1. ENG2003
Psycholinguistics

2. Language and the Brain: Fields of Research
Neurolinguistics – The study of how language is realized in the brain
clinical research: aphasias
behavioural and neuroimaging techniques, cortical stimulation
Psycholinguistics – The study of how the mind processes language
behavioural and (recently) neuroimaging techniques
Biolinguistics – The study of biological aspects of language
includes genetics, language universals, correlates of language across species
Neuro: clinical – aphasias
Psycho: experiments – behavioural and now neuroimaging techniques.
Bio: FoxP2, etc.

3. Psycholinguistics
- the study of how the mind processes language
- tied closely to language performance.
Competence – The mental capacity to use and understand language
Performance – The execution of competence in any real-world situation
Performance includes speech errors, ambiguity resolution based on pragmatics, word/vocabulary recall, etc.
Language is not a stored array of fully formed sentences…
How does the mind (brain?) form utterances?
How is vocabulary stored in the mind?
What goes on in the mind when we try to process a garden path sentence?
The horse raced past the barn fell
The cotton clothing is made of comes mostly from India.

4. Garden Path Sentences
The horse raced past the barn fell
1st parse: The horse raced past the barn fell
S V PP ???
2nd parse The horse raced past the barn fell
[S RC ] V
=The horse that was raced past the barn fell
The old man the boat.
1st parse: The old man the boat.
Det Adj N another noun???
2nd parse The old man the boat.
S V O

5. Garden Path Sentences in Korean
철수가 소년을 힘들게 찾은 공원에 있었다.
그네가 소년을 힘들게 찾은 공원에 있었다.
Processing time for first sentence is slower
어머니가 예쁜 막내딸에게 삼촌이 사준 차를 좋아했다.
어머니가 예쁜 막내딸에게 삼촌이 사준 차를 물려주었다.
Where is the dative argument attached?

6. Processing
How is a sentence processed? as a whole? is it broken down? how?
Top-down processing: Start with the meaning and syntactic structure, and break the sentence down into smaller, manageable pieces.
Upon hearing, “the tall…” the hearer expects a noun.
Bottom-up processing: Start with the sounds, and piece them together into meaningful units.
It is believed both strategies are involved in real life processing
Top-down – full sentences heard in the presence of noise are easier to understand than individual words…thus we get clues from the structure and not just the sounds.

7. Processing – Speech Perception
Sounds are processed incrementally, and then filled in.
Vague signals can give rise to ambiguous interpretations by the mind.
Is the following YANNY or LAUREL?
Watch the next video and concentrate on the word BRAINSTORM
Now watch the next one and concentrate on the phrase GREEN NEEDLE

8. Lexical Access – Word Recognition
Lexical Decision Task
very early psycholinguistic experiment – ask the test subject to determine whether something is a word or not.
response time – time it takes for a correct answer…try the following…just shout out ‘yes’ or ‘no’
dog
house
ftork
explorer
terse
child
cluff
blick
dancer
ballerina

9. Lexical Access – Word Recognition
More common words have a faster reaction time.
Semantic Priming - A lexical item is ‘primed’ by a previous semantically related word
‘ballerina’ has a slightly longer reaction time
If ‘dancer’ is presented, this primes ‘ballerina’, which will then have a faster reaction time.
[More recent neurolinguistic research can break down lexical access into smaller stages  semantic priming is more complex than these earlier experiments suggested.]

10. Lexical Access – Word Recognition
Reaction time is faster for phonotactically impossible words (ftork)
…slower for phonotactically possible words (cluff)
Lexically ambiguous words also prime other meanings:
The fortune teller read the man’s palm.
‘palm’ primes ‘hand’ and ‘tree’

11. calf
leg

12. Lexical Access – Semantic Priming
“Calf” is ambiguous (종아리/송아지)
Is there a priming effect with either “leg” or “cow”?
To calculate priming effect:
Present “leg” for ms
Present “calf” for 2000 ms
Test subject gives response A
Present “cow” for ms
Test subject gives response B
Difference in response time (response latency) is the difference in the priming effect of “leg” and “horse” to calf.

13. Syntactic Processing
How does the brain put words into phrases and then into sentences?
Parsing
The warehouse fires…
…were set by an arsonist.
…employees over sixty.
Eye-tracking experiments reveal that people look back at those parts of the sentence where ambiguity arises.

14. Syntactic Processing
minimal attachment – attach a new phrase in such a way that minimizes structure
late closure –attach a new phrase to the phrase currently being worked on
The horse raced past the barn…
It is easier to parse ‘raced’ as a verb with ‘the horse’ as its subject.
John said that Mary was fired yesterday.
It is easier to attach ‘yesterday’ to the lower clause.
어머니가 예쁜 막내딸에게 삼촌이 사준 차를 좋아했다.
어머니가 예쁜 막내딸에게 삼촌이 사준 차를 물려주었다.
Where is the dative argument attached?

15. Experimental Psycholinguistics
-investigate how language is processed in the mind
Event Related Potential
Electrophysiological response to a stimulus
Many linguistic stimuli cause a negative spike in activity 400 ms after the stimulus – called N400.
We are eating a pizza – no N400
We are drinking a pizza – N400 spike

16. Experimental Psycholinguistics
Event Related Potential
The pizza was too hot to eat.
The pizza was too hot to drink.
The pizza was too hot to cry.

17. Experimental Psycholinguistics
Experimental Pragmatics
used to identify implicatures
scalar implicatures absent in children – quantifiers understood semantically without pragmatic implicature
Some of the dogs are eating.  okay if all of the dogs are eating.
Only some of the dogs are eating.  There must be at least one dog not eating.
Some of the dogs are eating. (implicates) Only some of the dogs are eating.

18. True or false?
The dog is eating.

19. True or false?
All the dogs are eating.

20. True or false?
Some of the dogs are eating.

21. True or false?
Some of the dogs are eating.

22. Experimental Psycholinguistics
Experimental Pragmatics
Adults tend to answer as though the scalar implicature were necesssarily true.
Children tend to answer logically, ignoring the scalar implicature.