PSY 369: Psycholinguistics

1. PSY 369: Psycholinguistics Psycholinguistics Review for Exam 1 (1 week from today) Chapters 1, 2, 3, 5 Lectures weeks 1, 2, 3, 4

2. Week 1 • What is language? • Compared to communication • Do animals use language • What is psycholinguistics? Week 1 & Chapter 1 terms and concepts Cognitive science Linguistics Semantics Syntax Phonology Pragmatics Wilhelm Wundt Behaviorism B. F. Skinner Roger Brown Noam Chomsky Associative chain theory Rationalism Empiricism Tacit knowledge Explicit knowledge Communication Charles Hockett’s features of language Animals and Language Language features

3. Week 2 • Crash course in linguistics • Different levels of analyses • The parts and the rules Week 2 & Chapter 2 terms and concepts Word order Phonology Duality of patterning Phones & phonemes Minimal pairs Distinctive features Categorical perception Morphology Free and bound morphemes Derivational & inflectional rules Wug test Syntax & Grammar Linguistic productivity Phrase structure rules Noam Chomsky Recursive rules Arbitrariness Observational adequacy Descriptive adequacy Explanatory adequacy Syntactic ambiguity Deep structure Surface structure Transformational rules Psychological reality of grammar Derivational theory of complexity Centrality of syntax Semantics Sense and Reference Pragmatics Lexical semantics Compositional semantics allomorphs

4. Week 3 • Crash course in cognitive psychology • Mental structures and processes Week 3 & Chapter 3 terms and concepts Atkinsin & Shiffrin model Sensory stores Short term memory Working memory Long term memory Declarative memory Procedural memory Attention Top down processing Bottom up processing Automatic processing Controlled processing Semantic memory Episodic memory Serial processing Parallel processing Modularity Cognitive psychology The mind as a computer analogy George Sperling George Miller Chunking Limited resources theory Feature integration theory Working memory capacity Ebbinghaus Bahrick Dual task procedure Visual Search exps

5. Week 4 • Representing Language • What and how are properties of language mentally represented? Week 4 & Chapter 5 terms and concepts Internal (mental) lexicon Lexical access Tip-of-the-tongue Syntactic category Inflectional morphemes Derivation morphemes Sense and reference Synonym Hyponymy & hypernymy Semantic network Hierarchical network Collins and Quillian model Collins and Loftus model Spreading activation models Intersection search Semantic verification Cognitive economy Typicality effect Forster search model Morton Logogen model Marslen-Wilson cohort model Recognition point Lexical decision task Word frequency Semantic priming Lexical ambiguity Lexical primatives Lexical organization Speech errors Prior context effects

6. 1900 10 20 50 60 70 80 90 2000 Psycholinguistics : A brief history • Multidisciplinary origins • philosophy (e.g., theories of meaning) • physiology (e.g., brain trauma effects on language) • linguistics (e.g., historical vs. descriptive, Noam Chomsky) • psychology (e.g., behaviorist vs. cognitive approaches) • computer science (e.g., artificial intelligence)

7. What is communication? • Any means by which two (or more) individuals exchange information • Paralinguistic techniques – non-verbal communication • Hand signals, facial expressions, body language, nods, smiles, winks, etc. • Also includes things like tone of voice, tempo, volume, etc. • Non-linguistic communication - that do involve vocalization • Grunts, groans, snorts, sighs, whimpers, etc. • Not all produced sounds are intended to convey messages, so they aren’t communication • e.g., snoring

8. Features of Language (Hockett, 1960) “labrador” “dog” • Arbitrariness • Displacement • Productivity • Discreteness • Semanticity • Duality of patterning “perro” “hund” Last week my dog escaped the backyard and dug in the neighbor’s garden. “dog” “dog” “dog” • Four legged animal • Common pet • Fur • Chases cats • Barks • Etc. Meaning Words and morphemes “dog” No meaning Phonomes /d/ /o/ /g/ Hockett (1960) is available for download in the ‘optional readings’ on Blackboard

9. Birdsong Bee dance Human Language Parrot Dog ? ? ? ? ? Animals and language? Arbitrariness Displacement Productivity Discreteness Semanticity Duality of patterning

10. What is language? • Some generally agreed upon conclusions • Symbolic • Elements are used to represent something other than itself • Voluntary • Language use is under our individual control • Language is systematic • There is hierarchical structure that organizes linguistic elements • Modalities • Spoken, written, signed (sign language) • Assumed primacy of speech - it came first

11. Week 2 • Crash course in linguistics • Different levels of analyses • The parts and the rules Week 2 & Chapter 2 terms and concepts Word order Phonology Duality of patterning Phones & phonemes Minimal pairs Distinctive features Categorical perception Morphology Free and bound morphemes Derivational & inflectional rules Wug test Syntax & Grammar Linguistic productivity Phrase structure rules Noam Chomsky Recursive rules Arbitrariness Observational adequacy Descriptive adequacy Explanatory adequacy Syntactic ambiguity Deep structure Surface structure Transformational rules Psychological reality of grammar Derivational theory of complexity Centrality of syntax Semantics Sense and Reference Pragmatics Lexical semantics Compositional semantics allomorphs

