Understanding Pronouns Jennifer E. Arnold University of Pennsylvania.

Understanding Pronouns

Jennifer E. Arnold

University of Pennsylvania

•John C. Trueswell

•Janet Eisenband

•Sarah Brown-Schmidt

•Jared Novick

Collaborators

How are pronouns interpreted?

Sarah called Janet when she got home.

JANETSARAH

??? she ???

Overarching research goal:

What are the cognitive mechanisms underlying our ability to understand language?

How does the human mind work?

Language is ambiguous

British Left Waffles On Falkland Islands Enraged Cow Injures Farmer With Ax

GLOBAL AMBIGUITY

LOCAL (TEMPORARY) AMBIGUITY

British British left British left waffles British left waffles on what to do in the Falkland Islands.

Pronouns are one type of ambiguity

Clinton confessed to Gore when he asked for the truth.

What cognitive mechanisms underlie referent interpretation?

– Cognitive Accessibility (Order of mention )– Gender information

WHAT types of information are used?

WHEN does each source of information have an effect?

Cognitive Accessibility

Sarah called Janet. She...

JANETSARAH

Gender Information

John called Janet. She . . .

JOHN JANET

Conflicting claims about gender

THE “GENDER LAST” CLAIM: Gender information does not influence the first stage of pronoun interpretation.

(Garnham et al., 1992; Gernsbacher, 1989; Greene et al., 1992)

THE “GENDER FIRST” CLAIM: Gender guides the initial interpretation of the pronoun.

(Crawley et al., 1990; Ehrlich, 1980; Shillcock, 1982)

Research Question

Can gender guide the initial processes of pronoun interpretation?– STAGE models vs. INCREMENTAL model

Fix problems with earlier studies– use spoken language– use a less intrusive measure

Eyetracking Method

Talk outline

Experiment 1 Experiment 2 How do these data inform a theory of

referential processing?

Experimental Task

QuickTime™ and aPlanar RGB decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

Stimulus Design

2x2 design: – gender (same vs. different) – order of mention (1st-mention vs. 2nd-mention)

Bart is taking a picture of Homer / Marge

next to the Eiffel Tower.

He’s / She’s holding a guide book

and it looks like they’re visiting Paris.

Experimental Design

16 participants

16 items

16 fillers

3 practice

Coding responses: where did the subject look at each point in time?

at the TARGET?

at the COMPETITOR?

at OTHER?

Predictions

“GENDER-LAST”: target identification should occur easily only for first-mentioned referents

“GENDER-FIRST”: target identification should occur easily only in different-gender conditions

OR: Both Gender and Order of mention have immediate effects target identification should occur easily in all conditions except same/ 2nd-mention



Bart is taking a picture of Marge . . .

He’s holding a guide book, . . .

Different gender / 1st mention

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

msec from pronoun onset

target (Bart)

competitor (Marge)

otherHe's holding a guide book, . . . Looks to Bart



Different gender / 2nd mention

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%


target (Marge)

competitor (Bart)

otherShe's holding a guide book, . . . Looks to Marge

Bart is taking a picture of Marge . . .

She’s holding a guide book, . . .



Same gender / 1st mention

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%


target (Bart)

competitor (Homer)

otherHe's holding a guide book, . . .

Looks to Bart

Bart is taking a picture of Homer . . .




Same gender / 2nd mention

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%


target (Homer)

competitor (Bart)

otherHe's holding a guide book, . . .



Pronoun interpretation was eventually successful

% YES RESPONSES(pictures matches text)

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

different / 1st-mention

different / 2nd-mention

same / 1st-mention

same / 2nd-mention

Eye Movement Results summary

More looks to target than competitor when either gender or order-of-mention helps

Equal looks to target and competitor when neither helps

Conditions different beginning 200 ms after pronoun offset

Reliable by participant means and item means

Exp. 1 Conclusions

Gender information is used immediately to constrain pronoun interpretation.

