1. PSY 324 Topic: Language Dr. Ellen Campana Arizona State University
Memory and Cognition
PSY 324
Topic: Language
Dr. Ellen Campana
Arizona State University

2. What is language?
“a system of communication using sounds or symbols that enables us to express our feelings, thoughts, ideas, and experiences”
Human (animals have simpler systems)
Bees signal through “waggle dance”
Chimps have simple calls
Snakes
Eagles
Leopards

3. Essential Properties of Language
Semanticity
Arbitrariness
Flexibility of Symbols
Naming
Displacement
Productivity

4. Productivity of Language (“Creativity” in the text)
Language is hierarchical
Made up of different parts that can be combined
Parts form a hierarchy
Larger and larger units

5. Hierarchical StructureNP VP
Det N V NP
the
mouse
saw
Det N
the
cat

6. Productivity of Language (“Creativity” in the text)
Language is hierarchical
Made up of different parts that can be combined
Parts form a hierarchy
Larger and larger units
Language is governed by rules
Some things are permissible and others are not
OK: What is my cat saying?
NOT OK: Cat my saying is what?

7. Universality of Language
Everyone with normal capacities develops a language and learns its complex rules implicitly
Not talking about prescriptive grammar, but knowledge that produces permissible language
Language occurs in all cultures
Over 5000 different languages
No culture without a language
Even isolated communities have language

8. Universality of Language
Urge to communicate is powerful
Children who are deaf but not exposed to sign develop their own languages (homesign)
Language development consistent across cultures
7 months
First 1 year
Multiword 2 years
All languages are “unique but the same”

9. Unique but the same Languages are unique Languages are the same
Different sounds, words, rules
All different, but sometimes similar
Languages are the same
Have words that serve as nouns / verbs
Have a system to make things negative (e.g. “not”)
Have a way to ask questions
Have a way to refer to past and present
Have a way to refer to things that are not present

10. Study of Language
Wundt wrote about language in 1900 but detailed study started with cognitive revolution
Skinner: Verbal Behavior
People are trained to speak through conditioning
Noam Chomsky
Syntactic Structures described similarities and differences across languages (Zellig Harris work)
Humans are genetically programmed for language
Critique of Verbal Behavior introduced the poverty of the stimulus argument, which shattered behaviorism

11. Poverty of the Stimulus
Behaviorist argument: children learn on the basis of feedback from parents
Child says “cat eat”
Parent corrects with “the cat will eat”
Poverty of the stimulus argument
Children do not get enough feedback to learn
Language requires production of things never heard before
Classic example: “I hate you, Mommy.”

12. Study of Language Disciplines that investigate language
Linguistics: like philosophy + anthropology
Natural Language Processing: computer science / AI
Psycholinguistics: cognitive psychology
Psycholinguistic study of language
Comprehension – how we understand language
Production – how we produce language
Representation – how we represent or code language
Acquisition – how we learn language

13. Language Comprehension

14. Levels of Language Pragmatic Level (use in the real world)
Semantic Level (meaning)
Syntactic Level (sentences)
Lexical Level (words)
Morphological Level (meaningful parts)
Phonological Level (sounds)

15. Understanding Words

16. Comprehension of Words
Lexicon: All of the words a person understands
Often called a “Mental Dictionary”
Adults have over 50,000 different words
Contains meaning, grammatical category, phonemes, and rules about combining with morphemes

17. Comprehension of Words
Phonemes: The sounds of a language
Shortest segment of speech that, if changed, alters the meaning of the word within a language
Not quite the same as our letters, but close
Different languages have different sounds (and therefore different phonemes)
Number of phonemes varies by language
Morphemes: in between words and sounds
Smallest unit with a definable meaning OR grammatical function
Examples: truck, -ed, -s, banana

18. Perceiving Words
Perception of (spoken) words is about how we link the sounds we hear to our lexicon
As in the perception unit, it’s useful to think about top-down and bottom-up processes
Top and bottom determined by levels of language

19. Levels of Language Pragmatic Level (use in the real world)
Semantic Level (meaning)
Syntactic Level (sentences)
Lexical Level (words)
Morphological Level (meaningful parts)
Phonological Level (sounds)

