PSY 369 Psycholinguistics Language Comprehension Meaning beyond the

PSY 369: Psycholinguistics Language Comprehension: Meaning beyond the word

Announcements n Exam 3 on Thursday n n Chapters 6, 9, 10, 11, 12 Quiz on chapters 10, 11, 12 due on April 17 th (but a good idea to use it to help study for Thursday’s exam)

Effects of Genre n Not all kinds of discourse follow the same structure n Different effects, purposes, etc. n Narrative discourse n n Expository discourse n n n Tell a story: Introduce characters & settings, establish a goal, etc. Convey info about a subject (e. g. , textbook, lecture) APA style Newspaper articles

Narrative structure Once there was a woman. She saw a tiger’s cave. She wanted a tiger’s whisker. She put food in front of the cave. The tiger came out. She pulled out a whisker. n The story has a structure, a story grammar

Narrative structure n Story grammar - can depict with a tree structure Story Setting Episode Once there was a woman. Event She saw a tiger’s cave. Reaction Goal She wanted a tiger’s whisker. Overt Response Action Consequence She put food in front of the cave. Event The tiger came out. Event She pulled out a whisker.

Narrative structure Thorndyke (1977) n n n Level effect High hierarchy statements Lower in the hierarchy. n Read more slowly but are better remembered. Comprehensibility and recall were tied to inherent plot structure, independent of passage content She wanted a tiger’s whisker. The tiger came out.

Characteristics of Discourse Trabasso & Suh (1993) n n Test to see if structure effects whether inferences are made Task: Think aloud task n Read through the story aloud (one sentence at a time) and talk aloud about their understanding of that sentence

Trabasso & Suh (1993) Sequential version Hierarchical version Once there was a girl named Betty. One day, Betty found that her mother’s birthday was coming soon. Betty really wanted to give her mother a present. Betty went to the department store. Betty found a pretty purse. Betty found that everything was too expensive. Betty bought the purse. Betty could not buy anything. Her mother was very happy. Betty felt sorry. Several days later, Betty saw her friend knitting. Betty was good at knitting. Betty decided to knit a sweater. How does this sentence connect up Betty selected a pattern from a magazine. with. Betty thefollowed rest ofthe story? in the article. instructions Finally, Betty finished a beautiful sweater. Betty pressed the sweater. Betty folded the sweater carefully. Betty put it in the closet for the Betty gave the sweater to her mother. next time she was going out. Her mother was excited when she Betty was very happy. saw the present.

Trabasso & Suh (1993) Hierarchical version S Once there was a girl named Betty. E One day, Betty found that her mother’s birthday G A O O R E was coming soon. Betty really wanted to give her mother a present. Betty went to the department store. Betty found that everything was too expensive. Betty could not buy anything. Betty felt sorry. Several days later, Betty saw her friend knitting. S = Setting E = Event R = Reaction G = Goal O = Overt Response A = Action S G A A O R Betty was good at knitting. Betty decided to knit a sweater. Betty selected a pattern from a magazine. Betty followed the instructions in the article. Finally, Betty finished a beautiful sweater. Betty pressed the sweater. Betty folded the sweater carefully. Betty gave the sweater to her mother. Her mother was excited when she saw the present.

Trabasso & Suh (1993) Hierarchical version S Once there was a girl named Betty. E One day, Betty found that her mother’s birthday G A O O R E was coming soon. Betty really wanted to give her mother a present. Betty went to the department store. Betty found that everything was too expensive. Betty could not buy anything. Betty felt sorry. Several days later, Betty saw her friend knitting. S G A A O R Betty was good at knitting. Betty decided to knit a sweater. Betty selected a pattern from a magazine. Betty followed the instructions in the article. Finally, Betty finished a beautiful sweater. Betty pressed the sweater. Betty folded the sweater carefully. Betty gave the sweater to her mother. Her mother was excited when she saw the present. Is a superordinate goal that motivates the subgoal of the next episode S E G A E O S O G R A A A O R

