This dissertation examines comparative constructions, both in terms of their representation in syntax and semantics and in terms of the way these representations are built and interpreted incrementally during sentence processing. While there has been extensive investigation of comparatives in the syntax and semantics literature (see Bresnan, 1973; von Stechow, 1984; Heim, 1985; Kennedy, 1999, among others), there has been little work on how comparatives are processed (although see Fults and Phillips, 2004; Wellwood et al., 2009 for work on so-called comparative illusions). In the first half of the dissertation, I address issues that are primarily syntactic in nature; in the second half, I address issues that are primarily at the semantic and pragmatic levels. In Chapter 2, I examine the basic syntax of English comparatives and readers’ expectations for the structure of comparatives during parsing. I present evidence from eye movements during reading to argue that a curious pattern of acceptability in comparatives (observed by Osborne, 2009) arises from processing factors rather than the grammar. Chapter 3 provides evidence from self-paced reading that, in contrast to what has been shown for other more widely studied structures, in comparative clauses subject gaps are more difficult to process than object gaps. Some potential accounts for this asymmetry between comparatives and other structures are discussed, and in Chapter 4, I argue for a grammar-based account of the subject gap penalty. Chapters 5 and 6 investigate questions in the semantics/pragmatics and semantic processing of comparatives. In Chapter 5, I introduce a previously unstudied type of comparative, which I call subset comparatives, and investigate their appropriate formal representation. In addition to their theoretical interest, subset comparatives can provide insight into comprehenders’ expectations regarding the relationship between the two sets of entities involved in comparatives. Evidence from eye movement studies suggests that readers have an initial preference for contrast, or disjointness, between sets in comparatives. Chapter 6 investigates issues in the comparison of pluralities during on-line sentence processing, again as studied through eye movements during reading. This chapter provides evidence that, when comparing sets, comparisons that involve degrees along an adjectival scale involve complexity beyond that involved in comparing sets in terms of their cardinalities. The results of my experimental studies on comparatives are related to broader issues in linguistics and psycholinguistics, such as the sources of well-formedness (or ill-formedness) in language, the representation of linguistically described sets in language processing, and the interaction between levels of information (syntactic, semantic, and conceptual/world knowledge) in comprehension.

Subconcussions in sport is a growing field of interest and concern as deteriorative effects of these impacts have been shown in athletes without a diagnosed concussion. Detecting subconcussions is extremely difficult and there is no standardized method to recognize these injuries. A first step in identifying subconcussion is taking a closer look at concussions. The vestibular system has been shown to be negatively affected after concussive injuries which can be quantified via oculomotor function and pupillometry. Currently, King Devick (KD) style tests and Pupillary Light Reflex (PLR) are two popular tests that can be administered to athletes to gather clinical eye measures relating to oculomotor function and pupillometry. This study aimed to investigate how clinical eye measures change through serial in-season testing of Division 1 (D1) soccer athletes. Head impacts throughout a soccer season were recorded and we hypothesized that a greater number of head impacts would result in negative clinical changes even in the absence of a diagnosed concussion. No major trends were observed in soccer athletes that can be associated with trends seen in concussed populations. Soccer athletes were found to be slightly more likely to test abnormally than non-contact controls and soccer athletes with a greater number of head impacts were found to have slightly more abnormal tests than athletes with fewer head impacts. Overall, this study provides a dataset of pre and post-season measurements and uniquely includes multiple in-season measurements to provide a new perspective on oculomotor function and pupillary light reflex over the course of a sports season. / Master of Science / Subconcussions in sport is a growing field of interest and concern as deteriorative effects of these impacts have been shown in athletes without a diagnosed concussion. Detecting subconcussions is extremely difficult and there is no standardized method to recognize these injuries. The first step at identifying subconcussions is to more closely look at concussions. Eye movements and pupil response to stimuli can be affected after a concussive injury. Currently, King Devick (KD) style tests and Pupillary Light Reflex (PLR) are two popular tests that can be administered to athletes to gather clinical eye measures relating to eye motion and pupil response to stimuli. This study aimed to investigate how clinical eye measures change through repeated in-season testing of Division 1 (D1) soccer athletes. Head impacts throughout a soccer season were recorded and we hypothesized that a greater number of head impacts would result in negative clinical changes even in the absence of a diagnosed concussion. No major trends were observed in soccer athletes that can be associated with trends seen in concussed populations. Soccer athletes were found to be slightly more likely to test abnormally than non-contact controls and soccer athletes with a greater number of head impacts were found to have slightly more abnormal tests than athletes with fewer head impacts. Overall, this study provides a dataset of pre and post-season measurements and uniquely includes multiple in-season measurements to provide a new perspective on clinical eye measures over the course of a sports season.

