On vision and language interaction in negation processing. The real-time interpretation of sentential negation in typically developed and dyslexic adults.

This dissertation has a two-fold aim. First, it intends to contribute to the broad theoretical debate on the processing of sentential negation by providing new relevant insights on how visual and linguistic sources of information jointly determine the real-time sentence comprehension of negative sentence. Second, it aims to deepen the relationship between working memory resources, developmental dyslexia, and negative sentence interpretation. The work includes a robust critical review of the psycholinguistic literature on negation and on developmental dyslexia, as well as a thorough discussion of the various experimental methodologies that have been used over the last decades to investigate language comprehension. The core part of the dissertation consists in the implementation and running of two eye-tracking studies to study negation processing in Italian speaking adults with and without a diagnosis of developmental dyslexia. The final outcomes of this work provide significant insights into core aspects of the processing of sentential negation, and shed light on which aspects of language comprehension dyslexics do experience greater limitations.