Trabasso & Suh (1993) Sequential version S Once there was a girl named Betty. E One day, Betty found that her mother’s birthday G A O O R E S G A A O Betty was good at knitting. Betty decided to knit a sweater. Betty selected a pattern from a magazine. Betty followed the instructions in the article. Finally, Betty finished a beautiful sweater. Betty pressed the sweater. Betty folded the sweater carefully. Betty put it in the closet for the next time she was going out. R Betty was very happy. was coming soon. Betty really wanted to give her mother a present. Betty went to the department store. Betty found a pretty purse. Betty bought the purse. Her mother was very happy. Several days later, Betty saw her friend knitting. The goal is already filled, so not related to the subgoal of the next episode S E G A O E O S R G A A O

Trabasso & Suh (1993) Results n n In a think aloud task n participants mentioned the superordinate goal in the hierarchical condition n but not the sequential condition Story grammar structure matters n Strongly support the hypothesis that readers do make global causal connections during reading.

Expository Structure n Reading texts, listening to lectures, etc. n n Organized with different relationships (but can still draw a tree structure) Relationships n n n Collection - ideas or events related on the basis of some commonality Causation - ideas are joined causally so that one idea is identified as the antecedent and another as the consequence Response - ideas are joined in a problem/solution or question/answer relationship Comparison - ideas are related by pointing out similarities and differences Description - general ideas are explained by giving attributes or other specific details

Quick Summary n n Genres refer to an overall structure to a discourse Can be conceptualized as structured hierarchies n n Similar to syntactic structure Some differences n Not as much agreement about what the pieces are n n Syntax has S, NP, VP, etc. Story Grammars may have lots of different categories of elements that have been proposed, with little common agreement Syntax, there a finite number of words Story, not a finite number of propositions

Discourse in memory n Kintsch’s model n n The Construction-Integration Model Discourse occurs in a series of cycles n n In each cycle n n n As each sentence comes in it gets integrated into the discourse Construction phase - activate relevant concepts, form propositions, draw inferences Integration phase – make coherent structure, resolve contradictions, keep only the most relevant elaborations Multiple levels of representation formed n Surface form, textbase (propositional), situation model

Discourse in memory n Kintsch and colleagues (1990) It was Friday night and Jack and Melissa were bored, so they decided to catch a movie. Jack scanned the newspaper. He saw that they could just make the nine o’clock showing of the hot new romantic comedy. Off they went. n Read before Did this sentence occur in the paragraph? Jack scanned the newspaper. Jack looked through the movie ads. Jack looked over some editorials.

Discourse in memory n Kintsch’s model Jack scanned the newspaper. Surface form S N VP V Jack scanned NP the newspaper

Discourse in memory n Kintsch’s model Jack scanned the newspaper. Surface form Textbase S N VP Examine V Jack scanned NP Newspaper the newspaper

Discourse in memory n Kintsch’s model Jack scanned the newspaper. Surface form. Situational Model Textbase S N VP Examine V Jack scanned NP Newspaper the newspaper

Discourse in memory n Kintsch and colleagues (1990) It was Friday night and Jack and Melissa were bored, so they decided to catch a movie. Jack scanned the newspaper. He saw that they could just make the nine o’clock showing of the hot new romantic comedy. Off they went. n Read before Similar meaning Did this sentence occur in the paragraph? Jack scanned the newspaper. Jack looked through the movie ads. Jack looked over some editorials. If Better memory here Evidence for surface form

Discourse in memory n Kintsch and colleagues (1990) It was Friday night and Jack and Melissa were bored, so they decided to catch a movie. Jack scanned the newspaper. He saw that they could just make the nine o’clock showing of the hot new romantic comedy. Off they went. n Read before Adds inference Did this sentence occur in the paragraph? Jack scanned the newspaper. Jack looked through the movie ads. Jack looked over some editorials. Infers which section did he scan. If Better memory here Evidence for Strong textbase

Discourse in memory n Kintch and colleagues (1990) It was Friday night and Jack and Melissa were bored, so they decided to catch a movie. Jack scanned the newspaper. He saw that they could just make the nine o’clock showing of the hot new romantic comedy. Off they went. n consistent inconsistent Did this sentence occur in the paragraph? Jack scanned the newspaper. Jack looked through the movie ads. Jack looked over some editorials. Consistent with situation model. Evidence for Strong situation model If Better memory here

