PS: Introduction to Psycholinguistics Winter Term 2005/06 Instructor: Daniel Wiechmann Office hours: Mon 2-3 pm Phone: Web:

Session 2: Before we start  Files currently in digital library: Power Point presentations (PPT): Session 1 Spreadsheets (XLS): syllabus experimental design BitMaps Project presentation order Student recap order PDFs Readme How to read a scientific term paper Links Stroop effect PPT viewer download

Session 2: Perception  “The term ‘perception’ refers to the means by which information acquired via the sense organs is transformed into experiences of objects, events, sounds, tastes, etc.” (Roth, 1986)

Session 2: perception/perceptual segregation/Gestalt school  perceptual segregation -> our ability to work out which part of the visual information presented to us belong together and thus form seperate objects  Gestalt psychology (group of German researchers in 1930ies) Max Wertheimer ( ) Kurt Koffka ( )

Session 2: perception/vision/Gestalt psychology

Session 2: perception/visual/illusion/figure-ground switch

Session 2: Perception/visual/illusion/Müller-Lyer u.ac.jp/~illusion/gallery/NVEG/on_off/MullerLyer01_e.html

Session 2: perception/vision/2D to 3D/human eye

Session 2 perception/vision/bottom up-top down du/~cguo/primal_sk etch.htm Gestalt principles property extraction depth and size perception contextual integration

Session 2 perception/auditory/language

Session 2 perception/vision/  Perception can be viewed as an active and constructive process (constructivist view)  It is „something more than the direct registration of sensation“  „Other events intervene between stimulation and experience“ (Gordon, 1989

Session 2 perception/vision/  Perception is not directly given by the stimulus input, but occurs as the end-product of the interaction of the presented stimulus and existent knowledge  Perception is influenced by hypotheses and expectations that are sometimes incorrect, and so it is sometimes prone to error“

Session 2 perception/vision/bottom up-top down  Stimulus- (or data-) driven processing has been termed “bottom up-processing”  Expectation driven processing has been termed “top down” processing  Perception involves both types of processing

Session 2 perception/vision/bottom up-top down

Session 2: Psychology and language 1957 “Verbal behavior”: - each act of speech is an inevitable consequence of the speaker's current environment and his behavioral and sensory history -derived mentalistic terms such as "idea", "plan" and "concept" as unscientific and of no use in the study of behavior B.F Skinner conducted pioneering work in experimental psychology - leader of behaviorist psychology, which seeks to understand behavior as a function of environmental histories of reinforcement - language is a form of behavior

Session 2: Cognitive revolution: Noam Chomsky (1928-)  Chomsky‘s questions: How powerful must human language be? cf. Chomsky hierarchy How should it be described? cf. Principles and Parameters (P&P) 1959 Review of Skinner Verbal Behavior - paved the way for the revolution against behaviorist doctrine - language acquisition could not be explained with the resources of the classical theory of conditioning - it requires the positing of innate representational structures governed by rules (Universal Grammar)

Session 2: Describing language: Chomsky  Chomsky has argued that human beings have a „genetically endowed language faculty“  The language faculty must be such as to allow the child to acquire the grammar of any natural language on the basis of suitable experience of the language  The defining characteristics of this faculty are described by a set of principles of Universal Grammar (UG)

Some preliminaries: Knowing a language Phenomenon 1: (s) All the passengers on the plane would rather listen to Abbott and Costello than watch another crummy movie. Phenomenon 2: (s 1 ) Sara is a graduate student. (s 2 ) William believes that Sara is a graduate student. (s 3 ) Peter said that William believes that Sara is a graduate student. (s 4 ) Mary remarked that Peter said that William believes that Sara is a graduate student. [s 1,..., s n ]

Some preliminaries: Knowing a language From this it follows that a speaker (S) cannot have simply memorized the complete set of sentences of a language (L). (=the knowledge of L cannot be characterized as a list of sentences) As a working hypothesis, we will say that this knowledge is better conceived of as consisting of a finite set of rules and principles (mental grammar) applied to a finite set of lexical items (mental lexicon).

Session 2: Describing language: P&P  Principles and parameters theory (cf., e.g. Chomsky 1981) assumes: there are universal principles common to all languages (“blueprint of language“) cross linguistic differences arise from differences in parameter-settings

Session 2: P&P: Principles...  Example principle: Structure dependence principle: All grammatical operations are structure dependent. e.g. question formation rule in English (yes/no - questions)

Session 2: On structure dependency Mininmal assumption: No structure dependency Declarative: John can lift 500 pounds Interrogative: Can John lift 500 pounds? QR: Move item 2 to initial position Now, consider: - Many linguists are thought to be odd. - The people who are standing there will leave soon.

Session 2: On structure dependency To form a (bipolar) question from a declarative sentence, locate the first auxiliary verb that follows the subject of the sentence and place it immediately to the left of the subject.

Session 2: P&P:... and Parameters  Example for differences in parameter-setting: Null subject parameter (PRO-drop) Some languages require an overt subject, whereas others do not  It is raining.  I like trees.  _ like trees (PRO drop).

Session 2: P&P:... and Parameters  Example for differences in parameter-setting: Wh-parameter Some languages “move” their Wh-elements to sentence initial position, whereas others leave them in situ (no movement)  Peter likes [ice-cream].  Peter likes [what] (=substitution with wh-element)  What does Peter like trace ____

Session 2: P&P:... and Parameters  Example for differences in parameter-setting: Head (position) parameter In some languages, heads (N,V,A,P) precede their complements; in others it is the other way round

Session 2: Describing language: X-bar theory  X-bar (X’) syntax XP -> (YP) X’ [Specifier X-bar projection] X’ -> X (ZP) [HEAD, COMPLEMENT]

Session 2: Automata theory Automata are abstract mathematical models of machines that perform computations on an input by moving through a series of states or configurations

Session 2: Automata theory  Grammar, by definition, is a device that can generate all and only the grammatical sentences of a given language (L)  Each Grammar corresponds to particular type of automaton  Grammars/automata can be arranged in terms of complexity/power (-> Chomsky hierarchy)

Session 2: Languages and automata

Session 2: Automata theory: Final state devices  A finite-state device moves from one state to another depending on ist current state and current input (-> produces type 3 language)

Session 2: Automata theory: Final state devices

Session 2: Automata theory: Pushdown (Keller) automaton  has a memory (limited capacity) Push-down stack (only last item in memory can be retrieved)  capable of producing type 2 grammars that can parse context free languages

Session 2: Automata theory: linear bounded automaton  has a limited memory but can retrieve anything from memory  capable of producing type 1 grammars

Session 2: Automata theory: Turing machine  has no limitations  capable of producing type 0 grammars

Session 2: Automata theory: Turing machine Alan Turing ( ) the father of modern computer science and „inventor“ of the Turing machine /turing

Session 2: Automata theory: Turing machine  Chomsky argued that it is necessary to add transformations to a phrase structure grammar (PSG)  Resulting in a type 0 grammar  That is to say: natural language can only be produced by the most powerful kind of grammar