Research on eye movement control during first language (L1) reading has long since established that (i) words are read most efficiently when the first saccade into the word lands near its center, (ii) words are refixated more often when landing positions deviate from the center of the word, and (iii) relatively proficient readers' saccades land closer to this center position. Eye-tracking studies of second language (L2) reading tend to compare participant groups based on their language background (L1 vs L2) rather than L2 proficiency. As of yet, there has been no comparison of these approaches. This study reports a comparative analysis of the Multilingual Eye-movement COrpus (MECO), which contains data on English text reading and its component skills from 543 participants representing 12 different L1s. Analyses of the distributions of initial landing positions and refixation probabilities establish that the gradient measure of proficiency in English (as L1 or L2) has a greater explanatory power than categorical contrasts between language backgrounds. We also found that English proficiency has a gradient effect on efficiency of saccadic targeting: more proficient readers landed their initial saccades closer to the word's center. However, more proficient readers of English were also less accurate in their saccadic targeting, showing greater dispersion of initial landing positions. We link this puzzling finding to the observation that landing in a suboptimal position comes with a much higher processing cost (refixation probability) for less proficient readers. This study discusses theoretical and methodological implications of the novel findings for reading research. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc) / When we read text, we do not continuously move our eyes across it, but we make a series of rapid eye fixations on different parts of the text. Scientists know that if we fixate our eyes on a center of a word rather than on its beginning or end, we will understand that word the fastest. Highly skilled readers make the first fixation on any word in a more optimal place compared to less skilled readers. Making such optimal fixations allows highly skilled readers to understand each word they encounter faster, which makes them better readers and leads to more successful outcomes later in life. In this research project we were interested in how reader's proficiency in reading related skills affects the efficiency of their eye-movements during reading English as a first and second language. The results found that more proficient readers were found to have a lighter penalty to the speed of their reading when fixating their eyes farther away from the optimal position in words. Additionally, the results demonstrated that proficiency in reading related skills is a better indicator of the efficient eye-movement behavior than native language of the reader.

During reading, readers engage in comprehension and metacognitive processes. When problems in integrating the current information with the situation model occur, readers tend to make regressions—backward eye movements—to find information in prior text to resolve the problem (Schotter et al., 2014). Prior research suggests that cues related to regressions are used when making metacomprehension judgments. The usage of these cues may be influenced by a person’s ability to attend to comprehension processes during reading. The current study examined the relationship between comprehension and metacomprehension processes by using regressions as a measure of online monitoring. Experiment 1 examined how attention to end-of-sentence regressions affected the usage of cues related to regressions. During reading, participants heard tones when an end-of-sentence regression was made, random tones, or did not hear tones. Participants in the random tone condition were less likely to use cues related to regressions than participants that did not hear any tones. Experiment 2 examined how awareness of comprehension difficulties and working memory affected the usage of cues related to regressions when making metacomprehension judgments. During reading, participants performed a secondary task that influenced the ability to attend to comprehension processes. Participants also completed working memory tasks. Participants in the distracted condition were less likely to use cues related to regressions than participants in the control condition. In addition, participants with low attentional control were more likely to use cues related to regressions than participants with high attentional control. The findings suggest that attention to comprehension processes and working memory play an important role in the relationship between comprehension and metacomprehension.

