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Word semantics 4 DAY 29 – nov 4, 2011

Word semantics 4 DAY 29 – nov 4, 2011. Brain & Language LING 4110-4890-5110-7960 NSCI 4110-4891-6110 Harry Howard Tulane University. Course organization. The syllabus, these slides and my recordings are available at http://www.tulane.edu/~howard/LING4110/ .

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Word semantics 4 DAY 29 – nov 4, 2011

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  1. Word semantics 4DAY 29 – nov4, 2011 Brain & Language LING 4110-4890-5110-7960 NSCI 4110-4891-6110 Harry Howard Tulane University

  2. Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University Course organization • The syllabus, these slides and my recordings are available at http://www.tulane.edu/~howard/LING4110/. • If you want to learn more about EEG and neurolinguistics, you are welcome to participate in my lab. This is also a good way to get started on an honor's thesis. • The grades are posted to Blackboard.

  3. Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University Review The quiz was the review.

  4. Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University Linguistic model, Fig. 2.1 p. 37 Discourse model Semantics Sentence level Syntax Sentence prosody Word level Morphology Word prosody Segmental phonology perception Segmental phonology production Acoustic phonetics Feature extraction Articulatory phonetics Speech motor control INPUT

  5. Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University The functional organization of the ventral visual pathway and its relationship to object recognition Grill-Spector 2004

  6. Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University The what / ventral pathway (Palmeri & Gauthier 2004)

  7. Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University Basic-level naming extends more anteriorly than domain-level naming, Brodmann's areas Basic-level naming activates BA 19, 37, 36, 28 (and presumably 20) Domain-level naming activates BA 19, 37 (and presumably 20)

  8. Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University Distinctive properties of animals

  9. Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University Lateralization of word semantics

  10. Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University Associations for “pig” in LH/RH terms

  11. Group two of these words together (silently!): Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University Test by word grouping

  12. Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University Results

  13. Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University Test by semantic priming LHD preserves RHD preserves Direct priming: cut > scissors • Summation priming: • shuttle, ground, space > launch

  14. Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University Other RH deficits • Naming category but not function • hat > pants (category: clothing) • wool *> suit (function: material) • Naming pictures of collective nouns • plane, car, truck, train = * • Naming goal-oriented categories • things you take on a camping trip = few (wrt NBD & LHD)

  15. Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University Time course of retrieval of meaning of ambiguous words • Lexical decision priming experiment: • Use an ambiguous word as the prime (such as BANK) and display one of its meanings as the probe (MONEY or RIVER) to the right or left visual hemifield: • With a very short amount of time to process the prime word (35 ms): • LH shows priming for both dominant (MONEY) and subordinate (RIVER) meanings. • RH takes more time to activate both meanings (by at least 300 ms). • At a longer duration (750 ms): • LH shows no facilitation for the subordinate meaning. • RH shows sustained facilitation for both meanings.

  16. Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University Conclusion • Burgess and Simpson (1988) hypothesized that this difference between short and long duration of inter-stimulus interval (ISI) may be advantageous for the disambiguation of ambiguous words during normal sentence processing: • In normal circumstances, the LH quickly selects an appropriate meaning and deactivates all inappropriate meanings of the word. • However, in sentences where the LH makes an error in its selection, the role of the RH may be to supply the alternative meaning.

  17. Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University Two types of semantic processing Convergent semantic processing Divergent semantic processing … in linguistic tasks which elicit a wide number of responses. In such tasks, subjects must produce alternate meanings or list as many items as possible. For instance, the experiment just mentioned can be continued by asking the subject to supply yet another verb, resulting in a response such as ‘(to) throw’. • … in linguistic tasks which elicit a limited number of responses. • In such tasks, subjects must suppress alternate meanings or select a single best item from many choices. • For instance, a subject may be presented with a noun such as ‘hammer’ and be asked to supply a verb, giving the response ‘(to) pound’.

  18. Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University Message-level information • Size of priming unit: 6 word sentence > 3 word phrase > 1 word > no prime: • LH priming increases incrementally with the number of words. • RH shows equal priming. • Priming with scrambled vs. syntactically correct sentences: • LH shows greater priming from structured sentences. • RH shows equal priming. • Priming with congruous ('The patient swallowed the medicine') vs. incongruous sentences ('The patient parked the medicine'): • LH shows greater priming from the congruent sentence. • RH shows equal priming.

  19. Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University Conclusions for message-level info • LH can take advantage of message-level information in a sentence: • previous context • structure • congruity • RH processes only at the level of intralexical associations, independently of message-level information.

  20. Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University Summary of lateralization of word semantics LH RH Slowly selects multiple meanings (divergent processing) that are weakly associated. Primes words that share few semantic features > loosely associated words. Primes the less frequent meaning of an ambiguous word. Primes category, but not others. Priming stays same with more words. Priming is same for unstructured sentences. Priming is same for incongruent sentences. • Quickly selects most familiar or dominant meaning (convergent processing) while suppressing other less closely related meanings. • Primes words that share many semantic features > closely associated words. • Primes the most frequent meaning of an ambiguous word. • Primes function, collectives, goal-oriented classes. • Priming is faster with more words. • Priming is slower for unstructured sentences. • Priming is slower for incongruent sentences.

  21. Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University NEXT TIME Start part IV. Sentence comprehension. §12 Sentence comprehension and syntactic parsing

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