Introduction to the Study of Language 2

Psycholinguistics

Evelien Keizer, SS16

Todays programme

1. Psycholinguistics
1.1 Methods of research in psycholinguistics
1.2 Malfunctions / Slips of the tongue
1.3 Experiments
2. Neurolinguistics
2.1 Methods of research in neurolinguistics
2.2 Experiments
2.3 Malfunctions / Language disorders
3. Language production and comprehension
3.1 Production
3.2 Comprehension
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Psycholinguistics

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What is psycholinguistics?

Study of the structures and processes that underlie a

humans ability to speak and understand language

the study of language and the mind

linking psychology and linguistics
What is psycholinguistics?

Questions addressed in psycholinguistics:

How is language produced, perceived, comprehended,
stored and retrieved?
How is language acquired?
How is linguistic knowledge (meaning, rules) represented
in the mind?
How does it go wrong? Where do speech errors come
from?
In what follows we will concentrate on questions a. and d.
Methods of research in psycholinguistics
Methods of research in psycholinguistics

collect different types of clues in the form of outwardly

observable (linguistic) behaviour empiricism

infer the properties of the complex, unobservable

underlying system
Methods of research in psycholinguistics

Observations in natural settings

Language behaviour & development
Malfunctions
Experiments
Lexical decision tasks
Association tests
Malfunctions

Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon (TOT)

Speaker cannot access a retrievable memory (temporary difficulty in
lexical access)
The words that are triggered are usually similar in meaning or sound to
the target word
Universal phenomenon
Requires medium to maximum amount of information
target word: sextant
search: secant sextet sexton
Can be induced, reveals how lexical access takes place
name the word for a flat-bottomed boat used in Asia
Malfunctions

Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon (TOT)

Speaker cannot access a retrievable memory (temporary difficulty in
lexical access)
The words that are triggered are usually similar in meaning or sound to
the target word
Universal phenomenon
Requires medium to maximum amount of information
target word: sextant
search: secant sextet sexton
Can be induced, reveals how lexical access takes place
name the word for a flat-bottomed boat used in Asia
search: sampoon, sarong, cheyenne, shang pan
Malfunctions

Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon (TOT)

Speaker cannot access a retrievable memory (temporary difficulty in
lexical access)
The words that are triggered are usually similar in meaning or sound to
the target word
Universal phenomenon
Requires medium to maximum amount of information
target word: sextant
search: secant sextet sexton
Can be induced, reveals how lexical access takes place
name the word for a flat-bottomed boat used in Asia
search: sampoon, sarong, cheyenne, shang pan
target word: sampan
Malfunctions

Often partial retrieval of information:

Number of syllables
Initial letter(s) or sound(s)
Stress pattern
Phonological features

Semantic and phonological information processed separately

Phonological representations not unitary
Malfunctions

Slips of the tongue:

Errors which occur involuntarily in spontaneous speech
Generally occur when the overall syntactic structure of the clause or
phrase has been planned
Two major categories:
Assembly errors (spoonerisms, blends)
Selection errors (substitution, exchange of words)
Slips of the tongue

1. Assemblage errors
a. Spoonerisms:
You have wasted the whole term
You have tasted the whole worm
The dear old queen
The queer old dean

b. Blends:
grizzly + ghastly grastly
shout + yell
Slips of the tongue

1. Assemblage errors
a. Spoonerisms:
You have wasted the whole term
You have tasted the whole worm
The dear old queen
The queer old dean

b. Blends:
grizzly + ghastly grastly
shout + yell shell
expect + suppose
Slips of the tongue

1. Assemblage errors
a. Spoonerisms:
You have wasted the whole term
You have tasted the whole worm
The dear old queen
The queer old dean

b. Blends:
grizzly + ghastly grastly
shout + yell shell
expect + suppose expose
Slips of the tongue

2. Selection errors
a. Wrong phoneme:
a phonological rule a phonological fool
a reading list a leading list
b. Wrong word:
turn left (right) at the corner
We need a few laughs to break up the monogamy (monotony)
= malapropism
living orgasms (organisms)
= Freudian slip
Slips of the ear

understood: Gladly the cross-eyed bear

said: Gladly the cross Id bear

understood: great ape

said: gray tape
(but: slight difference in pronunciation)
Experiments

Advantages
More control over variables
Plan and focus the research more exactly

Disadvantages
Artificiality unnatural strategies?
Unknown variables
Provides us with information, but offers no explanation

Variable
Something that varies or is prone to variation.
A quantity capable of assuming any of a set of values.
Experiments

Association tests DAY

Experiments

Association tests DAY

NIGHT 52 0.53
LIGHT 13 0.13
TIME 8 0.08
DREAM 3 0.03
BREAK 2 0.02
LIFE 2 0.02
LONG 2 0.02
NIGH 2 0.02
Experiments

