SEMANTIC COMPLEXITY AND
SENTENCE COMPREHENSION
Kintsch (1974) varies the “propositional
density” of sentences in text samples:
“Romulus, the legendary founder of Rome, took
the women of Sabine by force”
[ 4 propositions ]
“Cleopatra’s downfall lay in her foolish trust of
the fickle figures of the Roman world.”
[ 8 propositions ]
• “density” predicts reading time better
than other factors like word length or
syntax structure
• suggests that reading time
per proposition is a good
measure of “readability”
DISCOURSE PROCESSING:
Cross-sentence Inferences in
Text Comprehension
• Anaphoric inference
– Fischler won the prize. He celebrated. .
• Instrumental inference
– The professor [shot/killed/hated] the
dean. When the gun was found . .
• Causal inference
– Machen took an aspirin. His headache
faded quickly. .
• Predictive inference
– You hear the siren blaring as the squad
car approaches. You can’t afford to get
another ticket this week.
p reo b e r e s p o n s e t i m pe r o b e r e s p o n s e t i m e
p r o b e r e s p o n s e t im
BUILDING COHERENT LINKS IN
TEXT: ANAPHORIC REFERENCE
(Gernsbacher, 1989)
Jill thought that the box had been taken
inside, but it was..
1100
1000
a or b
Jill
box
900
800
before
after
timing of probe word
Jill thought that the box had been taken
inside, but she was..
1100
1000
Jill
box
900
800
before
after
timing of probe word
Jill thought that the girl had been taken
inside, but she was...
1100
1000
Jill
girl
900
800
before
after
timing of probe word
Building a “Situation Model”
of Text Passages
Kintsch (1974): text structure as a hierarchy of
propositions:
“This Landalfo, having made the sort of preliminary
calculations mechants normally make, purchased a
very large ship, loaded it with a mixed cargo of good
paid for out of his own pocket, and sailed with them
to Cyprus. . . “ [passage describes how this trip led
to his ruin]
Landalfo
ruined
buys ship
large
very
calculates
after
LEVEL: 1
p r o b o f r e c a ll
sails
2
3
4
0.9
0.7
0.5
0.3
0.1
1
2
3
4
Level of proposition
5
LANGUAGE AND THOUGHT
• thinking as (c)overt speech
(Watson, 1930)
– but thinking can proceed when we’re
paralyzed (Smith, 1947; ALS patients)
• thinking as “inner speech”
(Vygotsky, 1962)
– much of conscious life is narrative
(Klinger, 1990)
– but thinking can be be based on other
codes (e.g., visual imagery)
• language as the bridge between
surface form and meaning
– a currently popular idea
– can there be conceptual thought without
language?
– conceptual thinking without language
would be “greatly impoverished at best”
(Bickerton, 1994)
LANGUAGE CONSTRAINING
THOUGHT
• linguistic relativity: The structure of
a given language constrains /
facilitates thought (Whorf, 1956)
– some cognitive tasks are easier
because we have familiar words to
represent and distinguish concepts
• classifying and remembering colors may
be influenced by color words (Kay &
Kempton, 1984; Roberson et al, 2000):
• the “same” word or sentence may be
more ambiguous in one language than
another (Hunt & Agnoli, 1991)