Postgraduate Course: Discourse Comprehension (PSYL11002)
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 11 (Postgraduate) |
Credits | 10 |
| Home subject area | Psychology |
Other subject area | None |
| Course website |
None |
Taught in Gaelic? | No |
| Course description | This course will cover a range of issues concerned with how humans interpret multi-sentence text. We will begin the course by considering the factors that affect the salience of entities in the mental representation of the discourse, exploring how these factors interact with the choice of referring expression to affect anaphoric reference.
The course will go on to consider the level of detail with which semantic information is encoded in the discourse representation, and how it can be modulated by linguistic and contextual information. We will then go on to consider how, and under what conditions, people infer information that is not explicitly mentioned in the text, and we will explore the relation between inference and recent evidence for embodied cognition. Throughout the course, emphasis will be placed on how experimental techniques can be used to address these questions.
Where relevant, we will discuss the interaction between discourse processing other levels of processing, such as syntactic parsing. |
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
| Additional Costs | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| Displayed in Visiting Students Prospectus? | No |
Course Delivery Information
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| Delivery period: 2012/13 Block 3 (Sem 2), Available to all students (SV1)
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WebCT enabled: Yes |
Quota: None |
| Location |
Activity |
Description |
Weeks |
Monday |
Tuesday |
Wednesday |
Thursday |
Friday |
| Central | Lecture | S37, 7 George Square | 1-5 | 16:10 - 18:00 | | | | |
| First Class |
First class information not currently available |
| No Exam Information |
Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes
Students will obtain an advanced understanding of the core issues in current research on discourse comprehension. They will understand some of the key findings relating to anaphoric reference, depth of processing, and inference, and they will appreciate the main experimental techniques that are used in the field.
Students will also be able to evaluate the primary scientific literature, critically and independently. These skills are essential for students to be able to design their own research projects and to write clear and persuasive scholarly reports. |
Assessment Information
| One 2500 word assignment and satisfactory course presentation |
Special Arrangements
| None |
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 | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Prof Martin Pickering
Tel: (0131 6)50 3447
Email: |
Course secretary | Miss Toni Noble
Tel: (0131 6)51 3188
Email: |
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