WORD RECOGNTION (Sereno, 1/05)

I. Introduction to psycholinguistics

II. Basic units of language

III. Word recognition

IV. Word frequency & lexical ambiguity

I. Introduction to Psycholinguistics

A. Properties of language

B. What does it mean to study language?

C. Competence / Performance examples of language use

I. Introduction to Psycholinguistics A. Properties of language

Human Language = flexible, symbol-based and rule-based mode of communication that permits conveyance of any kind of information. Its properties include:

Creative – a limitless # of thoughts can be expressedin a limitless # of ways.

Structured – sounds are combined into words, and wordsinto sentences according to rules (i.e., grammar).

] hierarchical

I. Introduction to Psycholinguistics A. Properties of language

Meaningful – ideas are conveyed by individual wordsand how they are organised into sentences.

Referential – it refers to and describes things and eventsin the world.

Interpersonal / Communicative – it has a social function.

] Ex: The cat ate the dog.The dog ate the cat.

I. Introduction to Psycholinguistics B. What does it mean to study language?

Linguistics = structure of languagephonetics, syntax, semantics, cross-language

comparisons, language universals

Psycholinguistics = processing of languageunderstanding the mechanisms of language behaviore.g., normal adult comprehension and production of language; neurolinguistics; language acquisition; language in non-humans

I. Introduction to Psycholinguistics B. What does it mean to study language?

Socio-linguistics = social aspects of languageLinguistic factors, such as ...

voice pitch, pronunciation (dialect),word choice, intonation

... influence our judgements about the speaker’s:age, gender, geographical identity,

socio-economic class, intelligence, personality, mood

Examples: R’s in New York (Labov, 1966) Disney

I. Introduction to Psycholinguistics C. Competence / Performance

Competence = what one knowsImplicit knowledge - knowing what’s “right”Explicit knowledge - explain in terms of formal rules

Performance = what one does; how knowledge is used- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -Examples of language use:

(1) wordness(2) grammaticality judgements(3) tag questions

Wordness: For each row of 3 possible new words, which one will probably never make it : (

blick splunge rlight

sbarm wumple turl

mancer nserht crelurious

inther iwhucr neen

shace fring ngout

John is difficult to love.

It is difficult to love John.

John is anxious to go.

It is anxious to go John.

What he did was climb a tree.

What he thought was want a sports car.

What are you drinking and go home?

Mary was near the stream, was it?

Grammaticality Judgements

Tag Question = element attached at end of utterance;not a true question nor a full declarative statement; a way of asking for confirmation

That was a horrible movie, wasn’t it?

She’s been swimming, ______________?Jeremy wants to go dancing, ______________?You haven’t had any sleep, ______________?The man who was smoking died, ______________?Those friends of Maria’s that we don’t

particularly like didn’t know, ______________?

Tag Question formation rules...But first, background information about

the (dreaded) VERB AUXILIARY Declarative Verb Aux.Jo has eaten well. HAVEJo was bad again. BEJo ran yesterday. DO

GRAMMATICAL TRANSFORMATION

Question Negation Verb Aux. Has Jo eaten well? Jo hasn’t eaten well. HAVE Was Jo bad again? Jo wasn’t bad again. BE Did Jo run yesterday? Jo didn’t run yesterday. DO

Tag question formation rules:1. Copy the auxiliary of the main verb to the

right of the sentence.

2. Make it negative if the original is positive or positive if the original is negative.

3. Add the pronoun that corresponds to thesubject in person, number, and gender.

Bob and Betty were laughing loudly, _____________?That famous surgeon quit, _____________?She’s not leaving already, _____________?

II. Basic Units of Language

A. ~5,000 languagesphonemes morphemes sentences conversations (sounds) & words

B. Phonemes = elementary sounds of speech• phonemes are not letters...

to, too, two, through, threw, shoe, clue, view

• vowel & consonant phonemes

• 11-144 phonemes in any given languageEnglish has ~ 40; Hawaiian has ~16

• combining phonemes is rule-governed

II. Basic Units of Language

C. Morphemes = smallest meaningful unit of lang.

• can be a word, word stem, or affix (prefix, suffix)word: help, loveword stem: spir, ceive, duceprefix/suffix: re-, dis-, un- / -less, -ful, -er

• derivational & inflectional morphemesderivational – change the grammatical class

V + -able = Adj (adorable, believable)V + -er = N (singer, runner)

inflectional – grammatical markersV + -ed = past tense (walked)N + -s = plural (cows)

“free” {

“bound”{

II. Basic Units of Language

C. Words• Content vs. function (open- vs. closed-class) words

Content words = carry the main meaningnouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs

Function words = grammatical wordsarticles (a, the, this), conjunctions (and,but), prepositions (in, above)

Psychological reality of the content-functionword distinction in aphasia selective impairment of content (Wernicke’s) orfunction words (Broca’s aphasia)

• Cattell (1886) & Stroop (1935)

Word superiority effect (Cattell, 1886)

– Reicher (1969); Wheeler (1970)

– tachistoscopic presentation

– more accurate identification of the letter when stimulus is a word

– pseudoword superiorty effect

---dk word

dk d

REDBLUE

BLACK

GREEN

RED

RED

GREENBLACK

BLUE

BLUE

RED

BLACK

BLUE

BLACK

BLUE

GREEN

BLUEGREEN

RED

GREEN

NAME THE COLOUR OF THE INK

II. Basic Units of Language

C. Words• Ambiguity

1 word form, but 2 (or more) word meaningsEx: bank (N-N, “money” vs. “river”) watch (N-V, “clock” vs. “look”) bass (N-N, “guitar” vs. “fish”)

2 word forms, but 1 pronunciationEx: sail/sale, right/write

Generally unaware of ambiguity...even though it is quite pervasiveeven though it affects behaviour (RT, etc)

homographs

homophones

II. Basic Units of Language

D. Sentences• Syntax = the rule-governed system for groupingwords together into phrases and sentences

• Sentences introduce a concept that they are about,the subject (or noun phrase), and then proposesomething about that concept, the predicate(or verb phrase).Ex: “The boy hit the ball.”

doer act done-to (thematic roles)

subject predicate

II. Basic Units of Language

D. Sentences• Same deep structure, different surface structure

“The boy hit the ball.” (active)“The ball was hit by the ball.” (passive)

• Same surface structure, different deep structure [The French bottle]NP [smells.]VP

[The French]NP [bottle smells.]VP

THEY are boring. VISITING THEM is boring.

cf. ambig. figures in perception: 1 form, 2 interpretations

“The French bottle smells.”

