The Relationship Between Visual Event Perception, Dishabituation of Neural Models and Progressive Aspect in English

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Date

1991-08

Authors

Hayashi, Lawrence

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

University of Oregon

Abstract

Progressive aspect has traditionally been linked to notions of speaker viewpoint on conceptual structure - specifically, whether the speaker perceives an event as bounded or unbounded. The following research examines the cognitive structures of the mental representation that might underlay these conceptual notions, recasting viewpoint in cognitive terms. A cognitive model of information processing is presented, explaining processes of information parsing, message formulation and linguistic encoding as carried out by a functional grammar. In particular, we examine how the grammar uses the habituated or dishabituated states of neural models formed from sensory or memorial inputs in determining progressive or non-progressive message encoding. Hypotheses are tested by experiments based upon a paradigm in which speakers describe visual stimuli while simultaneously watching them on a screen. This online paradigm allows us to approximate the speaker's mental representation, providing text-independent measures to compare against linguistic output.

Description

130 pages

Keywords

Linguistics, Cognitive modeling, Information processing, Functional grammar

Citation