PSY 369: Psycholinguistics Language Production: Models cont.

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

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

as well as “downwards” information Interactive because information flows “upwards” Dell (1986)

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

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 Evidence for Dell’s model

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 Sounds can only feed back to words (non-words not represented) so only words can feedback to sound level Dell’s explanation

Why might interaction occur? Can’t exist just to produce errors! So what is feedback for? Perhaps because the same network is used in comprehension So feedback would be the normal comprehension route Alternatively, it simply serves to increase fluency in lemma selection advantageous to select a lemma whose phonological form is easy to find

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

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

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)

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) (also no-word control, always fast) Evidence for interactivity peach

Results Damian & Martin (1999) early semantic inhibition

Results Damian & Martin (1999) late phonological facilitation (0 and ms) early semantic inhibition

Results Damian & Martin (1999) late phonological facilitation (0 and ms) Shows overlap, unlike Schriefers et al. early semantic inhibition

Cutting and Ferreira (1999) Picture-Word interference The critical difference: Used homophone pictures Related distractors could be to the depicted meaning or alternative meaning “game” “dance” “hammer” (unrelated) Only tested -150 SOA Evidence for interactivity dance

ball BALL (X) ball /ball/ Evidence against interactivity DANCE (X) dance GAME (X) game Cascading Prediction:danceball/ball/ Cutting and Ferreira (1999)

Results Early semantic inhibition Cutting and Ferreira (1999)

Results Early Facilitation from a phonologically mediated distractor Early semantic inhibition Cutting and Ferreira (1999) Evidence of cascading information flow (both semantic and phonological information at early SOA)

Peterson & Savoy Slightly different task Prepare to name the picture If “?” comes up name it Evidence for interactivity ?

Peterson & Savoy Slightly different task Prepare to name the picture If “?” comes up name it If a word comes up instead, name the word Evidence for interactivity liar Manipulate Word/picture relationship SOA

Peterson & Savoy Used pictures with two synonymous names Evidence for interactivity Used words that were phonologically related to the non dominant name of the picture sofacouch Dominantsubordinate soda

Peterson & Savoy Found evidence for phonological activation of near synonyms: Participants slower to say distractor soda than unrelated distractor when naming couch Soda is related to non-selected sofa Remember that Levelt et al. assume that only one lemma can be selected and hence activate a phonological form Levelt et al’s explanation: Could be erroneous selection of two lemmas? Evidence for interactivity

Summary These the findings appears to contradict the “discrete two-step” account of Levelt et al. Evidence for interactivity

Can the two-stage account be saved? Evidence for interaction is hard to reconcile with the Levelt account However, most attempts are likely to revolve around the monitor Basically, people sometimes notice a problem and screen it out Levelt argues that evidence for interaction really involves “special cases”, not directly related to normal processing

Levelt et al.’s theory of word production: Strictly modular lexical access Syntactic processing precedes phonological processing Dell’s interactive account: Interaction between syntactic and phonological processing Experimental evidence is equivocal, but increasing evidence that more than one lemma may activate associated word-form Overall summary