12. Levels of analysis • Phonology • Morphology • Syntax • Semantics • Pragmatics language pragmatics use structure medium of transmission grammar meaning (semantics) phonetics phonology morphology lexicon discourse syntax

13. Phonology • The sounds of a language • Phonemes, allophones & phones • Phonemes - abstract (mental) representations of the sound units in a language • Minimal pairs: pie, buy, tie, die, sigh, lie, my, guy, why, shy • Articulatory features • Allophones - different sounds that get categorized as the same phoneme • Phones - a general term for the sounds used in languages • Rules about how to put the sounds together ‘Spill’ vs. ‘Pill’ Rule: If /p/ is used in word initial position you add aspiration (a puff of air), if word internal don’t aspirate

14. Morphology • Morpheme – smallest unit that conveys meaning • Productivity • Free morphemes: can stand alone as words • Bound morphemes: can not stand alone as words • Inflectional rules • used to express grammatical contrasts in sentences • Derivational rules • Construction of new words, or change grammatical class • Allomorphs: different variations of the same morpheme (e.g., plural morpheme in English) • Language differences • Isolating, Inflecting, Agglutinating languages

15. Here is a wug. Now there are two of them. There are two _______. Psychological reality of Morphology • Wug test (Gleason, 1958) • Speech errors • Stranding errors: The free morpheme typically moves, but the bound morpheme stays in the same location (“they are Turking talkish”) • Morpheme substitutions: (“Where's the fire distinguisher?”) • Morpheme shift: (“I haven't satten down and writ__ it”)

16. Syntax: the ordering of the words • The underlying structural position, rather than surface linear position matters.

17. Syntax: the ordering of the words • Not just the linear ordering • It is the underlying set of syntactic rules

18. Generative Grammar (wiki) • The pieces: • Grammatical features of words • Phrase structure rules - these tell us how to build legal structures • S --> NP VP • Recursion: you can embed structures within structures • NP --> (A) (ADJ) N (PP) • PP --> Prep NP The result is an infinite number of syntactic structures from a finite set of pieces

19. Chomsky’s Linguistics • Chomsky proposed that grammars could be evaluated at three levels: • Observational adequacy • Descriptive adequacy • Explanatory adequacy • Transformational grammar • Two stages phrase structures for a sentence • Build DeepStructure • Convert to SurfaceStructure

20. Psychological reality of syntax • Derivational theory of complexity • The more transformations, the more complex • The boy was bitten by the wolf • The boy was bitten. (involves deletion) • No evidence for more processing of the second sentence • Evidence for (trace) • Some recent evidence or reactivation of moved constituent at the trace position • Evidence for syntax • Syntactic priming

21. Syntactic priming • Bock (1986), Task: If you hear a sentence, repeat it, if you see a picture describe it a: The ghost sold the werewolf a flower b: The ghost sold a flower to the werewolf a: The girl gave the teacher the flowers b: The girl gave the flowers to the teacher

22. “What’s in a name? that which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet.” Semantics • The study of meaning • Arbitrariness • Words are not the same as meaning • Words are symbols linked to mental representations of meaning (concepts) • Even if we changed the name of a rose, we wouldn’t change the concept of what a rose is

23. Separation of word and meaning • Concepts and words are different things • Translation argument • Every language has words without meaning, and meanings without words • e.g., transmogrify, wheedle, scalawag • Imperfect mapping • Multiple meanings of words • e.g., ball, bank, bear • Elasticity of meaning • Meanings of words can change with context • e.g., newspaper

24. In the 90’s Semantics • Philosophy of meaning • Sense and reference • “The world’s most famous athlete.” • “The athlete making the most endorsement income.” • 2 distinct senses, 1 reference Now • Over time the senses typically stay the same, while the references may change

25. Semantics • Two levels of analysis (and two traditions of psycholinguistic research) • Word level (lexical semantics) • How do we store words? • How are they organized? • What is meaning? • How do words relate to meaning? • Sentence level (compositional semantics) • How do we construct higher order meaning? • How do word meanings and syntax interact?

26. Lexical Semantics • Word level • The (mental) lexicon: the words we know • The average person knows ~60,000 words • How are these words represented and organized? • Dictionary definitions? • Necessary and sufficient features? • Lists of features? • Networks?

27. “Oh no, Lois has been hypnotized and is jumping off the bank!” Money “bank” River “bank” Lexical Ambiguity • What happens when we use ambiguous words in our utterances?

