The effect of context on children's understanding of negation
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Words like "and", "or", "not", and "if" are powerful tools of human cognition, allowing us to form connections between expressions and reason about the world around us. Past work on children's acquisition of these words suggests a puzzle: Children begin producing these words at a very young age, but struggle on comprehension tasks for several years. In this dissertation, I focus on negation to explore two possible pieces to this puzzle: context and processing demands. I present several experiments demonstrating that context influences our understanding and use of negation. My data indicate that both adults and children expect negative sentences to be produced in relevant and informative contexts, and comprehension is reduced when negative sentences are presented without any context. I also present work suggesting that children have difficulty processing negative sentences, even when the sentences are presented in an informative context. This work collectively suggests that both context and processing demands are important factors to consider in order to understand children's acquisition of complex words.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2016 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Nordmeyer, Ann E |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Psychology. |
| Primary advisor | Frank, Michael C, (Professor of human biology) |
| Thesis advisor | Frank, Michael C, (Professor of human biology) |
| Thesis advisor | Clark, Herbert H |
| Thesis advisor | Markman, Ellen M |
| Advisor | Clark, Herbert H |
| Advisor | Markman, Ellen M |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Ann E. Nordmeyer. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Psychology. |
| Thesis | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2016. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2016 by Ann Elizabeth Nordmeyer
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
Also listed in
Loading usage metrics...