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Older infants are good referential learners. That is, at around 14-months of age, they begin to learn the verbal labels of objects and events around them. However, referential learning can be made more challenging by increasing the lexical similarity between labels. The primary goal of this study was to examine whether an adult speaker's ostensive cues and eye gaze-object contingency could augment referential learning in 14-month-old infants under difficult conditions (i.e., minimal pair labels). In Experiment 1, infants were familiarized and tested on two word-object associations with minimal pairs (e.g., "bin" and "din"), presented on an eye-tracker. Importantly, each session began when infants made eye contact with a female speaker on the screen, and she continually looked at and verbally referenced each object in an infant-directed style. On test trials when the familiar object+label was switched, infants significantly increased their visual scanning of the speaker's mouth compared to control trials. In Experiment 2, the same procedure was followed with a new group of 14-month-olds, except that the speaker now looked in the opposite direction from the objects on the screen, but continued to label them with minimal pairs in an infant-directed style. In contrast to the results of Experiment 1, infants in this latter experiment did not differentially attend to any area of her face during the switch trials. This pattern of results shows that the ostensive nature of a social partner augments infants' referential learning under cognitive challenge, but it is the contingent nature of the speaker's regard to what is being labeled that is a necessary factor in promoting learning. / Ph. D.

Labeling is one way consumers evaluate products for purchase. Environmental labeling is used to provide environmental information to the consumer. If a person is familiar with a particular labeling process they may be more inclined to consume such product. This study used the Tobii© T60 eye-tracking system to determine differences in gaze durations and time to first fixation between the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) label and an unsubstantiated label. Labels were placed on two different products (toilet paper and paper plates) and four locations (top-right corner, bottom-right corner, top-left corner, and bottom-left corner). Additionally, after the participants viewed the images they were asked to complete the six-question GREEN Consumer Values scale and then asked to sort eighteen different images based on label type and price. Participants did not differentiate between the two labels. Labels placed in the bottom-right corner received the least amount of attention (as measured by fixation duration) when compared to labels placed in the other three corners. Eye-tracking data was then split at the median and two groups were created: low label fixators versus high label fixators. High label fixators scored overall higher on the GREEN Consumer Values scale than low label fixators. Participants sorted the 18 products based on price, putting the lowest-labeled product first 84% of the time. Future studies could include looking at other environmental labels and broader populations. / Master of Science

O aumento crescente do consumo de cerveja e suas consequências sociais tem sido alvo de estudos nos últimos anos. É interessante entender a efetividade das medidas de prevenção ao consumo excessivo de bebida alcoólica. Para isso, o objetivo dessa pesquisa é analisar a efetividade da comunicação sobre conscientização ao consumo de bebida alcoólica nas propagadas de cerveja com o apoio do eye-tracking, uma técnica de neuromarketing. Acredita-se que este trabalho possa contribuir com medidas de prevenção ao consumo excessivo do álcool e suas consequências. A pesquisa é de natureza qualitativa exploratória realizada em laboratório com uma amostra não probabilística de jovens universitários. No laboratório, os participantes foram submetidos a estímulos, eles assistirama algumas propagandas de cerveja no equipamento de eye-tracking, que captou o movimento ocular do usuário. Após isto, foi aplicado um questionário aos participantes com base nos objetivos específicos. As análises da pesquisa foram realizadas pelo cruzamento das respostas dos questionários e dos dados fornecidos pelo equipamento de eye-tracking. As três hipóteses de pesquisas foram testadas pelo software estatístico Stata mostrando que os alertas de prevenção ao consumo de bebida alcoólica não são efetivos concluindo-se ser necessário estipular parâmetros para a exposição dos alertas para que eles possam ser efetivos. / The objective of this research is to analyze the effectiveness of the communication awareness about the consumption of alcohol in beer propagated with the support of the eye-tracking , a technique of neuromarketing . Due to the increasing consumption of beer and its social consequences is interesting to understand the effectiveness of prevention measures to excessive alcohol consumption in the case of this research the effectiveness of mandatory warnings on beer commercials. This work contributes to the prevention measures of the consequences of excessive alcohol consumption. The research is exploratory qualitative performed in the laboratory with a nonprobabilistic sample of university students. In the laboratory the participants were subjected to stimuli ,ie , attended some beer commercials in the eye-tracking equipment, which captures the user\'s eye movement , and then a questionnaire was applied based on specific objectives . Analyses of the research were performed by crossing the survey responses and data provided by eye-tracking equipment. The three research hypotheses were tested using Stata statistical software showing that warnings prevent the consumption of alcohol are not effective concluding the need to stipulate parameters for display of alerts so that they can be effective.

