Whitney Tabor - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Whitney Tabor

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 2014

Psycholinguistic research spanning a number of decades has produced diverging results with regard... more Psycholinguistic research spanning a number of decades has produced diverging results with regard to the nature of constraint integration in online sentence processing. For example, evidence that language users anticipatorily fixate likely upcoming referents in advance of evidence in the speech signal supports rapid context integration. By contrast, evidence that language users activate representations that conflict with contextual constraints, or only indirectly satisfy them, supports non-integration or late integration. Here, we report on a self-organizing neural network framework that addresses one aspect of constraint integration: the integration of incoming lexical information (i.e., an incoming word) with sentence context information (i.e., from preceding words in an unfolding utterance). In two simulations, we show that the framework predicts both classic results concerned with lexical ambiguity resolution (Swinney, 1979; Tanenhaus, Leiman, & Seidenberg, 1979), which suggest late context integration, and results demonstrating anticipatory eye movements (e.g., Altmann & Kamide, 1999), which support rapid context integration. We also report two experiments using the visual world paradigm that confirm a new prediction of the framework. Listeners heard sentences like "The boy will eat the white…," while viewing visual displays with objects like a white cake (i.e., a predictable direct object of "eat"), white car (i.e., an object not predicted by "eat," but consistent with "white"), and distractors. Consistent with our simulation predictions, we found that while listeners fixated white cake most, they also fixated white car more than unrelated distractors in this highly constraining sentence (and visual) context.

Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 2000

A n umber of language processing studies indicate that violations of syntactic constraints are pr... more A n umber of language processing studies indicate that violations of syntactic constraints are processed differently from violations of semantic constraints (Brain imaging: e.g., Ainsworth-Darnell et al., 1998 Ni et al., in press Speeded grammaticality judgment: McElree & Gri th, 1995 Eye-tracking: Ni et al., 1998). Although these results are often taken as support for the view that the processor employs two separate modules for enforcing the two classes of constraints, we nd (in keeping with Rohde & Plaut, 1999, and Tabor & Tanenhaus, 1999) that a nonmodular connectionist network can learn a quantitative distinction between the two types of constraints. But prior connectionist studies have been inexplicit about why the distinction arises. We argue that it stems from the distinct distributional correlates of the di erent types of information: syntax involves gross distinctions semantics involves subtle ones. We also describe the Bramble Net, an attractor network which derives grammatical categories and models an approximation of the syntax/semantics distinction in qualitative terms. These results support Elman's (1990) suggestion that grammatical structures may arise by self-organization, rather than by hardwiring. They also help clarify what the grammatical structures are in a self-organizing connectionist network, and emphasize the usefulness of dynamical systems theory in grammatical explanation.

Cognitive Science, May 24, 2011

The visual world paradigm presents listeners with a challenging problem: they must integrate two ... more The visual world paradigm presents listeners with a challenging problem: they must integrate two disparate signals, the spoken language and the visual context, in support of action (e.g., complex movements of the eyes across a scene). We present Impulse Processing, a dynamical systems approach to incremental eye movements in the visual world that suggests a framework for integrating language, vision, and action generally. Our approach assumes that impulses driven by the language and the visual context impinge minutely on a dynamical landscape of attractors corresponding to the potential eye-movement behaviors of the system. We test three unique predictions of our approach in an empirical study in the visual world paradigm, and describe an implementation in an artificial neural network. We discuss the Impulse Processing framework in relation to other models of the visual world paradigm.

Frontiers in Psychology, 2018

Long-distance verb-argument dependencies generally require the integration of a fronted argument ... more Long-distance verb-argument dependencies generally require the integration of a fronted argument when the verb is encountered for sentence interpretation. Under a parsing model that handles long-distance dependencies through a cue-based retrieval mechanism, retrieval is hampered when retrieval cues also resonate with nontarget elements (retrieval interference). However, similarity-based interference may also stem from interference arising during the encoding of elements in memory (encoding interference), an effect that is not directly accountable for by a cue-based retrieval mechanism. Although encoding and retrieval interference are clearly distinct at the theoretical level, it is difficult to disentangle the two on empirical grounds, since encoding interference may also manifest at the retrieval region. We report two self-paced reading experiments aimed at teasing apart the role of each component in gender and number subject-verb agreement in Italian and English object relative clauses. In Italian, the verb does not agree in gender with the subject, thus providing no cue for retrieval. In English, although present tense verbs agree in number with the subject, past tense verbs do not, allowing us to test the role of number as a retrieval cue within the same language. Results from both experiments converge, showing similarity-based interference at encoding, and some evidence for an effect at retrieval. After having pointed out the non-negligible role of encoding in sentence comprehension, and noting that Lewis and Vasishth's (2005) ACT-R model of sentence processing, the most fully developed cuebased retrieval approach to sentence processing does not predict encoding effects, we propose an augmentation of this model that predicts these effects. We then also propose a self-organizing sentence processing model (SOSP), which has the advantage of accounting for retrieval and encoding interference with a single mechanism.

