Undergraduate Course: Sentence Processing and Psycholinguistics (PSYL10061)
Course Outline
| School | School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Course type | Standard |
Availability | Available to all students |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 4 Undergraduate) |
Credits | 10 |
| Home subject area | Psychology |
Other subject area | None |
| Course website |
None |
Taught in Gaelic? | No |
| Course description | When we encounter a written or spoken sentence, what kinds of processes do we use to understand its meaning? This course aims to answer this question in the light of evidence from a wide range of experimental techniques, including eye-tracking, EEG recording and reading time measurement. Questions that will be covered are all current topics under debate in the literature, and they include: What is the role of prediction in sentence processing? How do children and
adults differ in the way they process ambiguous sentences? How does sentence processing interact with the working memory processes? To what extent do we follow grammatical rules when we interpret a sentence?
|
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | Degree major in Psychology and passes in psychology courses at least to the equivalent of junior honours level in Edinburgh. Prior agreement with the 4th Year Honours Course Organiser |
| Displayed in Visiting Students Prospectus? | Yes |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes
After the course, students will:
- have an understanding of the notions of syntactic structure and syntactic ambiguity
- understand the claims of competing theories of sentence processing, including interactive, referential and modular approaches.
- appreciate a number of experimental techniques that are used to study the detailed time-course of written and spoken language comprehension.
- Understand and be able to evaluate the main claims of memory-load theories
- be able to evaluate theoretical claims on the basis of experimental evidence
|
Assessment Information
3000 word essay due Thursday, week 1 of Semester 2
Visiting Student Variant Assessment: 3000 word essay to be set by the course organiser and due Friday 4pm, Week 13, Semester 1. |
Special Arrangements
| With permission of the Psychology 4 Course Organiser (Dr Patrick Sturt) and the student's Director of Studies, this course may be taken by honours-level Linguistic students. |
Additional Information
| Academic description |
Not entered |
| Syllabus |
Not entered |
| Transferable skills |
Not entered |
| Reading list |
Not entered |
| Study Abroad |
Not entered |
| Study Pattern |
Not entered |
| Keywords | sentence structure; sentence comprehension; grammar; semantics |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Patrick Sturt
Tel: (0131 6)51 1712
Email: |
Course secretary | Mrs Elizabeth Wright
Tel: (0131 6)50 9870
Email: |
|
|
University Homepage