Association tests BLUE

Experiments

Association tests BLUE

SKY 20 0.20 YELLOW 3 0.03

BLACK 10 0.10 EYES 2 0.02
GREEN 10 0.10 ARISTOCRACY 1 0.01
RED 9 0.09
WHITE 5 0.05 AZURE 1 0.01
SEA 4 0.04 BED 1 0.01
COLOUR 3 0.03 BELL 1 0.01
BIRD 1 0.01
Experiments

Association tests RED

Experiments

Association tests RED

BLUE 17 0.18 BALLOON 2 0.02

WHITE 11 0.11 LIGHT 2 0.02
GREEN 8 0.08 ROSE 2 0.02
BLACK 7 0.07
YELLOW 2 0.02
FLAG 4 0.04
COLOUR 3 0.03
Experiments

Semantic relations:
Hypernyms/superordinates (blue colour)
Hyponyms (blue azure)
Co-hyponyms (red blue)
Antonyms (day night)
Collocations (including compounds) (day dream, blue sky)
Connotations (blue aristocracy)
Experiments
Experiments

Lexical decision experiment:

Subjects are presented with a word and are asked to decide if this
word is a real English word
Measuring reaction time
Tells us something about the activation level (accessibility) of
different lexical items
Word-naming task:
Similar, except that subject are asked to pronounce the word that is
presented to them.
Experiments

Lexical decision experiment

Experiments

glove
Experiments
Experiments

blove
Experiments
Experiments

bvole
Experiments
Experiments

glut
Experiments
Experiments

Semantic priming
Same set-up as with the lexical decision experiment, but now
subjects are presented with two words
These words are either semantically related or unrelated
Reaction time measured after subjects are presented with the
second word
e.g:
butter bread
nurse bread
Experiments

Dichotic listening (Yule 2006: 164)

An experimental technique to demonstrate that syllable and word
processing takes place in the left hemisphere (for most people)
Subject is wearing earphones and hears two different sounds
simultaneously (e.g. cat in the left ear, dog in the right ear)
The word heard by the right ear is more often correctly identified
(right ear advantage, REA)
REA found with linguistic input, not with other sounds
Neurolinguistics

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What is neurolinguistics?

Neurolinguistics:
Study of the relationship
between language and the brain
Left/right hemisphere
Motor cortex
Sensory cortex
Paul Broca
Carl Wernicke
Language-related brain areas

1. Broca's area: anterior

speech cortex (production)
2. Wernicke's area: posterior
speech cortex
(comprehension)
3. motor cortex (muscle
movement) face, jaw,
tongue, larynx
4. arcuate fasciculus
(connector between
Wernicke and Broca) left hemisphere
(see Yule 2006: 158)
Methods of research in neurolinguistics

Measuring brain activity

PET scans
fMRI
ERPs
Experiments
Malfunctions (language disorders / Aphasia)
Measuring brain activity

PET
positron emission tomography
uses a computer to monitor the
amount of energy being used by
different areas of the brain
gives a picture of the cerebral
blood flow in the brain (by using
radioactive tracers)
the most active neurons appear
as different colours on the
computer (hot spots and cold
spots)
Measuring brain activity

fMRI
Functional magnetic resonance
imaging
a more powerful, more accurate
and less harmful technology for
measuring changes in brain
activity
a magnetic field is generated
the patients head is exposed to
radio-frequency pulses
the signals emitted from the
tissues are measured; different
energy levels displayed
Measuring brain activity

Where exactly are the words situated/stored in your head?

Method: Functional MRI (fMRI) data collected while subjects listened
to hours of narrative stories.
Result: an interactive map showing which brain areas respond to
hearing different words.
The map reveals how language is spread throughout the cortex and
across both hemispheres, showing groups of words clustered
together by meaning. Provides a powerful and efficient means for
mapping functional representations in the brain.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k61nJkx5aDQ
Alexander G. Huth, Wendy A. de Heer, Thomas L. Griffiths, Frdric E.
Theunissen & Jack L. Gallant (2016). Natural speech reveals the semantic
maps that tile human cerebral cortex. Nature 532, 453458.

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Measuring brain activity

ERPs
Event-related potentials
uses EEG (electroencepha-
lography) to measure electrical
activity of the brain through the
skull and scalp
electrodes are put on the scalp
to measure the electrical
impulses (amount of brain
activity) produced by
communicating brain cells during
language processing (e.g reading
from a screen)
Experiments

ERPs
In actual recording situations, it is difficult to see an ERP
after the presentation of a single stimulus.
A robust ERPs needs many dozens or hundreds of individual
presentations that are averaged together.
One of the most robust features of the ERP response is a
response to unpredictable stimuli:
1. I like my coffee with cream and sugar/dog.
2. The successful woman congratulated herself/himself on the
promotion.
3. The hungry child eat/eats all the sweets.
Experiments

EEG ERPs measure a subjects responses to stimuli; this is

taken to reflect the time needed by the brain to process
information.
In healthy participants the first response of the visual cortex
is around 50-70 msec (the amount of time it takes for the
transduced visual stimulus to reach the cortex after light
first enters the eye).
For unpredictable stimuli the response time is much longer
(300 msec; the P300 or P3 response).
This is understood to reflect a higher cognitive response to
unexpected and/or cognitively salient stimuli.
Experiments
Language disorders