“Visiting relatives can be boring.”

Necker cube

New obesity study looks for larger test groupReagan wins on budget, but more lies aheadMan struck by lightening faces battery chargeEnraged Cow Injures Farmer with AxeMilk Drinkers Are Turning to PowderLocal High School Dropouts Cut in HalfBritish Left Waffles on FalklandsDealers Will Hear Car Talk at NoonMiners Refuse to Work after DeathBeating Witness Provides NamesSquad Helps Dog Bite VictimKids Make Nutritious Snacks

Headlines

Stolen Painting Found by TreeProstitutes Appeal to PopeRed Tape Holds up BridgeDeer Kill 17,000Teenage Prostitution Problem is MountingChild Stool Great for Use in GardenShouting Match Ends Teacher’s HearingMan Robs then Kills HimselfLung Cancer in Women MushroomsMondale’s Offensive Looks Hard to BeatTuna Biting off Washington CoastChinese Apeman Dated

Headlines

II. Basic Units of Language

D. Sentences• Syntactic ambiguities

“She hit the boy with the big stick.”

“She hit the boy with the runny nose.”

Interpretation depends on structural preferences(certain constructions used more often,

favoured),as well as the prior discourse context.

III. Word Recognition

How long does it take to recognise a visual word?

– What is meant by “recognition” or “lexical access”?

– Can lexical access be accurately measured?

– What factors affect lexical access and when?

The “magic moment” (Balota, 1990) of lexical access:“At this moment, presumably there is recognition that

the stimulus is a word, and access of other information (such as the meaning of the word, its syntactic class, its sound, and its spelling) would be rapid if not immediate.” (Pollatsek & Rayner, 1990)

III. Word Recognition

• Measures

• Components

• Models

• Eye movements (EMs)

• Event-related potentials (ERPs)

Measures• Standard behavioural techniques

– lexical decision, naming, categorisation; also RSVP, self-paced reading

– priming, masking, lateralised presentation

– Donders (1868): subtractive method• assumes strictly serial stages of processing• additive vs. interactive effects

– automatic vs. strategic (Posner & Snyder, 1975)

unconsciousexogenousbottom-upbenefit

controlledendogenoustop-downcost & benefit

Measures• Eye movements (EMs)

• Neuroimaging– “Electrical”: EEG, MEG, (TMS)

– “Blood flow”: PET, fMRI

MEASURE

Normal reading

TASK

fixation duration (as well aslocation and sequence of EMs)

TIME RES.

GOOD

POOR“blood flow” imaging: fMRI, PET

“electrical” imaging: EEG, MEG

various word tasks

ms-by-ms

seconds

various word tasks

naming

categorisationlexical decision

Standard word recognition paradigms (± priming, ± masking):

RT~500 ms~600 ms~800 ms

~250 ms

Components

• Orthography of language– English vs. Hebrew or Japanese

• Language skill– beginning (novice) vs. skilled (expert) reader

– easy vs. difficult text

Components

• Intraword variables– word-initial bi/tri-grams clown vs. dwarf

– spelling-to-sound regularity hint vs. pint

– neighborhood consistency made vs. gave

– morphemes• prefix vs. pseudoprefix remind vs. relish

• compound vs. pseudocompound cowboy vs. carpet

Components

• Word variables– word length duke vs. fisherman

– word frequency student vs. steward

– AoA dinosaur vs. university

– ambiguity bank vs. edge, brim

– syntactic class open vs. closed; A,N,V

– concreteness tree vs. idea

– affective tone love vs. farm vs. fire

– etc.

Components

• Extraword variables– contextual predictability

The person saw the... moustache.The barber trimmed the...

– syntactic complexity Mary took the book. *Mary took the book was good. Mary knew the book. Mary knew the book was good.*Mary hoped the book. Mary hoped the book was good.

– discourse factors (anaphora, elaborative inferences)He assaulted her with his weapon.... ...knife... stabbed

Models• Dual-route account (Coltheart, 1978)

Direct route(addressed)

phonology

semantics

orthography

Indirect route(assembled)

Models• Dual-route account (Coltheart, 1978)

Direct route(addressed)

phonology

semantics

orthography

Indirect route(assembled)

Deep dyslexia- visual/semantic errors (sympathy -> orchestra)- can’t read nonwords

Models• Dual-route account (Coltheart, 1978)

Direct route(addressed)

phonology

semantics

orthography

Indirect route(assembled)

Surface dyslexia- regularization errors (broad -> brode)- Reg wds,NWs are OK (GPC rules intact)

Models• Interactive (Morton, 1969; Seidenberg & McClelland, 1989)

/m A k/

phonology

meaning

orthography

M A K E

context

Models• Modular (Forster, 1979; Fodor, 1983)

decision output

Lexicalprocessor

Syntacticprocessor

Messageprocessor

GeneralProblemSolver

input features

Models• Hybrid

– 2-stage: generate candidate set selection

– (Becker & Killion; Norris; Potter)