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 expressed in a limitless # of ways. Structured – sounds are combined into words, and words into sentences according to rules (i.e., grammar). ] hierarchical

I. Introduction to Psycholinguistics A. Properties of language Meaningful – ideas are conveyed by individual words and how they are organised into sentences. Referential – it refers to and describes things and events in 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 language phonetics, syntax, semantics, cross-language comparisons, language universals Psycholinguistics = processing of language understanding the mechanisms of language behavior e.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 language Linguistic 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 knows Implicit 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 : ( blicksplungerlight sbarmwumpleturl mancernserhtcrelurious intheriwhucrneen shacefringngout

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. HAVE Jo was bad again. BE Jo 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 the subject 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 languages phonemes  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 phonemes in any given language English 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, love word stem:spir, ceive, duce prefix/suffix:re-, dis-, un- / -less, -ful, -er derivational & inflectional morphemes derivational – change the grammatical class V + -able = Adj (adorable, believable) V + -er= N (singer, runner) inflectional – grammatical markers V + -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 meaning nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs Function words = grammatical words articles (a, the, this), conjunctions (and, but), prepositions (in, above) Psychological reality of the content-function word distinction in aphasia  selective impairment of content (Wernicke’s) or function 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 --- dkdk word  dkdk d 

RED BLUE BLACK GREEN RED GREEN BLACK BLUE RED BLACK BLUE BLACK BLUE GREEN BLUE GREEN RED GREEN NAME THE COLOUR OF THE INK

II. Basic Units of Language C. Words Ambiguity 1 word form, but 2 (or more) word meanings Ex: bank (N-N, “money” vs. “river”) watch(N-V, “clock” vs. “look”) bass (N-N, “guitar” vs. “fish”) 2 word forms, but 1 pronunciation Ex: sail/sale, right/write Generally unaware of ambiguity... even though it is quite pervasive even though it affects behaviour (RT, etc) homographs homophones

II. Basic Units of Language D. Sentences Syntax = the rule-governed system for grouping words together into phrases and sentences Sentences introduce a concept that they are about, the subject (or noun phrase), and then propose something 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

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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 –automaticvs. strategic (Posner & Snyder, 1975) unconscious exogenous bottom-up benefit controlled endogenous top-down cost & benefit

Measures Eye movements (EMs) Neuroimaging –“Electrical”: EEG, MEG, (TMS) –“Blood flow”: PET, fMRI

MEASURE Normal reading TASK fixation duration (as well as location 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 categorisation lexical 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-gramsclown vs. dwarf –spelling-to-sound regularityhint vs. pint –neighborhood consistencymade vs. gave –morphemes prefix vs. pseudoprefixremind vs. relish compound vs. pseudocompoundcowboy vs. carpet

Components Word variables –word lengthduke vs. fisherman –word frequencystudent vs. steward –AoAdinosaur vs. university –ambiguitybank vs. edge, brim –syntactic classopen vs. closed; A,N,V –concretenesstree vs. idea –affective tonelove 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) phonologysemanticsorthography Indirect route (assembled)

Models Dual-route account (Coltheart, 1978) Direct route (addressed) phonologysemanticsorthography Indirect route (assembled) Deep dyslexia - visual/semantic errors (sympathy -> orchestra) - can’t read nonwords

Models Dual-route account (Coltheart, 1978) Direct route (addressed) phonologysemanticsorthography 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 meaningorthography M A K E context

Models Modular (Forster, 1979; Fodor, 1983) decision output Lexical processor Syntactic processor Message processor General Problem Solver input features

Models Hybrid –2-stage: generate candidate set  selection –(Becker & Killion; Norris; Potter)