course title
Eye movements and sentence comprehension

dates and location
Wednesdays 1100-1300, Golm campus, Haus 24, room 0.75

what this course is about
We will begin with an introduction and review of the sentence comprehension literature, with an inevitable focus on the issues of greatest interest in my own lab. This introduction will go on for a couple of weeks, and for this segment of the course I expect active participation from all of you; passively listening to me talk is boring for all, including myself. I will assign some preparatory readings about the eyetracking methodology; you will need all the information in these articles for the second part of the course. After the introduction is over, we will cover the literature assigned for this course. The list is given below.

prerequisites
Not relevant, since it's a required course for EMCL students.

grading
Grading will be based on homework assignments (70%) and class participation (30%).
Homework will begin with the second part of the course, and will involve the following. For each paper assigned to the class, every student must write down at least three questions that relate to the issues discussed in the paper. These questions should be a product of your having critically thought about the paper and its claims. Questions like "I didn't understand X" don't count; such questions can be raised in class or in the moodle forum. I will grade you on the thoughtfulness of your questions. I will provide examples of good and bad questions. One student will be assigned to lead the discussion. This involves (a) collecting together all the questions; (b) organizing them into themes, and (c) discussing these themes in class (this part will involve everyone, and will especially involve me). A final issue: in order to allow the moderator to have enough time to prepare the summary, all submissions for a paper must be delivered on moodle \textbf{one week} in advance of discussion of the paper. So, if a paper is to be discussed next Wednesday, your submission is due on moodle Wednesday this week.
Final scores will be based on the following mapping described in the Studienordnung: 95-100%=1,0 (A);90-94=1,3 (A-);85-89=1,7 (B+);80-84=2,0 (B);75-79=2,3 (B-);70-74=2,7 (C+);65-69=3,0 (C);60-64=3,3 (C-);55-59=3,7 (D+);50-54=4,0 (D);45-49=5,0 (F). If a student's score falls between the cracks, it will be treated as falling in the higher bin. Also, if a student is in a higher semester than the regular BA students,
Students are expected to attend class regularly. If a class is missed, the student is responsible for finding out what the assignment was, what readings were assigned, and what material was covered.
Note: If more than three homework submissions are missed, the student fails the course.

conduct in the classroom
  • Please do not engage in private conversations during class.
  • All cell phones must be switched off (except by permission from me).
  • Please do not walk into class after it starts (11:15 is the deadline to be ready for class).
  • Questions to me during class are actively encouraged.


  • evaluation of the instructor
    Anonymous feedback (especially complaints about the course) is welcome: Click here for form

    schedule
    Log into the moodle website to find out where to get the articles from.

    date topic downloads references comments
    Apr 22 Introduction 1 check moodle
    Apr 29 Introduction 2
    May 6 NO CLASS
    May 13 Introduction 3
    May 20 Introduction 4
    May 27 Introduction 5
    June 3 Reading 1: Frazier and Rayner 1982
    June 10 Reading 2: Meseguer et al 2002
    June 17 Reading 3: Mitchell et al 2008
    June 24 Reading 4: Boston et al 2008
    July 1 Reading 5: Reichle et al 2009
    July 8 Reading 6: Malsburg and Vasishth (in prep.)
    July 15 Wrap-up