This document summarizes a research study that used eye-tracking to investigate how people process semantic anomalies at the borderline of consciousness. The study presented participants with anomalous and non-anomalous sentences while tracking their eye movements. It found that failures to detect semantic anomalies were due to reduced unpacking of linguistic meaning. The results suggest that detection of anomalies is disrupted when semantic processing is limited at the borderline of consciousness.

1. Date: 18 December 2019
GSP Presentation no. 2
TOPIC: SEMANTIC ANOMALY
TITLE: SEMANTIC ANOMALIES AT THE BORDERLINE OF
CONSCIOUSNESS: AN EYE-TRACKING INVESTIGATION

2. SEMANTIC ANOMALIES AT THE BORDERLINE OF
CONSCIOUSNESS: AN EYE-TRACKING INVESTIGATION
THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY
2008, 61 (2), 232-239
JASON BOHAN AND ANTHONY SANFORD
UNIVERSITY GLASGOW, UK.
SEMANTIC ANOMALY
BORDERLINE OF CONSCIOUSNESS
EYE-TRACKING INVESTIGATION

3. SEMANTIC ANOMALY
 The monkey in the zoo swung on its tire for an hour before
climbing down to the ground.
 The picture Sam took was holbumk.
 JABBERWOCKY
Twas brillig and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths out grabe
by LEWIS CARROL

4. SEMANTIC ANOMALY
 Chomsky: COLOURLESS GREEN IDEAS SLEEP FURIOUSLY
(ATTRIBUTIVE ADJECTIVES) (NOUN) (VERB) (ADVERB)
 METAPHORS
Walls have ears, Time is money, Heart of a lion
 IDIOMS
Put foot in one’s mouth, Bite your tongue, Kick the bucket,
Let your hair down

5. BORDERLINE OF CONSCIOUSNESS
VIEWING AN ANOMALY
SEMANTIC PROCESSING
CORE MEANING
COMPREHENSION SYSTEM
CONSCIOUSLY AWARE
DETECTION OF AN ANOMALY
1. MARY DRANK HER COFFEE
WITH LEMON.
2. HOW MANY OF EACH SORT
OF ANIMAL DID MOSES
PUT ON THE ARK?

6. DETECTION OF ANOMALY
 NON-DETECTABLE (easily)
When an aircraft crashes, where should the survivors be buried?
 EASILY DETECTABLE
When a bicycle accident occurs, where should the survivors be buried?
HOW ABOUT THESE?
 Child-abuse cases are being reported much frequently these days. In a recent
trial, a 10-year sentence was given to the victim, but was subsequently appealed.
 A North American jumbo-jet was forced at gunpoint to land in Canada. The
authorities negotiated with the scared and desperate hostages and calmed them
down. The siege lasted for two days.
 I felt particularly cheeky one day and decided to launch a massive crumpled ball
of paper into the basket from my chair. Much to my dismay, it fell on the floor
only a meter away from the bin.

7. DUAL PURKINJE IMAGE
EYE-TRACKER
EYE-TRACKING
 DATA
Anomalous,
Non-anomalous
 PURPOSE
Disruption to processing
 OBSERVATION
Fixation, Responses
 RESULT
…“Failure to detect is due to
reduced unpacking of
linguistic meaning”
(Bohan et al., 2008).

8. THE END