20. Perceiving Words
Perception of (spoken) words is about how we link the sounds we hear to our lexicon
As in the perception unit, it’s useful to think about top-down and bottom-up processes
Top and bottom determined by levels of language
In the book “context” is usually top
HUGE topic, will only be able to give you a bit of an overview

21. Perception of Words
Meaning of a word create a context that helps us actually hear the sounds of the word
Top-down effect on phoneme perception
Phonemic Restoration Effect (Warren, 1970)
Researchers edited coughs into sentences (actually replacing phonemes with the cough, not mixing)
Participants heard sentences, had to say what they heard and where the cough occurred

22. Warren (1970)
Sentence:
The state governors met with their respective legislatures convening in the capital city.
Results:
People couldn’t report where the cough was
People didn’t know the /s/ was missing
Explanation: People seemed to “fill in” missing info based on context provided by sentence (and lexicon)

23. Warren (1970) Sentence: It was time to ave goodbye to the family.
Results:
People couldn’t report where the cough was
People didn’t know the was missing
Explanation: People seemed to “fill in” missing info based on context provided by sentence (and lexicon)
goodbye to the family.
/w/

24. Warren (1970) Sentence: It was time to ave up for a new roof. Results:
People couldn’t report where the cough was
People didn’t know the was missing
Explanation: People seemed to “fill in” missing info based on context provided by sentence (and lexicon)
up for a new roof.
/s/

25. Phonemic Restoration Effect
People use context to “fill in” missing or degraded sound information
Can be context before or after the sound itself
Very quick, people aren’t aware
It is a demonstration of a top-down effect (context effect) on word perception

26. Speech Segmentation Ever notice how…
Language you don’t know – words blend together
Your language – words seem separate
You are using your knowledge of the language to find the word boundaries

27. Meaning and Segmentation
Same signal segments differently in different sentences
Be a big girl and eat your vegetables
The thing Big Earl loved most was his truck
Fun demo: Mad Gab game. For this you need to find a friend to help you.

28. Mad Gab Instructions Take turns with the following roles:
Person A: Close your eyes, listen, and try to figure out what the other person is saying
Person B: Read the slide out loud (you may have to repeat a few times).
Talk about it – Person A will hear something different than what Person B was saying

29. “Mad Gab” demo
Ask
Rude
Arrive
Her

30. “Mad Gab” demo
Eight
Ape
Reek
Quarter

31. “Mad Gab” demo
Amen
Ask
Hurt

32. “Mad Gab” demo
Eye
Mull Of
Mush
Sheen

33. “Mad Gab” demo
I’ve
Hailed
Ink
Lush

34. Mad Gab What was the point of doing this for class?
Meaning affects which phonemes you hear and where the word boundaries are (top-down)
This meaning comes from your previous experience with Language
Based on actual sentences or phrases in English, rather than just words
There are also bottom-up aspects of speech segmentation

35. Transitional Probabilities and Segmentation
Transitional probabilities: the chances that one sound will follow another sound
Sounds “pretty” more likely than “tyba” in English
When we hear “prettybaby” we segment it into the words “pretty” and “baby”
We can learn to do this even if the words are not meaningful, through statistical learning
Tested with 8-month-olds (Saffran&colleagues, 1996)
Still knowledge, just knowledge of the language

36. Statistical Learning Study with 8-month-olds
Training: infants heard a stream of nonsense “words” for two minutes
…bidakupadotigolibutupiropadotibidaku…
No pauses, random order, flat intonation
Testing: infants chose how long to listen to test stimuli by turning their heads
Whole word: padoti…padoti…padoti
Part word: libutu…libutu…libutu
Infants could tell which one (preferred part)

37. Perceiving Letters
So far we’ve been talking about understanding the sounds in spoken language.
Top-down and bottom-up effects
Understanding written letters is similar
Visual perception of the letters themselves is both top-down and bottom-up (from chapter 3)
Word superiority effect shows that words affect processing of letters (top-down)

38. Perception of Letters

39. Word Superiority Effect
Coglab / Example in the book….
Stimuli: word (FORK), nonword (RFOK), or letter (K), followed by a target & distractor
Task: choose the target
Finding: People are more accurate and faster at picking the target when the stimulus is a word, compared to when it is *alone* or part of a nonword

