Date of Award
1996
Document Type
Thesis
Publication Status
Version of Record
Submission Date
October 2026
Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]
Tuller, Betty
Abstract
This experiment investigated the role of sentence meaning in auditory language comprehension. Tokens from a GOAT-COAT speech voicing continuum were embedded in carrier sentences that were biased toward either a "goat" or "coat" interpretation and presented to subjects for a word identification task. The identification function showed a boundary shift in favor of the biased context, and an interaction localized to the ambiguous boundary region. Response times were largest in the boundary region and the interaction between the two factors was localized to the boundary region and the voiced endpoint. There was also a response time advantage for context consistent responses specifically in the boundary region. These results and those of earlier research (Connine, 1987; Connine & Clifton, 1987) are described in terms of interactive activation of potential response categories by acoustic parameter and sentence context.
Extent
56 p.
Recommended Citation
Borsky, Susan, ""How to milk a coat": The effect of acoustic parameter and semantic sentence context on phonemic categorization and lexical selection" (1996). Electronic Theses and Dissertations 1990 - 1999. 859.
https://digitalcommons.fau.edu/etd_general_4/859
Identifier
FADT15313
Comments
Charles E. Schmidt College of Science|Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 1996.|FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection|Charles E. Schmidt College of Science