PSY 369: Psycholinguistics

1. PSY 369: Psycholinguistics Language Comprehension

3. How do we turn our thoughts into a spoken or written output? Some of the big questions Production “the horse raced past the barn”

4. How do we turn our thoughts into a spoken or written output? How do we understand language that we hear/see? Some of the big questions Comprehension Production “the horse raced past the barn”

5. Conceptualizer Thought Semantic Analysis Formulator Grammatical Encoding Syntactic Analysis Lexicon Phonological Encoding Word Recognition Letter/phoneme Recognition Articulator Some of the big questions • Comprehension • Production • Representation • How do we store linguistic information? • How do we retrieve that information?

6. Semantic Analysis Syntactic Analysis Conceptualizer Thought Articulator Word Recognition Formulator Grammatical Encoding Letter/phoneme Recognition Lexicon Phonological Encoding

7. Language perception Word recognition Syntactic analysis Semantic & pragmatic analysis Input c dog a cap S t wolf The cat chased the rat. VP NP tree V NP /k/ yarn cat the cat chased the rat /ae/ cat claw /t/ fur hat Overview of comprehension

8. The Comprehender’s Problem • Ambiguity • Must take a potentially ambiguous serial acoustic (or visual) input, and recover the intended meaning

9. If reading were like listening The Comprehender’s Problem • Different signals • Reading and listening are very different whereareyougoing • Where are you going? • Different speakers speak differently • Lots of differences in written/printed language

10. The Comprehender’s Problem • Ambiguity • Must take a potentially ambiguous serial acoustic (or visual) input, and recover the intended meaning The cat chased the rat. The cat chased the rat. The cat chased the rat. The cat chased the rat.

11. The Comprehender’s Problem • Ambiguity • Must take a potentially ambiguous serial acoustic (or visual) input, and recover the intended meaning Oronyms I scream for ice scream The stuffy nose can lead to problems. The stuff he knows can lead to problems. Why don’t you take a nice cold shower? Why don’t you take an ice cold shower? See here for more oronyms

12. The Comprehender’s Problem • Ambiguity • Must take a potentially ambiguous serial acoustic (or visual) input, and recover the intended meaning Groucho Marx shot an elephant in his pajamas Good shot How he got into my pajamas I’ll never know

13. Money “bank” River “bank” The Comprehender’s Problem • Ambiguity • Must take a potentially ambiguous serial acoustic (or visual) input, and recover the intended meaning “Oh no, Lois has been hypnotized and is jumping off the bank!”

14. The Comprehender’s Problem • Ambiguity • Must take a potentially ambiguous serial acoustic (or visual) input, and recover the intended meaning “Uncle Bob kicked the bucket last night” Uncle Bob “Sure as soon as I’m done using it.” “Can you pass the salt” “Nope, somebody glued it to the table.”

15. Language perception Word recognition Syntactic analysis Semantic & pragmatic analysis Input c dog a cat cap S t wolf The cat chased the rat. VP NP tree V NP /k/ yarn cat the chased the rat /ae/ cat claw /t/ fur hat Overview of comprehension Lexical Access

16. Lexical access • How do we retrieve the linguistic information from Long-term memory? • How is the information organized/stored? • What factors are involved in retrieving information from the lexicon? • Models of lexical access

17. Lexical access • How do we retrieve the linguistic information from Long-term memory? • How is the information organized/stored? • What factors are involved in retrieving information from the lexicon? • Models of lexical access

18. Storing linguistic information • Tale of the tape: • High capacity: 40,000 – 60,000 words • Fast: Recognition in as little as 200ms (often before word ends) • How do we search that many, that fast!? – suggests that there is a high amount of organization • Or something much more complex • “The world’s largest data bank of examples in context is dwarfed by the collection we all carry around subconsciously in our heads.” • E. Lenneberg (1967) Excellent reading: Words in the Mind, Aitchison (1987, 2003)

19. Storing linguistic information • Interesting questions: • How are words stored? • What are they made up of? • How are words related to each other? • How do we use them? • Some vocabulary • Mental lexicon The representation of words in long term memory • Lexical Access: How do we accesswords and their the meanings (and other properties)?

20. Theoretical Metaphors: Access vs. Recognition • Often used interchangeably, but sometimes a distinction is made • Recognition - finding the representation Here it is Search for a match Select word dog cat cap The magic moment Balota (1990) wolf cat tree yarn cat cat cat claw fur hat

21. Access lexical information Cat noun Animal, pet, Meows, furry, Purrs, etc. Theoretical Metaphors: Access vs. Recognition • Often used interchangeably, but sometimes a distinction is made • Access - getting information from the representation • Recognition - finding the representation Search for a match Select word dog Open it up and see what’s inside cap wolf tree yarn cat cat cat claw fur hat

22. Lexical access • How do we retrieve the linguistic information from Long-term memory? • How is the information organized/stored? • What factors are involved in retrieving information from the lexicon? • Models of lexical access

23. Studying Lexical Access • Generally people ask: what makes word identification easy or difficult? • The assumption: • Measures of identification time are usually indirect • Time spent identifying a word can be a measure of difficulty

24. Common methodologies • Measure how long people take to say a string of letters is (or is not) a word (lexical decision) • Measure how long people take to categorize a word (“apple” is a fruit) • Measure how long people take to start saying a word (naming or pronunciation time) • Measure how long people actually spend looking at a word when reading • Word by word reading • Line by line reading • Using eye movement monitoring techniques

25. Lexical access Factors affecting lexical access • Morphological structure • Phonological structure • Concretness/abstractness • Imageability • Frequency • Semantic priming • Role of prior context • Lexical ambiguity • Grammatical class • Some of these may reflect the structure of the lexicon • Some may reflect the processes of access from the lexicon

