The purpose of this investigation is to examine the effects of certain factors on adults auditory comprehension of complex sentences conjoined with before and after. The factors investigated are: conjunction choice, order of mention, clause placement, and general-knowledge constraints. The sentences used in the study fall into four syntactic categories (Before-1, Before-2, After-1, After-2) and two semantic categories (constrained by general knowledge and unconstrained). Sixteen subjects each participated in two tasks designed to elicit varying reaction times. Stimuli consisted of 160 pre-recorded sentences describing 40 sequences
of two events, with corresponding slide illustrations. Reaction time to task stimuli was recorded to the nearest hundredth of a second. Square roots of the reaction times were subjected to analysis of variance. Results indicate that only the placement of the main clause produces a significant effect on subjects' responses, thus lending support to a growing body of data which suggests that the main clause holds a privileged position in the comprehension of complex sentences. Results are discussed with respect to experimental design, previous research and theories of sentence comprehension. / Medicine, Faculty of / Audiology and Speech Sciences, School of / Graduate
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UBC/oai:circle.library.ubc.ca:2429/23122 |
| Date | January 1982 |
| Creators | Doke, Wendy Lynne |
| Source Sets | University of British Columbia |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis/Dissertation |
| Rights | For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use. |
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