Cognitive science, 2018

We present a self-organizing approach to sentence processing that sheds new light on notional plu... more We present a self-organizing approach to sentence processing that sheds new light on notional plurality effects in agreement attraction, using pseudopartitive subject noun phrases (e.g., a bottle of pills). We first show that notional plurality ratings (numerosity judgments for subject noun phrases) predict verb agreement choices in pseudopartitives, in line with the "Marking" component of the Marking and Morphing theory of agreement processing. However, no account to date has derived notional plurality values from independently needed principles of language processing. We argue on the basis of new experimental evidence and a dynamical systems model that the theoretical black box of notional plurality can be unpacked into objectively measurable semantic features. With these semantic features driving structure formation (and hence agreement choice), our model reproduces the human verb production patterns as a byproduct of normal processing. Finally, we discuss how the self-...

Natural Language Processing, 2002

Recent work in sentence processing has highlighted the distinction between serial and parallel ap... more Recent work in sentence processing has highlighted the distinction between serial and parallel application of linguistic constraints in real time. In looking at context effects in syntactic ambiguity resolution, some studies have reported an immediate influence of semantic and discourse information on syntactic parsing (e.g., McRae, Spivey-Knowlton, & Tanenhaus, 1998; Spivey & Tanenhaus, 1998). However, in looking at the effects of various constraints on grammaticality judgments, some studies have reported a temporal precedence of structural information over semantic information (e.g., McElree & Griffith, 1995, 1998). This chapter points to some computational demonstrations of how an apparent temporal dissociation between structural and non-structural information can in fact arise from the dynamics of the processing system, rather than from its architecture, coupled with the specific parameters of the individual stimuli. A prediction of parallel competitive processing systems is then empirically tested with a new methodology: speeded sentence completions. Results are consistent with a parallel account of the application of linguistic constraints and a competitive account of ambiguity resolution.

I discuss a connectionist model, based on Elman's (1990, 1991) Simple Recurrent Network, of the a... more I discuss a connectionist model, based on Elman's (1990, 1991) Simple Recurrent Network, of the acquisition of complex syntactic structure. While not intended as a detailed model of the process children go through in acquiring natural languages, the model helps clarify concepts that may be useful for understanding the development of complex abilities. It provides evidence that connectionist learning can produce stage-wise development emergently. It is consistent with prior work on connectionist models emphasizing their capability of computing in ways that are not possible within the symbolic paradigm (Siegelmann, 1999). On the other hand, it suggests that one mechanism of the symbolic paradigm (a pushdown automaton) may be identified with an attractor of the learning process. Thus, the model provides a concrete example of what might be called "emergence of new conceptual structure during development" and suggests that we need to use both dynamical systems theory and symbolic computation theory to make sense of it.

Language and Cognitive Processes, 1997

The nal manuscript bene ted from insightful comments by Don Mitchell, Dave Plaut and an anonymous... more The nal manuscript bene ted from insightful comments by Don Mitchell, Dave Plaut and an anonymous reviewer. We did not include appendices with the materials used in Experiments 1-4 because of length constraints. These are available on request from M.K.T.

Journal of Memory and Language, 2004

A central question for psycholinguistics concerns the role of grammatical constraints in online s... more A central question for psycholinguistics concerns the role of grammatical constraints in online sentence processing. Many current theories maintain that the language processing mechanism constructs a parse or parses that are grammatically consistent with the whole of the perceived input each time it processes a word. Several bottom-up, dynamical models make a contrasting prediction: partial parses which are syntactically compatible with only a proper subpart of the input are sometimes constructed, at least temporarily. Three self-paced reading experiments probed for interference from such locally coherent structures. The first tested for a distracting effect of irrelevant Subject-Predicate interpretations of Noun Phrase-Verb Phrase sequences (e.g., The coach smiled at the player tossed a frisbee) on reading times. The second addressed the question of whether the interference effects can be treated as lexical interference, instead of involving the formation of locally coherent syntactic structures. The third replicated the reading time effects of the first two experiments with grammaticality judgments. We evaluate the dynamical account, comparing it to other approaches that also predict effects of local coherence, and arguing against accounts which rule out the formation of merely locally coherent structures.