26. horse horses barn barns horse -s barn Words or morphemes? • Word primitives • Need a lot of representations • Fast retrieval • Morpheme primitives • Economical - fewer representations • Slow retrieval - some assembly required • Decomposition during comprehension • Composition during production

27. Words or morphemes? • Lexical Decision task (e.g., Taft, 1981) • See a string of letters • As fast as you can determine if it is a real English word or not • “yes” if it is • “no” if it isn’t • Typically speed and accuracy are the dependent measures

28. table

29. vanue

30. daughter

31. tasp

32. cofef

33. hunter

34. Words or morphemes? • Lexical Decision task table Yes vanue No daughter Yes tasp No cofef No hunter Yes

35. Words or morphemes? • Lexical Decision task daughter hunter

36. Words or morphemes? • Lexical Decision task • This evidence supports the morphemes as primitives view daughter Pseudo-suffixed daught -er hunter Multimorphemic Takes longer hunt -er

37. Words or morphemes? • May depend on other factors • What kind of morpheme • Inflectional (e.g., singular/plural, past/present tense) • Derivational (e.g., drink --> drinkable, infect --> disinfect) • Frequency of usage • High frequency multimorphemic (in particular if derivational morphology) may get represented as a single unit • e.g., impossible vs. imperceptible • Compound words • Semantically transparent • Buttonhole • Semantically opaque • butterfly

38. Phonology • Words that sound alike may be stored “close together” • Brown and McNeill (1966) Tip of the tongue phenomenon (TOT) What word means to formally renounce the throne? abdicate Look at what words they think of but aren’t right e.g, “abstract,”“abide,”“truncate”

39. Phonology • Words that sound alike may be stored “close together” • Brown and McNeill (1966) Tip of the tongue phenomenon (TOT) Similar-sounding words 50 % of matches Similar-meaning words 40 30 20 10 2 1 2 3 1 3 • More likely to approximate target words with similar sounding words than similar meanings • The “Bathtub Effect” - Sounds at the beginnings and ends of words are remembered best (Aitchison, 2003) Letters at Word end Word beginning

40. Imageability • Imageability, concreteness, abstractness Try to imagine each word Umbrella Lantern Freedom Apple Knowledge Evil

41. How do you imagine these? Imageability • Imageability, concreteness, abstractness Try to imagine each word Umbrella Lantern Freedom Apple Knowledge Evil

42. Imageability • Imageability, concreteness, abstractness Umbrella Lantern Freedom Apple Knowledge Evil • More easily remembered • More easily accessed

43. Frequency Gambastya Revery Voitle Chard Wefe Cratily Decoy Puldow Raflot • Lexical Decision Task: Oriole Vuluble Chalt Awry Signet Trave Crock Cryptic Ewe Mulvow Governor Bless Tuglety Gare Relief Ruftily History Pindle Develop Gardot Busy Effort Garvola Match Sard Pleasant Coin

44. Frequency Gambastya Revery Voitle Chard Wefe Cratily Decoy Puldow Raflot • Typically the more common a word, the faster (and more accurately) it is named and recognized • Typical interpretation: easier to access (or recognize) • Lexical Decision Task: Low frequency High(er) frequency Oriole Vuluble Chalt Awry Signet Trave Crock Cryptic Ewe Mulvow Governor Bless Tuglety Gare Relief Ruftily History Pindle Develop Gardot Busy Effort Garvola Match Sard Pleasant Coin

45. Frequency • However, Balota and Chumbley (1984) • Frequency effects depend on task • Lexical decision - big effect • Naming - small effect • Category verification - no effect • A canary is a bird. T/F • Typically the more common a word, the faster (and more accurately) it is named and recognized • Typical interpretation: easier to access (or recognize)

46. doctor doctor Semantics • Free associations • Most associates are semantically related (rather than phonologically for example) • Semantic Priming task • Meyer & Schvaneveldt (1971) • For the following letter strings, decide whether it is or is not an English word Tasp Nurse Doctor Fract Slithest Shoes Doctor no yes yes no no yes yes Responded to faster 855 msecs Related nurse 940 msecs Unrelated shoes • “Priming effect”Evidence that associative relations influence lexical access

47. Role of prior context Cross Modal Priming Task: Listen to short paragraph. At some point during the paragraph a string of letters will appear on the screen. Decide if it is an English word or not. Say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ as quickly as you can.

48. Role of prior context ant • “Rumor had it that, for years, the government building has been plagued with problems. The man was not surprised when he found several spiders, roaches and other • bugs in the corner of his room.”

49. Role of prior context • Swinney (1979) • Lexical Decision task Context related: ant Context inappropriate: spy Context unrelated: sew • Results and conclusions • Within 400 msecs of hearing "bugs", both ant and spy are primed • After 700 msecs, only ant is primed • “Rumor had it that, for years, the government building has been plagued with problems. The man was not surprised when he found several spiders, roaches and other • bugs in the corner of his room.”

50. Lexical ambiguity • Hogaboam and Pefetti (1975) • Words can have multiple interpretations • The role of frequency of meaning • Task, is the last word ambiguous? • The jealous husband read the letter (dominant meaning) • The antique typewriter was missing a letter (subordinate meaning) • Results: Participants are faster on the second sentence. • The results may seem counterintuitive • The task is the key, “is the final word ambiguous” • In the first sentence, the meaning is dominant and the context strongly biases that meaning. So the second meaning may not be around, which in turn makes the it harder to make the ambiguity judgment in the first sentence