Chapter 11 Language

Some Questions to Consider How do we understand individual words, and how are words combined to create sentences? How can we understand sentences that have more than one meaning? How do we understand stories? Does language affect the way a person perceives colors?

What Is Language? System of communication using sounds or symbols Express feelings, thoughts, ideas, and experiences

The Creativity of Human Language Hierarchical system –Components that can be combined to form larger units

The Creativity of Human Language Governed by rules –Specific ways components can be arranged

The Universality of Language Deaf children invent sign language All cultures have a language Language development is similar across cultures

The Universality of Language Languages are “unique but the same” –Different words, sounds, and rules –All have nouns, verbs, negatives, questions, past/present tense

Studying Language in Cognitive Psychology B.F. Skinner (1957) Verbal Behavior –Language learned through reinforcement

Studying Language in Cognitive Psychology Noam Chomsky (1957) Syntactic Structures –Human language coded in the genes –Underlying basis of all language is similar

Studying Language in Cognitive Psychology Noam Chomsky (1959) –Children produce sentences they have never heard and that have never been reinforced

Studying Language in Cognitive Psychology Psycholinguistics: discover psychological process by which humans acquire and process language –Comprehension –Speech production –Acquisition

Perceiving and Understanding Words Lexicon: all words a person understands Phoneme: shortest segment of speech that, if changed, changes the meaning of the word

Perceiving and Understanding Words Morphemes: smallest unit of language that has meaning or grammatical function

Perceiving and Understanding Words Phonemic restoration effect –“Fill in” missing phonemes based on context of sentence and portion of word presented

Perceiving and Understanding Words Speech segmentation –Context –Understanding of meaning –Understanding of sound and syntactic rules –Statistical learning

Understanding Words Lexical decision task –Read a list of words and non-words silently –Say “yes” when you read a word

Understanding Words Word frequency effect –Respond more rapidly to high-frequency words

Understanding Words Eye movements while reading –Look at low-frequency words longer

Understanding Words Context effects –Attempt to figure out what a sentence means as we read it

Understanding Words Lexical ambiguity –Words have more than one meaning –Context clears up ambiguity after all meanings of a word have been briefly accessed

Understanding Words Lexical priming –Stimulus activates a representation of the stimulus –Respond more rapidly if activation is still present when stimulus is presented again

Words Alone and in Sentences Components of language are not processed in isolation

Understanding Sentences Semantics: meanings of words and sentences Syntax: rules for combining words into sentences

Understanding Sentences Event-related potential and brain imaging studies have shown syntax and semantics are associated with different mechanisms

Understanding Sentences Parsing: mental grouping of words in a sentence into phrases

Understanding Sentences Syntactic ambiguity: more than one possible structure, more than one meaning

Understanding Sentences Syntax-first approach to parsing –Grammatical structure of sentence determines parsing –Late closure: parser assumes new word is part of the current phrase –Garden-path model

Understanding Sentences Interactionist approach to parsing –Semantics influence processing as one reads a sentence

Understanding Sentences Tannenhaus and coworkers (1995) –Eye movements change when information suggests revision of interpretation of sentence is necessary –Syntactic and semantic information used simultaneously

Caption: (a) One-apple scene similar to the one viewed by Tanenhaus et al.’s (1995) participants; (b) eye movements made while comprehending the task.

Understanding Text and Stories Coherence: representation of the text in one’s mind so that information from one part of the text can be related to information in another part of the text

Understanding Text and Stories Inference: readers create information during reading not explicitly stated in the text

Understanding Text and Stories Anaphoric: connecting objects/people Instrumental: tools or methods Causal: events in one clause caused by events in previous sentence

Understanding Text and Stories Situation model: mental representation of what a text is about –Represent events as if experiencing the situation –Point of view of protagonist

Caption: Stimuli similar to those used in (a) Stanfield and Zwaan’s (2001) “orientation” experiment, and (b) Zwaan et al.’s (2002) “shape” experiment. Participants heard sentences and were then asked to indicate whether the picture was the object mentioned in the sentence.

Caption: Results of Stanfield and Zwaan’s (2001) and Zwaan et al.’s (2002) experiments. Participants responded “yes” more rapidly for the orientation (in a) and the shape (in b) that was more consistent with the sentence.

Understanding Text and Stories Physiology of simulations –Approximately the same areas of the cortex are activated by actual movements and by reading related action words –The activation is more extensive for actual movements

Caption: Hauk et al. (2004) results. Colored areas indicate the area of the brain activated by (a) foot, finger, and tongue movements; (b) leg, arm, and face words.

Producing Language: Conversations Two or more people talking together Dynamic and rapid

Producing Speech: Conversations Semantic coordination –Conversations go more smoothly if participants have shared knowledge

Producing Speech: Conversations Given-new contract: speaker constructs sentences so they include –Given information –New information –New can then become given information

Producing Speech: Conversations Syntactic coordination –Using similar grammatical constructions

Producing Speech: Conversations Syntactic priming –Production of a specific grammatical construction by one person increases chances other person will use that construction –Reduces computational load in conversation

Caption: The Branigan et al. (2000) experiment.

Culture, Language, & Cognition Sapir-Whorf hypothesis: language influences thought

Culture, Language, & Cognition Roberson and coworkers (2000) –Two cultures had differences in how participants assigned names to color chips

Culture, Language, & Cognition Categorical perception –Stimuli in same categories are more difficult to discriminate from one another than stimuli in two different categories

Culture, Language, & Cognition Differences in the way names were assigned to colors affect the ability to tell the difference between colors

Culture, Language, & Cognition Language can affect color perception Limits to the effects of language –Regier and coworkers (2005) Different languages have similar choice for “best” color examples