Order-of-mention is used immediately to constrain pronoun interpretation.

Experiment 2

What happens when the second-mentioned character is truly inaccessible?

Exp. 2: Stimulus Design

Bart is taking a picture of Homer. He’s quickly focusing the camera, making sure the Eiffel Tower is in the background. He’s holding a guide book, and it looks like they’re visiting Paris.



Exp. 2, cont.

Bart is taking a picture of Marge. He’s quickly focusing the camera, making sure the Eiffel Tower is in the background. She’s holding a guide book, and it looks like they’re visiting Paris.





Bart is taking a picture of Marge. He’s quickly focusing the camera . . .


Different gender / 1st mention

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%


%target

%comp

%otherHe's holding a guide book, . . .Looks to Bart



Bart is taking a picture of Marge. He’s quickly focusing the camera...

She’s holding a guide book, . . .

Different gender / 2nd mention

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%


target

competitor

%otherShe's holding a guide book, . . .

Looks to Marge



Bart is taking a picture of Homer. He’s quickly focusing the camera...


Same gender / 1st mention

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%


target

competitor

%otherHe's holding a guide book, . . .

Looks to Bart



Same gender / 2nd mention

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%


%target

%comp

%otherHe's holding a guide book, . . .

Looks to Bart

≈≈

Bart is taking a picture of Homer. He’s quickly focusing the camera . . .


Pronouns in same / 2nd-mention often mis-interpreted

% YES RESPONSES(pictures matches text)

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

different / 1st-mention

different / 2nd-mention

same / 1st-mention

same / 2nd-mention

***

Eye Movement Results summary

More looks to target than competitor when either gender or order-of-mention helps

More looks to competitor when neither helps Conditions different beginning between 0

and 200 ms after pronoun offset Reliable by participant means and item

means

Exp. 2 Conclusions

Gender information is used immediately to constrain pronoun interpretation.

Order of mention is used immediately to constrain pronoun interpretation.

Why did subjects in previous studies not use gender?

Reading probe task interrupts comprehension, creating extra memory load

Rich discourse representations are difficult to establish– Probe task encourages an unnatural focus on

surface form– Texts used unfamiliar, unelaborated characters



WHEN does each source of information

have an effect? HOW do different cues affect referent

interpretation?

How do different cues impact referent processing?

John called Janet. She . . .

JOHN JANET

Order of mention

Gender

Categorical constraints

Does accessibility pick a unique referent?

YES NO

Pick that referent

Does gender pick a unique referent?

YES NO

Probabilistic constraints

Sarah called Janet. She...

JANETSARAH

Do we have evidence for the probabilistic use of cues?

Gender and Order-of-mention are used so effectively, they could be either categorical or strong probabilistic constraints.

Post-pronominal information is used in a way that looks probabilistic.

Post-pronominal disambiguating information





Early vs. Late disambiguation

EARLY:

She’s singing along with the music…”

Early vs. Late disambiguation

LATE:

She’s wearing a blue bathing suit…”

Did point of disambiguation make a difference?

Different-gender / 1st-mention NO Different-gender / 2nd-mention NO Same-gender / 1st-mention NO Same-gender / 2nd-mention YES

EXPERIMENT 1: Rapid use of post-pronoun info

Late Disambiguation (same / 2)

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%


target

competitor

otherShe's wearing a blue bathing suit ...

Early Disambiguation (same / 2)

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%


target

competitor

otherShe's singing along with the music...

EXPERIMENT 2: : Rapid use of post-pronoun infoEarly disambiguation (same / 2)

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%


target

competitor

otherShe's singing along with the music...

≈≈

Late disambiguation (same / 2)

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%


target

competitor

otherShe's wearing a blue bathing suit ...

≈≈


WHEN does each source of information

have an effect?

HOW do different constraints affect referent

interpretation?


WHAT : gender, accessibility

WHEN : incrementally

HOW : probabilistically

Understanding Pronouns Jennifer E. Arnold University of Pennsylvania.

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