Discourse representations guide alternative set activation.

Area of Science:

• Psycholinguistics
• Cognitive Science
• Computational Linguistics

Background:

• Linguistic focus activates contrastive alternatives.
• Previous models suggested a two-stage process: semantic activation followed by discourse-based selection.
• However, discourse and world knowledge also influence alternative identification.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether discourse information influences alternative activation early or late in comprehension.
• To test two extensions of the Husband and Ferreira (2015) model incorporating discourse information.
• To determine the timing of discourse effects in relation to semantic association effects.

Main Methods:

• Three incremental comprehension studies utilizing the Maze task.
• Manipulation of discourse context and semantic association.
• Measurement of comprehension times and accuracy.

Main Results:

• Comprehension showed contemporaneous effects of both discourse information and semantic association.
• Results did not support a purely selection-based model where discourse acts only late.
• Evidence suggests discourse information impacts early activation stages.

Conclusions:

• Discourse information is accessed early to activate and differentiate potential alternatives.
• Alternative activation is not solely dependent on semantic associate priming.
• A revised model is proposed where discourse influences early processing stages.