Análise do processamento de orações relativas de sujeito e objeto com e sem animacidade em indivíduos adultos com dislexia através de leitura automonitorada por meio de medidas on-line e off-line

Abstract

This dissertation investigated the processing of subject relative clauses (SRC) and object relative clauses (ORC) in adults diagnosed with developmental dyslexia, considering the manipulation of the animacy of the antecedent as a relevant semantic variable. SRCs involve referents functioning as the subject of the subordinate clause, whereas ORCs contain referents in object position, typically increasing the cognitive load during processing. Animacy, in turn, refers to the semantic distinction between animate and inanimate referents, influencing thematic role assignment and structural interpretation. The research employed a self-paced reading task with both online measures (reading times of critical segments) and offline measures (accuracy in comprehension questions), aiming to analyze how syntactic and semantic variables interact in the linguistic performance of individuals with dyslexia. Online results revealed a significant effect of animacy, with longer reading times for animate antecedents, as well as an interaction between clause type and animacy, indicating that cognitive load was modulated by this combination. Offline data showed overall accuracy slightly lower than that of typical readers in Cabral’s (2016) study, although not statistically significant, suggesting preserved sentence comprehension even in syntactically complex structures. These findings point to a functional syntactic subsystem, though more reliant on semantic cues, and underscore the importance of experimental methodologies to investigate subtle aspects of language processing in populations with reading learning disorders. The study contributes to the refinement of theoretical models of dyslexia and offers insights for clinical and educational practices that are more responsive to the cognitive specificities of these readers.