Semantic Influences on Thematic Role Assignment: Evidence from Normals and Aphasics

Saffran, Eleanor M.; Schwartz, Myrna F.; Linebarger, Marcia C.

doi:10.1006/brln.1997.1918

Cited by 66 publications

(53 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…Other studies have reported that asyntactic aphasics depend on plausibility and NVN heuristics for comprehension abilities preserved in brain damage (Caramazza & Zurif, 1976;Grodzinsky, 2000;Saffran et al, 1998). Our findings provide on-line evidence of a process that might be understood as a kind of semantic ''heuristic.'…”

Section: Models Of Sentence Processingsupporting

confidence: 66%

“…6 Consistent with this proposal, numerous studies have shown that plausibility and NVN strategies influence post-sentence measures of language comprehension in syntactically unambiguous sentences (Caplan et al, 1994;Ferreira, 2003;Herriot, 1969;Saffran et al, 1998;Slobin, 1966). Other studies have reported that asyntactic aphasics depend on plausibility and NVN heuristics for comprehension abilities preserved in brain damage (Caramazza & Zurif, 1976;Grodzinsky, 2000;Saffran et al, 1998).…”

Section: Models Of Sentence Processingmentioning

confidence: 89%

“…Other findings (Ferreira, 2003) suggest that semantic information can determine interpretation even when it directly conflicts with unambiguous syntactic cues. When plausible sentences (e.g., The mouse ate the cheese) were reversed to form implausible sentences (e.g., The cheese ate the mouse), participants tended to name the wrong entity as ''do-er'' or ''acted-on,'' as if coercing the reversed sentences to be plausible (see also Caplan, Hildebrandt, & Waters, 1994;Herriot, 1969;Saffran, Schwartz, & Linebarger, 1998;Slobin, 1966). However, these demonstrations of semantic influences on sentence processing are not without complications.…”

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confidence: 99%

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The independence of combinatory semantic processing: Evidence from event-related potentials

Kim

Osterhout

2005

Journal of Memory and Language

531

519

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We recorded event-related brain potentials (ERPs) while participants read sentences, some of which contained an anomalous word. In the critical sentences (e.g., The meal was devouring. . .), the syntactic cues unambiguously signaled an Agent interpretation of the subject noun, whereas the semantic cues supported a Theme interpretation. An Agent interpretation would render the main verb semantically anomalous (as meals do not devour things). Conversely, the Theme interpretation would render the main verb syntactically anomalous (as the -ED form, not the -ING form, is syntactically appropriate for this interpretation). We report that the main verbs in such sentences elicit the P600 effect associated with syntactic anomalies, rather than the N400 effect associated with semantic anomalies. We conclude that, at least under certain conditions, semantic information is ''in control'' of how words are combined during sentence processing.

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Section: Models Of Sentence Processingsupporting

confidence: 66%

Section: Models Of Sentence Processingmentioning

confidence: 89%

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confidence: 99%

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The independence of combinatory semantic processing: Evidence from event-related potentials

Kim

Osterhout

2005

Journal of Memory and Language

531

519

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“…), and hence both are capable of being an agent than when one of the nouns is inanimate (The dog chased the ball. See Berndt, Mitchum, & Haendiges, 1996, for a quantitative review; Saffran, Schwartz, & Linebarger, 1998). The fact that aphasic patients seem to rely on the animacy of individual concepts, rather than syntactic structure of the sentence, to assign thematic roles suggests that there exists a dissociable neural mechanism underlying thematic role assignment.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identifying thematic roles from neural representations measured by functional magnetic resonance imaging

Wang

Cherkassky

Yang

et al. 2016

Cognitive Neuropsychology

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The generativity and complexity of human thought stem in large part from the ability to represent relations among concepts and form propositions. The current study reveals how a given object such as rabbit is neurally encoded differently and identifiably depending on whether it is an agent ("the rabbit punches the monkey") or a patient ("the monkey punches the rabbit"). Machine-learning classifiers were trained on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data evoked by a set of short videos that conveyed agent-verb-patient propositions. When tested on a held-out video, the classifiers were able to reliably identify the thematic role of an object from its associated fMRI activation pattern. Moreover, when trained on one subset of the study participants, classifiers reliably identified the thematic roles in the data of a left-out participant (mean accuracy = .66), indicating that the neural representations of thematic roles were common across individuals.ARTICLE HISTORY

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“…However, the results may also imply that the SLI group was not as facile as same-age peers to build an "expected" predicate argument structure (e.g., Andreu, Sanz-Torrent, & Guardia-Olmos, 2012;Pijnacker et al, 2017;Thordardottir & Ellis Weismer, 2002). Even within the adult literature, it has been shown that SVOs that violate predicate argument expectations are more poorly comprehended than SVOs expressing usual expectations (Saffran, Schwartz, & Linebarger, 1998).…”

Section: Why Sentence Comprehension Is So Difficult In the Absence Ofmentioning

confidence: 83%

“Whatdunit?” Sentence Comprehension Abilities of Children With SLI: Sensitivity to Word Order in Canonical and Noncanonical Structures

Montgomery

Gillam

Evans

et al. 2017

J Speech Lang Hear Res

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Purpose With Aim 1, we compared the comprehension of and sensitivity to canonical and noncanonical word order structures in school-age children with specific language impairment (SLI) and same-age typically developing (TD) children. Aim 2 centered on the developmental improvement of sentence comprehension in the groups. With Aim 3, we compared the comprehension error patterns of the groups. Method Using a “Whatdunit” agent selection task, 117 children with SLI and 117 TD children (ages 7:0–11:11, years:months) propensity matched on age, gender, mother's education, and family income pointed to the picture that best represented the agent in semantically implausible canonical structures (subject–verb–object, subject relative) and noncanonical structures (passive, object relative). Results The SLI group performed worse than the TD group across sentence types. TD children demonstrated developmental improvement across each sentence type, but children with SLI showed improvement only for canonical sentences. Both groups chose the object noun as agent significantly more often than the noun appearing in a prepositional phrase. Conclusions In the absence of semantic–pragmatic cues, comprehension of canonical and noncanonical sentences by children with SLI is limited, with noncanonical sentence comprehension being disproportionately limited. The children's ability to make proper semantic role assignments to the noun arguments in sentences, especially noncanonical, is significantly hindered.

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Semantic Influences on Thematic Role Assignment: Evidence from Normals and Aphasics

Cited by 66 publications

References 41 publications

The independence of combinatory semantic processing: Evidence from event-related potentials

The independence of combinatory semantic processing: Evidence from event-related potentials

Identifying thematic roles from neural representations measured by functional magnetic resonance imaging

“Whatdunit?” Sentence Comprehension Abilities of Children With SLI: Sensitivity to Word Order in Canonical and Noncanonical Structures

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