a partial analysis of the sentence”

however viewed these as “degenerate cases”

Question 5

what is incomplete semantic commitment?

Answer 5

Mary bought a brand-new Hitachi Radio. It was in Selfridge’s window

what is it? the particular radio that she bought so after she bought it it was gone? the type of radio so after she bought it it was still there?

Later, when Joan saw it, she decided too that it would be a good purchase

when reading the sentence, we may not be fully committing to exactly what the word refers to - don’t need to to get the gist

Question 6

what are garden path sentences?

Answer 6

lingering incorrect interpretations

while Anna dressed the baby played in the crib - did the baby play in the crib? did Anna dress the baby?

correct answers to first question (suggests that people do successfully reanalyse the sentence) but people will also frequently incorrectly answer yes to second question (although have successfully reanalysed sentence, have not “thrown away” initial misinterpretation)

expect one interpretation

once interpretation “good enough” people don’t both clearing up details

Question 7

what is pragmatic normalisation?

Answer 7

misinterpretation of passive sentences

Ferreira (2003)

breakdown of local semantic interpretation because of pragmatic override

participants given active or passive sentences and asked to indicate “who is the do-er?” in each case

active sentences - the dog bit the man (99% accurate), the man bit the dog (99% accurate) - simple syntactic structure so generally correctly

passive sentence - the dog was bitten by the man (74% accurate), the man was bitten by the dog (88% accurate) - more complicated sentence structure, less likely to make correct responses in cases where correct answer wouldn’t fit world knowledge

once correct and complete language processing gets more difficult, readers have tendency to rely on their world knowledge in order to interpret likely sentence meaning rather than performing full syntactic analysis

people will use pragmatics (world knowledge) to “normalise” meaning of sentence even if not correct

Question 8

what is the survivors problem (Barton & Sanford, 1993)?

Answer 8

presented with story and asked question “where should survivors be buried”

scenario-relevant words - survive, injure, wound, maim

relevant core meaning may aid detection

higher detection rate for survivors, lowest for injured

words that “fit the context” may be processed less deeply

Question 9

what are some of the non-detectors answers in the survivors problem (Barton & Sanford, 1993)?

Answer 9

ask relatives of deceased where they would prefer them to be buried

ship all bodies home

contact next of kin of dead

Question 10

what was the influence of the scenario in the survivors problem (Barton & Sanford, 1993)?

Answer 10

air crash - 33% detection rate

bicycle crash - 80% detection rate

Question 11

what are easy-to-detect anomalies?

Answer 11

anomalous word that does not fit well within the context

Question 12

what are hard-to-detect anomalies?

Answer 12

anomalous word does fit well in context

Question 13

what is the shallow processing hypothesis explanation for missed anomalies?

Answer 13

anomalies not detected because full meaning of anomalous words not retrieved and/or integrated with representation of the discourse

Question 14

what is the reduced awareness hypothesis explanation for missed anomalies?

Answer 14

comprehension system retrieves the meaning of the anomalies and attempts to integrate the semantics of the word in question with the rest of the text

however, for some reason, fact of the anomaly may not reach conscious awareness

registered somewhere in the system but does not filter through to full conscious awareness and therefore cannot be reported

Question 15

what was Bohan & Sanford’s (2008) study into eye tracking anomaly detection?

Answer 15

monitored people’s eye movements as they read sentences containing hard-to-detect anomalies - text divided up for analysis, indicate if noticed anything wrong

no effect in first-pass reading times on hostages

longer reading times on hostages when anomaly detected

no difference in reading times in cases where there was an anomaly that went unreported compared to non anomalous condition

suggests no evidence for unconscious registration of anomaly but evidence for shallow processing hypothesis

detection not immediate but slightly delayed, results in severe disruption

disruption only observed when anomalies consciously detected - no evidence for unconscious detection

possible that eye-tracking is not a sensitive enough measure of unconscious registration

Question 16

what was the study into anomaly detection and ERPs?

Answer 16

hard-to-detect or easy-to-detect

easy-to-detect results - clear N400 effect, bigger N400 means detect anomaly, readers had big N400

hard-to-detect results - no N400, late positive potential effect but only when actually detected

Question 17

what factors influence depth of processing?

Answer 17

logical subordination

linguistic focus

discourse focus

attention-grabbing devices

Question 18

what was Baker & Wagner’s (1987) study into logical subordination?

Answer 18

clearly distinguishes focal information from “extra” information

false information less likely to be detected when presented as logically subordinate rather than of central importance - presented in subordinate not main clause

people process information less deeply when it is part of subordinate clause

Question 19

what is cleft construction?

Answer 19

use of phrase “it was X” in order to answer an implied question

Question 20

what was Bredart & Modolo’s (1988) study into linguistic focus?

Answer 20

focus is on Moses - it was Moses who took two animals of each kind into the Ark, cleft construction clearly answers question “who took animals on the Ark?”

focus is on two animals - it was two animals of each kind that Moses took on the Ark, cleft construction answers question “what was taken on the Ark?”, draws attention away from Moses

Question 21

what was Sturt, Sanford, Steward & Dawydiak’s (2004) study into linguistic focus?

Answer 21

text-change detection

participants presented with piece of text that they should just read normally then presented with text again with a word that might have been changed

people should be more likely to spot a change if they have processed the text, or the target word at least, more deeply

word placed in linguistic focus or not

putting a word in focus makes you process it more deeply

Question 22

what is discourse focus?

Answer 22

question set up by the text

Question 23

what was Sturt et al’s (2004) study into discourse focus?

Answer 23

manipulated arrangements of words in target sentence

focused - critical information placed in focus by preceding discourse

unfocused - man and what he was wearing no longer particularly in focus

when key word changes to unrelated, noticed whether in focus or not

when change more subtle, more likely to spot if key word in focus so processed more deeply when in focus

Question 24

what is text-change detection in discourse focus?

Answer 24

aims to discover when distinctions are not being made at some level of semantics

based on “granularity hypothesis” - refers to fineness of detail there is in a representation

focus increases the probability of detecting a change to a related word

suggests that information in focus is represented at a finer level of detail

Question 25

how do attention-grabbing devices affect depth of processing?

Answer 25

bold, italics depth of processing can be modulated by many attention-grabbing devices, working in a similar way to focus devices

Question 26

what was Bredart & Doquier's (1989) study into anomaly detection in attention-grabbing devices?

Answer 26

MOSES (underlined) detected to take two animals of each kind on the Ark - 86.5% detection Moses decided to take TWO (underlined) animals of each kind on the Ark - 68.3% detection

Question 27

what is text-change detection in attention-grabbing devices?

Answer 27

critical word presented in italics more likely to spot changes when word change presented in italics

Question 28

what is auditory-change detection in attention-grabbing devices?

Answer 28

vocal stress on critical word more likely to support changes when vocal stress on critical word

Question 29

what is the evaluation?

Answer 29

think about tasks used - anomaly detection, text change detection - do these encourage normal reading? think about materials used - are these common in everyday life? are they designed to trick people? (a "misdirection of focus")