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Eye Tracking During Visually Situated Language Comprehension: Flexibility and Limitations in Uncovering Visual Context Effects
Published on: November 30, 2018
Flexible and fast: linguistic shortcut affects both shallow and deep conceptual processing.
Louise Connell1, Dermot Lynott
1School of Psychological Sciences, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK. louise.connell@manchester.ac.uk
Psychonomic Bulletin & Review
|January 12, 2013
Summary
People utilize linguistic shortcuts for conceptual processing, aiding in quick judgments of novel word combinations. This "quick-and-dirty" linguistic strategy optimizes cognitive resources, even for complex tasks.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Science
- Psycholinguistics
- Computational Linguistics
Background:
- Linguistic distributional information aids conceptual processing, particularly in rapid, shallow tasks.
- The extent to which this linguistic shortcut applies to novel stimuli and deeper cognitive tasks remains an area of investigation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the application of linguistic shortcuts in processing novel stimuli within conceptual combination tasks.
- To determine if linguistic shortcuts are used in both successful and unsuccessful conceptual processing across shallow and deep tasks.
- To test predictions from the ECCo theory of conceptual combination regarding the use of linguistic shortcuts.
Main Methods:
- Two conceptual combination tasks were employed to assess processing of novel stimuli.
- Linguistic distributional frequency and conventional word frequency were manipulated and measured.
- Task performance, including rejection likelihood and time course, was analyzed.
Main Results:
- Linguistic distributional frequency predicts the rejection of novel word compounds as nonsensical.
- This frequency predicts the time course of rejection and successful processing in shallow tasks, but not deep interpretation.
- The influence of linguistic distributional frequency is independent of conventional word frequency.
Conclusions:
- The linguistic shortcut serves as a "quick-and-dirty" guide for conceptual combination, applicable to novel stimuli.
- This cognitive mechanism is utilized across shallow and deep conceptual tasks, though its sufficiency varies.
- Linguistic shortcuts function as a cognitive triage system, optimizing processing within resource-limited cognitive systems.
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