Reaction Time Comparison of Unambiguous Statements with <br/>Ambiguous and Garden Path Sentences

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Reaction Time Comparison of Unambiguous Statements with
Ambiguous and Garden Path Sentences

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Type of Document: M.Sc. Thesis
Language: English
Document No: 48937 (31)
University: Sharif University of Technology
Department: Languages and Linguistics Center
Advisor(s): Salehi, Mohammad
Abstract:
The present study compares the reaction times in processing unambiguous sentences with three ambiguous statements of lexical, grouping and functional as well as garden path sentences. To this end, a special computer program was developed with the accuracy of micro seconds. Furthermore, a set of 25 items was prepared with acceptable levels of reliability and validity. Forty seven highly proficient subjects, all undergraduate students of Air Traffic Control, participated in this study. The results of the study showed no significant difference between the reaction times of grouping and functional ambiguities but garden path sentences showed the greatest difference with the other groups. All other pairs of comparison came out with significant differences. The number of mistakes made by the respondents answering the test items confirmed the higher complexity of garden path sentences in comparison with ambiguous statements. While the language proficiency level proved to affect the number of mistakes made by the subjects, it did not affect the relative reaction times of different categories in terms of within-subject variation
Keywords:
Reaction Time ; Structural Ambiguity ; Lexical Ambiguity ; Garden-Path Sentences

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