Journal of Learning Disabilities, 2007

This study is part of a broader project aimed at developing cognitive and neurocognitive profiles... more This study is part of a broader project aimed at developing cognitive and neurocognitive profiles of adolescent and young adult readers whose educational and occupational prospects are constrained by their limited literacy skills. We explore the relationships among reading-related abilities in participants ages 16 to 24 years spanning a wide range of reading ability. Two specific questions are addressed: (a) Does the simple view of reading capture all nonrandom variation in reading comprehension? (b) Does orally assessed vocabulary knowledge account for variance in reading comprehension, as predicted by the lexical quality hypothesis? A comprehensive battery of cognitive and educational tests was employed to assess phonological awareness, decoding, verbal working memory, listening comprehension, reading comprehension, word knowledge, and experience with print. In this heterogeneous sample, decoding ability clearly played an important role in reading comprehension. The simple view of...

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 2004

Dynamical, self-organizing models of sentence processing predict "digging-in" effects: The more c... more Dynamical, self-organizing models of sentence processing predict "digging-in" effects: The more committed the parser becomes to a wrong syntactic choice, the harder it is to reanalyze. Experiment 1 replicates previous grammaticality judgment studies (F. Ferreira & J. M. Henderson, 1991b, 1993), revealing a deleterious effect of lengthening the ambiguous region of a garden-path sentence. The authors interpret this result as a digging-in effect. Experiment 2 finds a corresponding effect on reading times. Experiment 3 finds that making 2 wrong attachments is worse than making 1. Non-self-organizing models require multiple stipulations to predict both kinds of effects. The authors show that, under an appropriately formulated self-organizing account, both results stem from self-reinforcement of node and link activations, a feature that is needed independently. An implemented model is given.

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 2014

Cognitive Science, 2011

Cognitive Science, 1999

We suggest that the theory of dynamical systems provides a revealing general framework for modeli... more We suggest that the theory of dynamical systems provides a revealing general framework for modeling the representations and mechanism underlying syntactic processing. We show how a particular dynamical model, the Visitation Set Gravitation model of Tabor, Juliano, and Tanenhaus (1997), develops syntactic representations and models a set of contingent frequency effects in parsing that are problematic for other models. We also present new simulations showing how the model accounts for semantic effects in parsing, and propose a new account of the distinction between syntactic and semantic incongruity. The results show how symbolic structures useful in parsing arise as emergent properties of connectionist dynamical systems.

Cortex, 2011

A visual world (VW) eye-tracking paradigm [1] is used to examine relations between differences in... more A visual world (VW) eye-tracking paradigm [1] is used to examine relations between differences in verbal memory and vocabulary knowledge and the ability to integrate semantic information across words and with visual context. We recruited individuals (current N= 49; planned N= 60) aged 16 to 24 years targeting adult education centers and community colleges serving urban neighborhoods. The community context of the study has one of the largest minority--majority educational achievement gaps in the USA. Our ...

We present new evidence based on fMRI for the existence and neural architecture of an abstract su... more We present new evidence based on fMRI for the existence and neural architecture of an abstract supramodal language system that can integrate linguistic inputs arising from different modalities such that speech and print each activate a common code. Working with sentence material, our aim was to find out where the putative supramodal system is located and how it responds to comprehension challenges. To probe these questions we examined BOLD activity in experienced readers while they performed a semantic categorization task with matched written or spoken sentences that were either well-formed or contained anomalies of syntactic form or pragmatic
content. On whole-brain scans, both anomalies increased net activity over non-anomalous baseline sentences, chiefly at left frontal and temporal regions of heteromodal cortex. The anomaly sensitive sites correspond approximately to those that previous studies (Constable et al., 2004, Michael et al., 2001) have found to be sensitive to other differences in sentence complexity (object relative minus subject relative). Regions of interest (ROIs) were defined by peak
response to anomaly averaging over modality conditions. Each anomaly-sensitive ROI showed the same pattern of response across sentence types in each modality. Voxel-by-voxel exploration over the whole brain based on a cosine similarity measure of common function confirmed the specificity of supramodal zones.