Exploring Psycholinguistics: Language Comprehension and Production

1. What is Psycholinguistics Psycholinguistics investigates the mental mechanisms underlying language processing. (Cognitive) How to perceive words and store them in the mind, how to understand a sentence, how to learn to read, how language and writing systems influence mental organizations.

2. Psychological reality of linguistic aspects Decode spoken language, speech Characters Words Alphabetic Logographic Syllabary/syllables Pictographic; Naxi nationality, Yunan

3. What is Psycholinguistics Two Aspects: Language Comprehension –how we understand the meaning of words and sentences (receptive process) Language Production –how we speak and use language (productive process)

4. Example: Language Production • Language production is a process from idea generation to language expression. • It is a mental process that is heavily influenced by language users’ culture.

5. Example: Language Production Idea: cross-cultural communication • People using the same language (i.e. English) but coming from different cultures. • Example: Cultural differences in directness – how explicitly and clearly do we say what we mean. • Case study: letters of recommendation for a bright but immature student, Peter Gore. (By John McCarthy)

6. Example: Language Production British Professor(least direct) “Mr. Gore impresses one as very intelligent. As to his maturity and readiness for graduate study, I can say very little, having had an opportunity to observe him only under relatively unfavorable conditions.”

7. Example: Language Production American Professor(intermediate directness) “In my judgment, Gore is very intelligent. During the time I have known him, I have seen him grow in maturity; I hope and expect that this will continue when he begins graduate study.”

8. Example: Language Production Australian Professor(most direct) “Peter’s brilliant, there’s no doubt about that. But he’s a bit of a baby, with a lot of growing up to do.”

9. Example: Language Production Chinese Professor (from Mainland) (Ignore the fact) “Peter Gore is a very smart student. He was doing extremely well in my class. He gets along well with everyone and is respected by others.”

10. Example: Visual Word Recognition When people encounter a printed word, how do they identify it? • Properties of the word • Visual or auditory (Modality) • Orthographic –whether a word is constructed in a legal way (e.g. “math” vs “mtah”) • Phonological (syllable: /cat/; phoneme: /k/, /e/, /t/, • Meaning

11. Example: Word Recognition In identifying a written word, • Visuo-orthographic analysis occurs. (activate, activation) • Is the meaning of a word accessed automatically? • Is the phonological information of a word accessed automatically?

12. Example: Word Recognition An Experiment: Task: Speak out the color name of the stimulus you will view. (red, blue, green) Requirement: Complete the task as quickly and accurately as possible. Subjects, participants, (The task was devised by Stroop, 1935 --the “Stroop task”.)

16. Example: Word Recognition Possible results: For color words (red, green, blue), when their ink color is inconsistent with the meaning of the words, • Naming time is longer (i.e.response latency); • Responses are less accurate.

17. Example: Word Recognition • Why there is such an interference effect?

18. The mental lexicon red blue /blu:/ * red

19. The mental lexicon red red red red red blue blue blue blue blue /blu:/ * red

20. Example: Word Recognition • The above finding suggests that the meaning of words is activated automatically –people cannot control the activation of meaning. • automaticity

21. Example: Word Recognition • What about the phonological information of a written word in a silent reading task? Is a word’s phonology activated in a task that does not require reading aloud?

22. Example: Word Recognition • Another experiment: Task: On each trial, you will first see a semantic category name (e.g., “flower”). Following the semantic category, you will see a target word which may be an exemplar of the category (e.g., “rose”). Judge if the target word you will see is an correct exemplar of the category.

23. Example: Word Recognition A servant

24. Example: Word Recognition maid

25. Example: Word Recognition Type of food

26. Example: Word Recognition meet

27. Example: Word Recognition Part of a mountain

28. Example: Word Recognition peek

29. Example: Word Recognition A flower

30. Example: Word Recognition Rows (rose)

31. Example: Word Recognition Possible results: High “false” correct responses to homophones of the exemplars. Suggest that the meaning of words is accessed via phonology.

32. Yes (false) flower rose /rouz/ rows rows

33. Why We Study This Kind of Stuff? • Empirical, theoretical, not practical, unapplied • Research on normal readers’ word identification processes provide a solid basis for treating abnormal readers. 13% poor readers 4-6% developmental dyslexics (dyslexia)

34. Why We Study This Kind of Stuff? • Findings with normal readers indicate that word meaning and phonology are activated automatically. • Apply the same tasks to dyslexia. There is a phonological deficit for dyslexics –they cannot activate phonological information obligatorily.

35. Why We Study This Kind of Stuff? • Hong Kong: Mother tongue education • Any scientific basis for this? Who ever conducted scientific studies showing this is feasible now? • USA: new school test design –New standard • China: new curriculum design

36. Research Methodology in Psycholinguistics • Reaction time (RT) approach It measures people’s RT (response latency) to a language stimulus. It includes many on-line methods of studying people’s language behavior continuously in a laboratory setting Infer the mental activity in terms of RTs.

37. dog

38. dog /dawg/

39. Research Methodology in Psycholinguistics 2. Memory and Classroom Approach It investigates language behavior in classroom, a more natural setting. To study the developmental pattern of children’s reading ability: • cross-sectional (grades 1 to grade 5) • longitudinal (a 5-year study)

40. Research Methodology in Psycholinguistics 3. Eye movements Approach Use the eyetracker to measure the position and duration of people’s eye fixations upon the text It is a most reliable psycholinguistic technique.

41. Research Methodology in Psycholinguistics How the Eyes Work? When people read, the eyes do NOT move continuously. Instead, the eye will “stop” on some word for a brief period (150 to 500 milliseconds). This is called fixation. Between the fixations are periods where the eye moves rapidly. These rapid eye movements are called saccades.

42. Research Methodology in Psycholinguistics To understand a sentence, the eyes sometimes move back to some word, re-fixating it. These “backward” saccades are termed regression. Words that are fixated are in the fovea; words surrounding the fixated words are in the parafovea.

43. Research Methodology in Psycholinguistics A healthy body may seem reward enough for . . . . . . . 177 196 175 244 302 112 177 most people. However, for all those who . . . . . 266 188 199 216 212 question the payoff, some recent research… . . . . 179 266 245 188

44. Research Methodology in Psycholinguistics How the Eyes Work? Fixation Saccades duration length (characters) English 231 msec. 7.8 Hebrew 265 msec. 5.5 Chinese 300 msec. 2.0

45. Research Methodology in Psycholinguistics How the Eyes Work? Information extracted from the parafovea aids in reading: Reading rate is about 200 words per minute when only the fixated word is visible on each fixation, but it is 300 words per minute when both the fixated word and the one immediately to the right are visible on each fixation.

46. Research Methodology in Psycholinguistics 4. Neurolinguistic Approach It studies the brain mechanism for language functioning –where is language functioning localized in the brain? • Lesion study –using brain-damage patients • Functional brain imaging study –using the intact human brain

47. Research Methodology in Psycholinguistics Left hemisphere Right hemisphere cortex

48. Research Methodology in Psycholinguistics Basic Neuroanatomy: • The outer layer of the brain –cerebral cortex • Hidden underneath the cortex are subcortical parts of the brain • The left and right hemispheres are connected by a band of nerve fibers –corpus callosum

49. Research Methodology in Psycholinguistics Basic Neuroanatomy: • An important feature of the human nervous system is that each cerebral cortex is connected to the opposite side of the body. This is termed contralateral connections. (Same-side connections are very weak.)

50. Research Methodology in Psycholinguistics • Split-brain patients –those who have a damaged corpus callosum but an undamaged brain.