Estudos comprovam que a lembrança de determinada marca é um componente essencial para a geração de seu valor. Na tentativa de atrair a atenção visual e, consequentemente, influenciar o processo de fixação da marca na memória do consumidor, profissionais de marketing utilizam, em seus anúncios, conteúdos com a presença de apelo sexual. Tais conteúdos sugerem, dentre outras formas, a exposição da nudez (total ou parcial) de modelos fisicamente atraentes. Neste contexto, a presente pesquisa tem como principal objetivo verificar se a presença de apelo sexual em anúncios de mídia impressa influencia a lembrança da marca sob a ótica do Neuromarketing. A disciplina do Neuromarketing pode ser definida como uma área de estudo que utiliza ferramentas de análises clínicas para entender melhor reações fisiológicas dos indivíduos e como tais reações afetam o comportamento do consumidor. A ferramenta utilizada na pesquisa foi o Eye-Tracking, que consiste em um aparelho que capta a movimentação dos olhos e registra os pontos de maior atenção visual. A pesquisa foi realizada em três etapas: inicialmente, foram escolhidos trinta anúncios reais de mídia impressa e, por meio de uma pesquisa com 96 participantes, foram selecionados seis anúncios com apelo sexual. Em seguida, 201 participantes assistiram, durante cinco segundos, seis anúncios diferentes. Destes 201 participantes, 100 deles assistiram os anúncios com a presença de apelo sexual e 101 participantes assistiram anúncios sem a presença de apelo. Nesta etapa, os registros da movimentação ocular foram captados pelo eye-tracking. No final do experimento, os participantes responderam um questionário em que, dentre outras informações, mencionaram quais marcas estavam contidas nos anúncios. O teste estatístico para provar se há diferenças entre os dois grupos, considerando os dados coletados, foi o teste de Mann Whitney Wilcoxon. Os resultados evidenciaram que não existe diferença estatisticamente significante entre a lembrança da marca e a presença ou não de apelo sexual no anúncio. Já no contexto do Neuromarketing, os resultados mostraram que os participantes fixaram mais o olhar na imagem com apelo sexual do que na imagem sem apelo sexual. Entretanto, no que diz respeito à fixação do olhar na logomarca do anúncio, não houve diferenças estatisticamente significantes do tempo de fixação na logomarca dos anúncios com apelo sexual e sem apelo sexual / Studies show that the recall of a particular brand is essential for its value generation . In an attempt to attract visual attention and thus influence the process of fixing the brand in the consumer\'s memory, marketing professionals use, in their ads, content with the presence of sex appeal. Such content suggest, among other forms, the exhibition of nudity (partial or total) of physically attractive models. In this context, this research aims to verify if the presence of sex appeal in advertisements for print media influences brand recall from the perspective of Neuromarketing. The discipline of Neuromarketing can be defined as an area of study that uses clinical analysis tools to better understand physiological reactions of individuals and how such these reactions affect consumer behavior. The tool used in the research was the Eye-Tracking, which consists of a device that captures eye movements and records the points of greatest visual attention. The research was conducted in three stages: initially, were chosen thirty real print media ads and , through a survey with 96 participants, six ads with sex appeal were selected. Then two hundred and one participants watched, for five seconds, six different ads. Of these two hundred participants, 100 of them watched the ads with the presence of sex appeal and the 101 watched ads without the presence of appeal. At this stage, the records of eye movements were captured by the eye-tracking. At the end of the experiment, participants answered a questionnaire that, among other information, mentioned which brands were contained in the ads. The statistical test to prove whether there are differences between the two groups, considering the data collected, was the Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon test. The results showed that the presence of sex appeal in advertising has no influence in the consumer\'s ability to remember a brand. Under the Neuromarketing vision, the results showed that participants spend more time looking to the sex appeal image comparing with the non sex appeal image. Considering the fixation duration in the brand image, the results presented that there no statistical difference between sex appel and non sex appeal advertising