PSY 369: Psycholinguistics

1. PSY 369: Psycholinguistics Language Production: Theories and models

2. Exam 2 • Don’t forget that Exam 2 is 1 week from today (April 3) • I’ll put together a “review” quiz, based on the question sets used in the other quizzes, will NOT count for credit, just a tool for studying

3. Syntactic level Morphemic level Phonemic level Articulation From thought to speech Message level • Propositions to be communicated • Selection and organization of lexical items • Morphologically complex words are constructed • Sound structure of each word is built

4. From thought to speech Message level • Stranding errors I liked he would hope you I hoped he would like you • The inflection stayed in the same location, the stems moved • Inflections tend to stay in their proper place • Do not typically see errors like The beeing are buzzes The bees are buzzing Syntactic level Morphemic level Phonemic level Articulation

5. From thought to speech Message level • Stranding errors • Closed class items very rare in exchanges or substitutions • Two possibilities • Part of syntactic frame • High frequency, so lots of practice, easily selected, etc. Syntactic level Morphemic level Phonemic level Articulation

6. From thought to speech Message level • Consonant vowel regularity • Consonants slip with other consonants, vowels with vowels, but rarely do consonants slip with vowels • The implication is that vowels and consonants represent different kinds of units in phonological planning Syntactic level Morphemic level Phonemic level Articulation

7. From thought to speech Message level • Consonant vowel regularity • Frame and slots in syllables • Similar to the slots and frames we discussed with syntax Syntactic level • LEXICON • /d/, C • /g/, C • , V PHONOLOGICAL FRAME Word Morphemic level Syllable Onset Rhyme Phonemic level C V C Articulation

8. From thought to speech Message level • Consonant vowel regularity • Frame and slots in syllables • Evidence for the separation of meaning and sound Syntactic level • Tip of the tongue • Picture-word interference Morphemic level Phonemic level Articulation

9. Tip-of-the-tongue Uhh… It is a.. You know.. A.. Arggg. I can almost see it, it has two Syllables, I think it starts with A …..

10. William James (1842 -1910)a pioneering psychologist and philosopher • "It is a gap that is intensely active. A sort of wraith of the name is in it, beckoning us in a given direction, making us at moments tingle with the sense of our closeness and then letting us sink back without the longed-for term." … • “… the rhythm of the lost word may be there without the sound to clothe it; or the evanescent sense of something which is the initial vowel or consonant may mock us fitfully, without growing more distinct.”

11. Tip-of-the-tongue • Low-frequency words (e.g., apse, nepotism, sampan), prompted by brief definitions. “To keep eggs warm until hatching” • On 8.5% of trials, tip-of-the-tongue state ensued: • Had to guess: • word's first or last letters • the number of syllables it contained • which syllable was stressed • Brown & McNeill (1966)

12. Tip-of-the-tongue • Total of 360 TOT states: • 233 ="positive TOTs" (subject was thinking of target word, and produced scorable data • 127 = "negative TOTs" (subject was thinking of other word, but could not recall it) • 224 similar-sound TOTs (e.g., Saipan for sampan) • 48% had the same number of syllables as the target • 95 similar-meaning TOTs (e.g., houseboat for sampan). • 20% had same number of syllables as target.  • Brown & McNeill (1966)

13. Tip-of-the-tongue • Similar words come to mind about half the time • But how much is just guessing? • First letter: correct 50-71% of time (vs. 10% by chance) • First sound: 36% of time (vs. 6% by chance)

14. Tip-of-the-tongue • Results suggest a basic split between semantics and phonology: • People can access meaning and grammar but not pronunciation • What about syntax?

15. Tip-of-the-tongue • Syntax • grammatical category (“part of speech”) • e.g. noun, verb, adjective • Gender • e.g. le chien, la vache; le camion, la voiture • Number • e.g. dog vs. dogs; trousers vs. shirt • Count/mass status • e.g. oats vs. flour

16. Tip-of-the-tongue • Vigliocco et al. (1997) • Italian speakers presented with word definitions • Gender was always arbitrary • If unable to retrieve word, they answered • How well do you think you know the word? • Guess the gender • Guess the number of syllables • Guess as many letters and positions as possible • Report any word that comes to mind • Then presented with target word • Do you know this word? • Is this the word you were thinking of?