40. Word Superiority Effect
What’s the point of this study?
Demonstrates that the top-down context (the word) helps with processing
There’s a model of this that my help you visualize this.
Picture “spreading activation” going from bottom to top and then back down
Only some features are shown – the model would be complete
If this doesn’t help, it’s OK! (not on exam)

41. Interactive Activation Model
ROOF
FORK
Word Level F K O R
Letter Level
Feature Level K
Stimulus

42. Understanding Words

43. Word Frequency Effect
We respond more quickly to high frequency words (home vs. hike).
Supported with lexical decision studies
Task = word or nonword
Findings = faster to say a high-frequency word is a word than to say a low-frequency word is a word
Supported by faster reading times
Eye movements
Overall reading times (story with pretty vs. demure)

44. Lexical Ambiguity Same word has different meanings
“Bugs” = insects OR recording devices
“Bank” = river bank OR financial institution
When reading, both meanings are accessed right away, but then context overrides one of them
Shown with lexical priming at “bug” in a story
Simultaneous presentation: “spy” / “ant” equally fast
200 ms delay: context-specific meaning faster

45. Understanding Sentences

46. Levels of Language Pragmatic Level (use in the real world)
Semantic Level (meaning)
Syntactic Level (sentences)
Lexical Level (words)
Morphological Level (meaningful parts)
Phonological Level (sounds)

47. Syntax vs. Semantics Meaning / Semantics Form / Syntax
Semantic violation: “The cats won’t bake.”
It’s English but it doesn’t seem meaningful
Form / Syntax
Syntactic violation: “Cat bird the chased.”
You can guess what it might mean, but it doesn’t follow the rules of English
Recall discussion from Chapter 2 – different brain areas for these two levels of language

48. Parsing Most of the time language is successful
No syntactic or semantic violations
Syntax and semantics work together
Meaning of whole sentence depends on syntax
How words are grouped together, or parsed, can have a major effect
Example: Ambiguous sentences
Example: Garden Path sentences

49. Ambiguous Sentences
Ambiguous means that it has more than one interpretation
We saw ambiguous man-rat pictures in the perception chapter
Some sentence ambiguities depend on structure
Example: “I saw the spy with the telescope”
Option 1: Phrase “with the telescope” is grouped with “spy”
Option 2: Phrase “with the telescope” is grouped with “saw”

50. Ambiguity ACME TELESCOPE SPEAKER JOHN
“I saw the spy with the telescope.”

51. Ambiguity ACME TELESCOPE SPEAKER JOHN
“I saw the spy with the telescope.”

52. Ambiguity ACME TELESCOPE SPEAKER JOHN
“I saw the spy with the telescope.”

53. Temporary Ambiguity
In the spy example we never really know which parse is the right one (it remains ambiguous) but for others the structure becomes clear over time
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

54. Garden Path Sentences
We process language as it unfolds (sound by sound, word by word)
Part of this involves parsing (grouping words)
Sometimes we have to revise these groupings as we get new information
Feels very confusing!

55. Garden Path Sentences The The man who whistles tunes pianos. The man
Read this and pay attention to how confusing it feels:
You were likely confused when you got the word “pianos”
First parse: “tunes” grouped with “whistles”
Revised parse: “tunes” grouped with “pianos”
The
The man who whistles tunes pianos.
The man
The man who whistles
The man who whistles tunes
The man who

56. Approaches to Parsing
Syntax-first Approaches – parsing is based on syntax and later compared with semantics
Late Closure
Attach to current constituent if possible
Minimal Attachment (not in our book)
Group words in the simplest way
Interactionist Approaches – parsing is based on interactions between syntax and semantics
Meaning affects parse from the earliest moments

57. We never ever think of this one!
(as in: I saw wood with the bandsaw)
SPEAKER
ACME
TELESCOPE
JOHN
“I saw the man with the telescope.”