Aphasia:
disorders due to damage
to specific parts of the
brain
can help us to localize
different language abilities
Language disorders

Aphasia (from Greek, aphatos: 'speechless')

an impairment of language function due to localized brain
damage that leads to difficulty in understanding and/or
producing language.
(Yule 2006: 162)
Brocas aphasia

P: Yes ah Monday er Dad and Peter H , and Dad

er hospital and ah Wednesday Wednesday, nine
oclock and oh Thursday ten oclock, ah doctors
two an doctors and er teeth yah

= Non-fluent aphasia
(Goodglass, H. & N. Geschwind. 1976. Language disorders (aphasia). In E.C
Caterette & M.P. Friedman. eds. Handbook of perception: Volume 7. Language and
speech, 389-428).
Brocas aphasia

Non-fluent aphasia:
(extreme) difficulty in producing speech
clear intention to communicate
Characterized by:
difficulty in finding the appropriate words
predominant use of nouns
lack of function words
Brocas aphasia

1. The mouse was chased by the cat.

2. The dog was chased by the cat.
3. The cat was chased by the mouse.

Sentences are interpreted on the basis of world knowledge

alone.
Brocas aphasics also have problems writing.
Wernickes aphasia

E: How are you today, Mrs. A.

P: Yes
E: Have I ever tested you before
P: No. I mean I havent
E: Can you tell me what your name is
P: No, I dont I right Im right now here
E: What is your address
P: I /k/ if I can help these this like you know to make it.
We are seeing for him. That is my father.
= fluent aphasia
Wernickes aphasia

Fluent aphasia:
severe difficulty in speech comprehension
patient unaware of their deficit; no apparent
communicative intent
Characterized by:
relatively fluent speech flow, no long pauses
word order usually syntactically correct
incoherent speech, making little sense
inability to process conversational feedback
Language production and
comprehension

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Production and comprehension

Production

MEANING FORM

Comprehension
Production

Psycholinguistic model (Levelt 1989)

1. Conceptualization

2. Formulation

3. Articulation

4. Self-monitoring
Production

Stage 1: conceptualizing the message

Stage 2: planning the verbal message (selection)
words of rule formation (rules of word formation)
take the left (right) turn at the corner
Stage 3: choosing the syntactic, morphological and
phonological form (assembly)
pig and fat (big and fat)
the Scan is a Sundal sheet (the Sun is a scandal sheet)
Stage 4: correcting oneself
He was so drank {I mean drunk} that he
Comprehension

Top-down processing

Comprehending sentences: garden-pathing
Comprehending words: multiple activation
Comprehending sounds: guesswork

Bottom-up processing
Comprehension experiment

Comprehending sounds
1. It was found that the / _i:l / was on the axle.
2. It was found that the / _i:l / was on the shoe.
3. It was found that the / _i:l / was on the orange.
4. It was found that the / _i:l / was on the table.
Comprehension experiment

Comprehending sounds
1. It was found that the wheel was on the axle.
2. It was found that the heel was on the shoe.
3. It was found that the peel was on the orange.
4. It was found that the meal was on the table.
Comprehending words

1. John was trying to get some bottles down from the top
shelf.
2. To reach them he had to sta
Comprehending sentences

Since Jay always jogs a mile seems like a short distance to him.

garden-path sentence
(to lead sb up the garden path)
Comprehending sentences

More garden-path sentences:

1. Fat people eat accumulates.
2. The cotton clothing is usually made of grows in Mississippi.
3. Until the police arrest the drug dealers control the street.
4. The man who hunts ducks out on weekends.
5. When Fred eats food gets thrown.
6. Mary gave the child the dog bit a bandaid.
Comprehending sentences

More garden-path sentences:

1. Fat (that) people eat accumulates.
2. The cotton (that) clothing is usually made of grows in
Mississippi.
3. Until the police arrest(,) the drug dealers control the street.
4. The man who hunts | ducks out on weekends.
5. When Fred eats, food gets thrown.
6. Mary gave the child (that) the dog bit a bandaid.
Final exam

1. Termin: Friday 30 June

8.00 am (75 minutes)
C1
Consists of
1. Multiple choice: terms and definitions
2. Transcription
3. Application (morphology, semantics, syntax)
Minimum for a pass:
40% score for each part and 60% overall

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Final exam

1. Terms and definitions (multiple choice):

define terms, insert the fitting terms, give examples in the areas
covered: morphology, semantics, syntax, psycholinguistics, general
linguistic principles
2. Transcription:
single words
coherent text: 1x broad (sentence + word stress; weak forms); 1x
narrow (indicate assimilations, /r/ and /l/ allophones, aspiration,
etc.)
3. Applications:
classify examples
analyse words & sentences morphologically, semantically,
syntactically, thematically according to the different types of analysis
introduced in the lecture

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