17. Vigliocco et al (1997) • Scoring • + TOT • Both reported some correct information in questionnaire • And said yes to recognition question • - TOT • Otherwise • Vigliocco et al. (1997)

18. Vigliocco et al (1997) • Results • + TOT: 84% correct gender guess • - TOT: 53% correct gender guess • chance level • Conclusion • Subjects often know grammatical gender information even when they have no phonological information • Supports split between syntax and phonology in production • Vigliocco et al. (1997)

19. Syntactic level Morphemic level Phonemic level Articulation Nitty gritty detail of the model Message level • Central questions: • How many levels are there? • Are the stages discrete or cascading? • Discrete: must complete before moving on • Cascade: can get started as soon as some information is available • Is there feedback? • Top-down only (serial processing) • Garrett, Levelt • Bottom up too (interactive processing) • Dell, Stemberger, McKay

20. Levelt’s model • Four broad stages: • Conceptualization • Deciding on the message (= meaning to express) • Formulation • Turning the message into linguistic representations • Grammatical encoding (finding words and putting them together) • Phonological encoding (finding sounds and putting them together) • Articulation • Speaking (or writing or signing) • Monitoring (via the comprehension system)

21. Functional processing: • Assignment of roles Grammatical subject Direct object Levelt’s model • Formalization on the Syntax side of the model • Works in parallel with the lexicon side

22. S VP NP V NP Levelt’s model • Formalization on the Syntax side of the model • Works in parallel with the lexicon side • Positional processing: • Build syntactic tree

23. Levelt’s model • Tip of tongue state when lemma is retrieved without word-form being retrieved • Formalization on the Lexicon side of the model • Involves lexical retrieval: • Semantic/syntactic content (lemmas) • Phonological content (lexemes or word-forms)

24. Levelt’s model has stripes is dangerous TIGER (X) Lexical concepts Noun countable tigre Lemmas Fem. /tigre/ Lexemes /t/ /I/ /g/ Phonemes

25. Levelt’s model: conceptual level has stripes is dangerous • Conceptual stratum is not decomposed • one lexical concept node for “tiger” • instead, conceptual links from “tiger” to “stripes”, etc. TIGER (X)

26. Levelt’s model • First, lemma activation occurs • This involves activating a lemma or lemmas corresponding to the concept • thus, concept TIGER activates lemma “tiger” TIGER (X) Noun countable tigre Fem.

27. Levelt’s model • First, lemma activation occurs • This involves activating a lemma or lemmas corresponding to the concept • thus, concept TIGER activates lemma “tiger” TIGER (X) LION (X) Noun • But also involves activating other lemmas • TIGER also activates LION (etc.) to some extent • and LION activates lemma “lion” tigre lion Fem.

28. Levelt’s model • First, lemma activation occurs • Second, lemma selection occurs • Selection is different from activation • Only one lemma is selected • Probability of selecting the target lemma (“tiger”) • ratio of that lemma’s activation to the total activation of all lemmas (“tiger”, “lion”, etc.) • Hence competition between semantically related lemmas TIGER (X) LION (X) Noun tigre lion Fem.

29. Morpho-phonological encoding(and beyond) • The lemma is now converted into a phonological representation • called “word-form” (or “lexeme”) • If “tiger” lemma plus plural (and noun) are activated • Leads to activation of morphemes tigre and s • Other processes too • Stress, phonological segments, phonetics, and finally articulation /tigre/ /t/ /I/ /g/

30. Model’s assumptions • Modularity • Later processes cannot affect earlier processes • No feedback between the word-form (lexemes) layer and the grammatical (lemmas) layer • Also, only one lemma activates a word form • If “tiger” and “lion” lemmas are activated, they compete to produce a winner at the lemma stratum • Only the “winner” activates a word form (selection) • The word-forms for the “losers” aren’t accessed

31. Dell’s interactive account • Dell (1986) presented the best-known interactive account • other similar accounts exist (e.g., Stemberger, McKay) • Network organization • 3 levels of representation • Semantics (decomposed into features) • Words and morphemes • phonemes (sounds) • These get selected and inserted into frames

