Competition in sentence comprehension

This dissertation examines whether the notion of competition among alternative representations can adequately explain behavioral and neural data during sentence comprehension. Specifically, I present evidence from behavioral measures and computational modeling of the relative clause attachment ambiguity that argues, counter recent claims, that competitive processing is central to the comprehension of these structures. I also use functional magnetic resonance imaging during the comprehension of a prepositional phrase attachment ambiguity and during the Stroop color naming task to argue for a competition-based account of the function of the posterior left inferior frontal gyrus (PLIFG), the seat of Broca\u27s area, and, consequently, a role for competition in these structures as well. I conclude by offering a tentative synthesis of existing computational models of sentence comprehension and the Stroop task that assigns a consistent role to PLIFG of competition resolution