PSY 369: Psycholinguistics

1. PSY 369: Psycholinguistics Cognitive Psychology

2. Cognitive Psychology • It is the body of psychological experimentation that deals with issues of human memory, language use, problem solving, decision making, and reasoning. “Cognitive Psychology refers to all processes by which the sensory input is transformed, reduced, elaborated, stored, recovered, and used.” Ulric Neisser (1967)

3. Mind as computer analogy

4. Mind as computer analogy • Limitations of the analogy Computers • fast • serial (mostly) • digital • few connections (relatively) Minds (Brains??) • slow • parallel • analog • trillions of connections

5. The ‘standard model’ Information ‘flows’ from one memory buffer to the next

6. The sensory store George Sperling (1960) • Full Report: • I'm going to show you a bunch of letters, then I'll cue you to recall as many of letters as you can.

10. RECALL

11. Partial Report • I'm going to show you a bunch of letters, then I'll cue you (with a blue arrow) as to which row of letters I'd like you to recall. Immediately following the cue, write down as many letters as you can from that row.

16. RECALL

17. The sensory store • Typically the result of this experiment is: • Full report: can report about 4.5 letters on average • Partial report: can typically report 4 letters (that's100%) • The partial report results suggest that all of the information is there, the 4.5 average seen in the full report condition reflects the extremely rapid decay of the Sensory Store.

18. The sensory store • Further support of this comes from a delay manipulation. • In this case you manipulate how much time passes between the stimuli and the recall cue. • If you delay by about 1/4 to 1/2 a second, the average reported drops to about 4.5, the same rate as in the Full report task.

19. The sensory store • Properties • sensory specific - one for vision, one for audition, etc. • high capacity • extremely fast decay

20. The ‘standard model’

21. Short term memory • I’ll read a list of words and ask you to recall them • Okay, now recall as many of the items as you can • Here is the list: • CAT, SHACK, BOAT, CAR, PICTURE, ELEPHANT, MAP, SWING, TACK, BEAR, BOX, DOOR, CHURCH, TREE, DOG, DENTIST, TRAIN, SNOW, SMOKE, RADIO

22. Short term memory • The typical results • items at the beginning of a list is remembered well (primacy) • items at the end of the list are remembered well (recency)

23. Short term memory • Typical account: • Recency items recalled from STM • Primacy items recalled from LTM • A variant of the task: • Count backwards by threes before recall • Here is the list: • MOUSE, BARN, SHIP, TRUCK, PHOTOGRAPH, GIRAFFE, SIGN, SLIDE, PIN, DEER, BOTTLE, WINDOW, GARAGE, BUSH, FISH, DOCTOR, AIRPLANE, RAIN, FIRE, TELEVISION

24. Short term memory • The typical result is that the longer you have to count backwards, the worse your memory for the letters. • The theory is that the counting backwards prevents the rehearsal of information in STM, so it decays away.

25. Short term memory • Increasing your STM span • Chunking • Grouping information together into larger units • Dog cat mouse shoe sock toe couch pillow blanket • Down flowers the by with chased yellow several girls a river boy. • A boy chased several girls with yellow flowers down by the river. • Notice that the previous two are the same words, but the syntax allows for grouping into meaningful ‘chunks’

26. Short Term Memory • Properties • rapid access (about 35 milliseconds per item) • limited capacity (7+/- 2 chunks; George Miller, 1956) • fast decay, about 12 seconds (longer if rehearsed or elaborated)

27. Working Memory • Working memory instead of STM

28. Working Memory • Working memory instead of STM • Phonological rehearsal mechanism • Phonological store • Very limited capacity • Rehearsal maintains information in the store

29. Working Memory • Working memory instead of STM • Store and manipulate visual and spatial information • Directly from perception • Indirectly from imagery

30. Working Memory • Working memory instead of STM • Allocate attentional resources to the subcomponents • Directs elaboration/manipulation of information

31. The ‘standard model’

32. Long term memory • Properties • Capacity: Unlimited? • Duration: Decay/interference, retrieval difficulty • Organization • Multiple subsystems for type of memory • Associative networks (more on these next week)

33. Long term memory: Capacity • How much can we remember? • Lots, no known limits to how much memory storage we have. • More important issue concerns questions about encoding and retrieval • Encoding - getting memories into LTM what gets in? • Retrieval - getting memories out of LTM what gets out? exact memories or reconstructed memories?

34. Long term memory: Duration • How long do our memories last? • Ebbinghaus (1885/1913) • He memorized non-sense syllables. • Memorize them until perfect performance, • Test to relearn the lists perfectly. • This was called the "savings."

35. Long term memory: Duration • Bahrick (1984) • He has done a number of studies asking people about memories for things (e.g., Spanish, faces of classmates, etc.) that they learned over 50 years past. He has found evidence that at least some memories stick around a really long time. • How long do our memories last?

36. Long term memory: Organization The Multiple Memory Stores Theory • This theory suggests that there are different memory components, each storing different kinds of information. • Declarative • episodic - memories about events • semantic - knowledge of facts • Procedural - memories about how to do things (e.g., the thing that makes you improve at riding a bike with practice. Declarative • episodic • semantic Procedural

37. Long term memory • How is semantic memory structured? • Networks (more next week)

38. Limited capacity resource • Filtering capabilities • Integration function Attention • Major tool of the central executive

39. Automaticity • Controlled processes • Require resources • Under some volitional direction • Slow, effortful • Automatic processes • Require little attention • Obligatory • Fast

40. Stages of skill acquisition • Stages of skill acquisition • Cognitive stage • Establish declarative encoding of an action • Associative stage • Strengthen the connections between elements of the skill • Autonomous stage • Skills can be performed without interference form other activities

41. Bottom-up & Top-down • Terms come from computer science • Bottom up (data driven) relies upon evidence that is physically present, building larger units based on smaller ones • Top down (knowledge driven), using higher-level information to support lower-level processes

42. Bottom-up & Top-down Selfridge’s Pandemonium system, 1959

43. C T Bottom-up & Top-down

44. T E Bottom-up & Top-down

45. C T T E Bottom-up & Top-down

46. Bottom-up & Top-down FROG

47. Bottom-up & Top-down FROG

48. Bottom-up & Top-down Half the class close your eyes Title: Doing laundry

49. Bottom-up & Top-down Half the class close your eyes Read story Rate how comprehensible the story is 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 hard to easy to understand understand

50. Summing up • Psycholinguistic view • Language and cognition are inextricably linked • Notice that almost all of the experiment demonstrations involved language elements as stimuli