32. Dell (1986) A moment in the production of: “Some swimmers sink”

33. Interactive because information flows “upwards” information Dell (1986) as well as “downwards” information • Cascading because processing at lower levels can start early

34. Dell (1986) • e.g., the semantic features mammal, barks, four-legs activate the word “dog” FURRY BARKS MAMMAL • these send activation back to the word level, activating words containing these sounds (e.g., “log”, “dot”) to some extent • this activates the sounds /d/, /o/, /g/ dot dog log /t/ /d/ /g/ /a/ /l/ this activation is upwards (phonology to syntax) and wouldn’t occur in Levelt’s account

35. Model comparisons Similar representations Frames and slots Insertion of representations into the frames Levelt’s Similarities Dell’s Serial Modular Interactive Cascaded Differences

36. Experimental tests • Picture-word interference task • Participants name basic objects as quickly as possible • Distractor words are embedded in the object • participants are instructed to ignore these words tiger

37. Experimental tests • Semantically related words can interfere with naming • e.g., the word TIGER in a picture of a LION tiger

38. Basic findings • However, form-related words can speed up processing • e.g., the word liar in a picture of a LION liar

39. Experiments manipulate timing: • picture and word can be presented simultaneously liar liar liar time • or one can slightly precede the other • We draw inferences about time-course of processing

40. Schriefers, Meyer, and Levelt (1990) • SOA (Stimulus onset asynchrony) manipulation • -150 ms (word …150 ms … picture) • 0 ms (i.e., synchronous presentation) • +150 ms (picture …150ms …word) • Auditory presentation of distractors • DOT phonologically related • CAT semantically related • SHIP unrelated word

41. Schriefers, Meyer, and Levelt (1990) • Auditory presentation of distractors • DOT phonologically related • CAT semantically related • SHIP unrelated word Early Only Semantic effects

42. Schriefers, Meyer, and Levelt (1990) • Auditory presentation of distractors • DOT phonologically related • CAT semantically related • SHIP unrelated word Late Only Phonological effects

43. Evidence against interactivity • Schriefers, Meyer, and Levelt (1990) • DOT phonologically related • CAT semantically related • SHIP unrelated word Early Only Semantic effects Late Only Phonological effects

44. Evidence against interactivity Schriefers, Meyer, and Levelt (1990) • Also looked for any evidence of a mediatedpriming effect DOG (X) CAT (X) dog cat hat /cat/ /hat/ • Found no evidence for it /k/ /a/ /t/ /h/

45. Interpretation • Early semantic inhibition • Late phonological facilitation • Fits with the assumption that semantic processing precedes phonological processing • No overlap • suggests two discrete stages in production • an interactive account might find semantic and phonological effects at the same time

46. Evidence for interactivity • Mixed errors • Both semantic and phonological relationship to target word • Target = “cat” • semantic error = “dog” • phonological error = “hat” • mixed error = “rat” • Occur more often than predicted by modular models • if you can go wrong at either stage, it would only be by chance that an error would be mixed

47. Evidence for interactivity • Dell’s explanation • The process of making an error • The semantic features of dog activate “cat” • Some features (e.g., animate, mammalian) activate “rat” as well • “cat” then activates the sounds /k/, /ae/, /t/ • /ae/ and /t/ activate “rat” by feedback • This confluence of activation leads to increased tendency for “rat” to be uttered • Also explains the tendency for phonological errors to be real words (lexical bias effect) • Sounds can only feed back to words (non-words not represented) so only words can feedback to sound level

48. Evidence for interactivity • A number of recent experimental findings appear to support interaction under some circumstances (or at least cascading models) • Damian & Martin (1999) • Cutting & Ferreira (1999) • Peterson & Savoy (1998)

49. Evidence for interactivity • Damian and Martin (1999) • Picture-Word interference • The critical difference: • the addition of a “semantic and phonological” condition • Picture of Apple • peach (semantically related) • apathy (phonologically related) • apricot (sem & phono related) • couch (unrelated) peach

50. Results • Damian & Martin (1999) couch (unrelated) peach (semantically related) apathy (phonologically related) apricot (sem & phono related) • early semantic inhibition