28. Hmm… ‘bank’ usually means the financial institution, but Lois was going fishing with Jimmy today … Lexical Ambiguity • Psycholinguistic evidence suggests that multiple meanings are considered • Debate: how do we decide which meaning is correct • Based on: frequency, context

29. Compositional Semantics • Phrase and sentence level • Some of the theories • Truth conditional semantics: meaning is a logical relationship between an utterance and a state of affairs in the world • Jackendoff’s semantics • Concepts are lists of features, images, and procedural knowledge • Conceptual formation rules • Cognitive grammar • Mental models - mental simulations of the world

30. Pragmatics • Sentences do more than just state facts, instead they are uttered to perform actions • How to do things with words (J. L. Austin, 1955 lectures) • Using registers • Conversational implicatures • Speech acts

31. Pragmatics • Registers: How we modify conversation when addressing different listeners • Determine our choice of wording or interpretation based on different contexts and situations • Speech directed at babies, at friends, at bosses, at foreigners

32. Pragmatics • Conversational implicatures • Speakers are cooperative • Grice’s conversational maxims • Quantity: say only as much as is needed • Quality: say only what you know is true • Relation: say only relevant things • Manner: Avoid ambiguity, be as clear as possible

33. Pragmatics • Speech acts: How language is used to accomplish various ends • Direct speech acts • Open the window please. • Clean up your room! • Indirect speech acts • “It is hot in here” • “Your room is a complete mess!” • Non-literal language use • e.g., Metaphors and idioms

34. Pyscholinguistics and pragmatics • Three-stage theory • Stage 1: compute the literal interpretation of the utterance • Stage 2: evaluate the interpretation against assumptions • Grice’s conversational maxims • Stage 3: if interpretation doesn’t seem correct, derive (or retrieve) non-literal interpretation

35. Pyscholinguistics and pragmatics • One stage approaches • Evaluate utterance at multiple levels simultaneously and select the appropriate one • Use context to derive the single most-likely interpretation

36. Week 3 • Crash course in cognitive psychology • Mental structures and processes Week 3 & Chapter 3 terms and concepts Atkinsin & Shiffrin model Sensory stores Short term memory Working memory Long term memory Declarative memory Procedural memory Attention Top down processing Bottom up processing Automatic processing Controlled processing Semantic memory Episodic memory Serial processing Parallel processing Modularity Cognitive psychology The mind as a computer analogy George Sperling George Miller Chunking Limited resources theory Feature integration theory Working memory capacity Ebbinghaus Bahrick Dual task procedure Visual Search exps

37. Mind as computer analogy • Limitations of the analogy Computers • fast • serial (mostly) • digital • few connections (relatively) Minds (Brains??) • slow • parallel • analog • trillions of connections • Other analogies out there: • Mind as a brain (Connectionism) • Mind as a body (Embodied Cognition)

38. The ‘standard model’ The Multistore Model Information ‘flows’ from one memory buffer to the next

39. The sensory store • George Sperling’s full and partial report experiments • Properties • sensory specific - one for vision, one for audition, etc. • high capacity • extremely fast decay

40. Short Term Memory • Serial position recall experiments (e.g., Peterson & Peterson), STM span experiments, chunking • 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)

41. Working Memory • Allocate attentional resources to the subcomponents • Directs elaboration/manipulation of information • Working memory instead of STM • Store and manipulate visual and spatial information • Directly from perception • Indirectly from imagery • Phonological rehearsal mechanism • Phonological store • Very limited capacity • Rehearsal maintains information in the store

42. 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)

43. 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? • Rehearsal • Depth of processing – organization, distinctiveness, effort, elaboration • Retrieval - getting memories out of LTM what gets out? exact memories or reconstructed memories?

44. 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." • 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.

45. 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

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

47. Attention: Limited resource • Only have so much ‘energy’ to make things go, so need to divide it and allocate it to processes • Single pool (e.g., Kahneman, 1973) • Central bank of resources available to all tasks that need it • Multiple pools (e.g., Navon & Gopher, 1979) • Several banks of specialized resources – divided up in terms of input/output modalities, stages of info processing (perception, memory, response output) • Dual task experiments

48. Attention: An information filter • Information bottleneck. There is so much info, only some is let through, while the rest is filtered out • Early selection (e.g., Broadbent, 1958, Triesman, 1964) • Late filters (Deutsch & Deutsch) • Everything gets in, bottleneck comes at response level (can only respond to limited number of things) • Cocktail party effect, dichotic listening

49. Attention: Integration • Attention is used to ‘glue’ features together • Feature integration theory & Visual search exps Where’s Waldo Find the X X X X X X X X X X X Pop out X X X X X O O X X O O Slow search X O O X X X O O X

50. Attention: How do we control it? • Attention as a ‘spotlight’ • Move it around, make it focused or diffuse • Is it ‘aimed’ or ‘pulled’