2. PSY 369: Psycholinguistics Lexical selection

3. Lexical access How do we retrieve the linguistic information from Long-term memory? What factors are involved in retrieving information from the lexicon? Models of lexical retrieval

4. Recognizing a word cat dog cap wolf tree yarn cat claw fur hat Search for a match cat Input

5. Recognizing a word cat dog cap wolf tree yarn cat claw fur hat Search for a match cat Input

6. Recognizing a word cat dog cap wolf tree yarn cat claw fur hat Search for a match Select word cat Retrieve lexical information Cat noun Animal, pet, Meows, furry, Purrs, etc. cat Input

7. Lexical access Factors affecting lexical access Frequency Semantic priming Role of prior context Phonological structure Morphological structure Lexical ambiguity

8. Word frequency Gambastya Revery Voitle Chard Wefe Cratily Decoy Puldow Raflot Mulvow Governor Bless Tuglety Gare Relief Ruftily History Pindle Lexical Decision Task: Oriole Vuluble Chalt Awry Signet Trave Crock Cryptic Ewe Develop Gardot Busy Effort Garvola Match Sard Pleasant Coin

9. Word frequency Gambastya Revery Voitle Chard Wefe Cratily Decoy Puldow Raflot Mulvow Governor Bless Tuglety Gare Relief Ruftily History Pindle Lexical Decision Task: Lexical Decision is dependent on word frequency Oriole Vuluble Chalt Awry Signet Trave Crock Cryptic Ewe Develop Gardot Busy Effort Garvola Match Sard Pleasant Coin Low frequencyHigh(er) frequency

10. Word frequency The kite fell on the dog Eyemovement studies:

11. Word frequency The kite fell on the dog Eyemovement studies:

12. Word frequency The kite fell on the dog Eyemovement studies:

13. Word frequency The kite fell on the dog Eyemovement studies: Subjects spend about 80 msecs longer fixating on low- frequency words than high- frequency words

14. Semantic priming Meyer & Schvaneveldt (1971) Lexical Decision Task PrimeTargetTime Nurse Butter940 msecs BreadButter855 msecs Evidence that associative relations influence lexical access

15. Role of prior context Listen to short paragraph. At some point during the Paragraph a string of letters will appear on the screen. Decide if it is an English word or not. Say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ as quickly as you can.

16. Role of prior context ant

17. Role of prior context Swinney (1979) Hear: “Rumor had it that, for years, the government bulding has been plagued with problems. The man was not surprised when he found several spiders, roaches and other bugs in the corner of his room.” Lexical Decision task Context related:ant Context inappropriate:spy Context unrelatedsew Results and conclusions Within 400 msecs of hearing "bugs", both ant and spy are primed After 700 msecs, only ant is primed

18. Lexical ambiguity Hogaboam and Pefetti (1975) Words can have multiple interpretations The role of frequency of meaning Task, is the last word ambiguous? The jealous husband read the letter (dominant meaning) The antique typewriter was missing a letter (subordinate meaning) Participants are faster on the second sentence.

19. Morphological structure Snodgrass and Jarvell (1972) Do we strip off the prefixes and suffixes of a word for lexical access? Lexical Decision Task: Response times greater for affixed words than words without affixes Evidence suggests that there is a stage where prefixes are stripped.

20. Models of lexical access Serial comparison models Search model (Forster, 1976, 1979, 1987, 1989) Parallel comparison models Logogen model (Morton, 1969) Cohort model (Marslen-Wilson, 1987, 1990)

21. Logogen model (Morton 1969) Auditory stimuli Visual stimuli Auditory analysis Visual analysis Logogen system Output buffer Context system Responses Available Responses Semantic Attributes

22. Logogen model The lexical entry for each word comes with a logogen The lexical entry only becomes available once the logogen ‘fires’ When does a logogen fire? When you read/hear the word

23. Think of a logogen as being like a ‘strength-o-meter’ at a fairground When the bell rings, the logogen has ‘fired’

24. ‘cat’ [kæt] What makes the logogen fire? – seeing/hearing the word What happens once the logogen has fired? – access to lexical entry!

25. – High frequency words have a lower threshold for firing –e.g., cat vs. cot ‘cat’ [kæt] So how does this help us to explain the frequency effect? ‘cot’ [kot] Low freq takes longer

26. Spreading activation from doctor lowers the threshold for nurse to fire – So nurse take less time to fire ‘nurse’ [n ə :s] ‘doctor’ [dokt ə ] nurse doctor Spreading activation network doctornurse

27. Search model Entries in order of Decreasing frequency Visual input cat Auditory input /kat/ Access codes Pointers matcatmouse Mental lexicon

28. Cohort model Specifically for auditory word recognition Speakers can recognize a word very rapidly Usually within 200-250 msec Recognition point (uniqueness point) - point at which a word is unambiguously different from other words and can be recognized Three stages of word recognition 1) activate a set of possible candidates 2) narrow the search to one candidate 3) integrate single candidate into semantic and syntactic context

29. Cohort model Prior context: “I took the car for a …” /s//sp//spi//spin/ … soap spinach psychologist spin spit sun spank … spinach spin spit spank … spinach spin spit … spin time

30. There are other models out there (TRACE, FLMP, various connectionist models, and more) The models have there advantages and disadvantages