58. Evidence for Interactionist Approach to Parsing
Lexical Semantics
Man with binoculars vs bird with binoculars
Meaning of the first word (man/bird) affects parses
Pragmatics / Environment
Tanenhaus et al studies

59. Head-Mounted Eye Tracker
Like looking into someone’s thoughts
As they happen, in a real environment!
Intro to NLP - J. Eisner

60. Videotape From Mike Tanenhaus’s lab – University of Rochester
slide courtesy of M. Tanenhaus (modified)
Videotape
From Mike Tanenhaus’s lab – University of Rochester
Eye camera
Scene camera
Intro to NLP - J. Eisner

61. PP Attachment Ambiguity
slide courtesy of M. Tanenhaus (modified)
PP Attachment Ambiguity
Put the apple on the towel in the box.
Only one apple  Garden Path
Put the apple on the towel in the box.
Two apples  use PP to clarify which apple, no garden path
Intro to NLP - J. Eisner

62. One referent context garden path oops! backtrack
slide courtesy of M. Tanenhaus
One referent context
garden path
oops!
backtrack

63. slide courtesy of M. Tanenhaus
One referent context

64. Two-referent context amazing lack of oops
slide courtesy of M. Tanenhaus
Two-referent context
amazing
lack of
oops

65. Tanenhaus Study
What????
If there are two apples, people don’t get confused because “on the towel” is needed to distinguish between the two apples -- this means that only one possible parse makes sense
If there is only one apple, people are confused because both parses are OK, but the one that groups “on the towel” with “put” is more natural.
Garden path effect

66. Understanding Text and Stories

67. Constructive Nature of Language
In previous chapters we’ve discussed cases where we construct aspects of experience
Top-down aspects of vision
Gestalt processes
Scripts / Schemas
Memory
Eyewitness Testimony
Language understanding is constructive too!
Construction = “inference”

68. Inferences Anaphoric inference Instrument inference Causal inference
What do “he” / “she” / “it” / “they” mean in context?
Which cat is “the orange cat” or “my favorite cat”?
Instrument inference
Was an instrument used to perform an action?
Use our scripts to make these inferences
Causal inference
Are sentences linked by causal relationships?

69. Situation Models
We imagine the details of situations we read about using our knowledge of the world
Scripts, schemas, inference
Visual imagery, spatial relationships
Simulations (like imagery but including other sense, and actions)
Studies demonstrating these
Eagles and nails
Vampire TV show

70. Physiology of Situation Models
When reading
Areas of the brain related to performing an action are active when reading about the action
Areas of the brain involved in sensing (visual, auditory, smell, etc.) are active when reading about sensed environments
Distributed Activity
Reading involves the whole brain
Changes of different types associated with different areas

71. Producing Language
Conversations

72. Language Production in General
How do people understand each other in conversations?
Conversations involve simultaneous language comprehension and production
Each of these is an incredibly complex topic, so the book can only give a little taste of the area
Coordination – staying “on the same page”
Semantic Coordination
Syntactic Coordination

73. Semantic Coordination
Recall that language is constructive
Anaphoric inferences allow us to link referring expressions (i/we/ they / the beer) to objects in the real world
Speakers and listeners need to coordinate to make sure they are always making the same inferences
Example: Given / New contract
Definite noun phrases (“the x”) refer to previously introduced objects
Followed by both speakers and listeners

74. Syntactic Coordination
Ambiguity can make it harder to communicate quickly (e.g. garden path sentences)
Speakers and listeners coordinate syntax to reduce ambiguity
Example: Syntactic priming… I say “Sue gave the boy the ball” you say “Sally gave the girl the bat” (same syntax) not “Sally gave the bat to the girl”
Often syntactic coordination (including priming) happens automatically and unconsciously

75. Culture, Language and Cognition

76. The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
Basic idea: The language people use affects the way they perceive the world around them
Example: color terms in a language determine how well we can discriminate (i.e. tell the difference between) different colors
Also: Objects, numbers, space, mathematical concepts
Left vs right brains process concepts differently (left more likely to show Sapir-Whorf patterns

77. THE END
This chapter just scratches the surface of the exciting world of language, but I may be biased because that’s what I do…..
If you are interested in language as a topic and would like to become involved in this kind of research, get in touch with me
PGS 399 credit
PGS 499 credit
Honors thesis credit