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ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

The Role of Coreference Resolution in Memory- and Expectation-based Models of Human Sentence Processing

Jaffe, Evan
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1619104248552177

Abstract Details

2021, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Linguistics.
Coreference resolution is an essential component of language comprehension that allows interlocutors to correctly identify who did what to whom and to quickly and accurately agree on a common way to point out concepts in a shared space. It offers insights into human cognition as it both recruits memory usage and implicates expectation, or anticipatory processing. This thesis explores coreference resolution as a cognitive process and models it with both (1) an incremental parser meant to model expectation and (2) an entity repetition-based measure designed to probe memory. The novel parsing model presented here jointly models word generation with structural decisions including coreference. Empirical results from reading, eye-tracking and brain imaging studies all point to an important role for coreference in online human sentence processing early in the timecourse. Furthermore, comparison to contemporary neural network language models shows a dissociation between simple word predictability and goodness-of-fit to human processing. Creating a human-like model of sentence processing is not simply a matter of predicting the next word well, but also of capturing the contextual information that humans are sensitive to, including non-local semantic relations like coreference, and the relative uncertainty of upcoming material.
William Schuler (Advisor)
Micha Elsner (Committee Member)
Michael White (Committee Member)
116 p.
Linguistics
coreference; surprisal; psycholinguistics; sentence processing

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Jaffe, E. (2021). The Role of Coreference Resolution in Memory- and Expectation-based Models of Human Sentence Processing [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1619104248552177

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Jaffe, Evan. The Role of Coreference Resolution in Memory- and Expectation-based Models of Human Sentence Processing. 2021. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1619104248552177.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Jaffe, Evan. "The Role of Coreference Resolution in Memory- and Expectation-based Models of Human Sentence Processing." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2021. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1619104248552177

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1619104248552177
252
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