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Cognitive ProcessesPSY 334
Chapter 11 – Language Structure
June 2, 2003
Judgments of Probability
Subjects match the Bayesian objective probabilities when making choices with feedback: Gluck & Bower diagnoses match
predictions Subjects overestimate when asked to
explicitly estimate frequencies of symptoms.
Behavior but not conscious judgment corresponds to Bayes theorem.
Subjective Utility
Subject choices are not well predicted by utility theory.
The value placed on money does not correspond to its face value $8 is worth 2 times as much as $3, not
2.67 times as much Utility curve is steeper in the loss
function than in the gain Loss of $10 weighted more strongly than
gain of $10
Chance, Luck & Superstition
We tend to see more structure than may exist: Avoidance of chance as an explanation Conspiracy theories Illusory correlation – distinctive pairings are
more accessible to memory. Results of studies are expressed as
probabilities. The “person who” is frequently more
convincing than a statistical result.
Linguistics
Linguistics – studies the structure of natural language.
Psycholinguistics – studies the way people process natural language.
Linguistics focuses on: Productivity – an infinite number of
utterances are possible in any language. Regularity – utterances are systematic in
many ways.
Grammar
Words can be combined into trillions of novel sentences, but not randomly. From runners physicians prescribing a
states joy rests what thought most. Grammar is a set of rules that generates
acceptable sentences and rejects unacceptable ones.
Three Kinds of Grammar
Syntax – word order and inflection (where emphasis is placed). Did hit the girl the boys?
Semantics – meaning of sentences. Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. Sincerity frightened the cat.
Phonology – sound structure of sentences (pronunciation).
Prescriptive vs Descriptive
Linguistic intuition – speakers can make judgments about utterances without knowing the explicit rules.
Ambiguities: They are cooking apples – structural. I am going to the bank – lexical.
Everyday speech (performance) does not conform to linguistic theory (competence).
Phrase Structure
Important to both linguistics and psychology of language processing.
Phrase structure – the hierarchical division of the sentence into phrases. Verb phrase Noun phrase
Rewrite rules – rules for generating sentences out of the parts.
Pauses
When people produce sentences, they generate a phrase at a time. Pauses occur at the boundaries of
phrases. Pauses are longer at boundaries of major
phrases compared to minor ones. Pauses occur at the smallest level above
the word that bundles coherent semantic information (meaning).
Speech Errors
Errors show the reality of phrase structure. When people repeat themselves they tend
to repeat or correct a whole phrase. Anticipation – an early phoneme is
changed to a later phoneme (toin coss) Occurs within a phrase – 13% across
phrases Word errors can occur across phrases –
83%
Transformations
Some constructions seem to violate phrase hierarchy: Whom is the dog chasing down the street? The dog is chasing whom down the street?
A transformational grammar has been proposed which hypothesizes a deep structure that guides such violations. This idea about grammar is controversial.