Discourse in memory n Kintch and colleagues (1990)

Summary n Discourse processing is both complex and flexible n n Multiple representations Processing depends on context

Review of comprehension Input The cat chased the rat. Language perception Word recognition c a t /k/ /ae/ /t/ cat dog cap wolf tree yarn cat claw fur hat Syntactic Semantic & pragmatic analysis S NP VP the cat V NP chased the rat

The Comprehender’s Problem n Ambiguity n Must take a potentially ambiguous serial acoustic (or visual) input, and recover the intended meaning n Different signals n Reading and listening are very different Where are you going I scream for ice scream Money “bank” River “bank”

Review of comprehension Input The cat chased the rat. Language perception Word recognition c a t /k/ /ae/ /t/ cat dog cap wolf tree yarn cat claw fur hat Syntactic Semantic & pragmatic analysis S NP VP the cat V NP chased the rat

Speech Perception n Articulatory vs. acoustic phonetics n n Spectrograms, formants, transitions, burst, VOT, etc. Place of articulation, manner of articulation, voicing, etc. Categorical perception Theories n n Motor Theory of speech perception, Direct Realist Theory, General Auditory Approach Hard problems n n n Linearity Invariance Co-articulation Trading relations Effects: Mc. Gurk Effect, phoneme restoration, cross-modal priming

Review of comprehension Input The cat chased the rat. Language perception Word recognition c a t /k/ /ae/ /t/ cat dog cap wolf tree yarn cat claw fur hat Syntactic Semantic & pragmatic analysis S NP VP the cat V NP chased the rat

Storing linguistic information n Auditory stimuli Some models of Lexical Access Logogen Morton, (1969) Auditory analysis Context system Semantic Attributes Visual stimuli Visual analysis Logogen system c a t d o g Available Responses Cohort Marslen-Wilson, (1978) … soap spinach psychologist spin spit sun spank … /sp/ spinach spin spit spank … time /spi/ spinach spin spit … /spin/ spin Access codes Entries in order of Decreasing frequency /s/ Search Forster, (1976) Mental lexicon Visual input Auditory input Pointers Responses /kat/ cat mat Output buffer cat mouse IAM Mc. Clelland Rumelhart, (1981) c a p

Review of comprehension Input The cat chased the rat. Language perception Word recognition c a t /k/ /ae/ /t/ cat dog cap wolf tree yarn cat claw fur hat Syntactic Semantic & pragmatic analysis S NP VP the cat V NP chased the rat

Eye-movements in reading n One of the most common measures used in sentence comprehension research is measuring Eye-movements n Eye-movements in reading are saccadic rather than smooth Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society. Video examples: 1|2|3|4|5

Sentence Comprehension n Autonomous (modular) n Interactive models

Minimal attachment n Garden path sentences (Rayner & Frazier, ‘ 83) The spy saw the cop with a telescope. minimal attach non-minimal attach Modular prediction Build this structure first Interactive prediction Build this structure first

Minimal attachment n Garden path sentences (Rayner & Frazier, ‘ 83) The spy saw the cop with a revolver. minimal attach non-minimal attach Modular prediction Build this structure first Interactive prediction Build this structure first Lexical/semantic information rules this one out

Common methodologies n n Measure how long people take to say a string of letters is (or is not) a word (lexical decision) Measure how long people take to categorize a word (“apple” is a fruit) Measure how long people take to start saying a word (naming or pronunciation time) Measure how long people actually spend looking at a word when reading n n n Word by word reading Line by line reading Using eye movement monitoring techniques

Review of comprehension Input The cat chased the rat. Language perception Word recognition c a t /k/ /ae/ /t/ cat dog cap wolf tree yarn cat claw fur hat Syntactic Semantic & pragmatic analysis S NP VP the cat V NP chased the rat

Semantics n Two levels of analysis (and two traditions of psycholinguistic research) n Word level (lexical semantics, chapter 11) n n What is meaning? How do words relate to meaning? How do we store and organize words? Sentence level (compositional semantics) (chapter 12) n n How do we construct higher order meaning? How do word meanings and syntax interact?

Collins and Quillian (1969) Animal Lexical entry Bird has skin can move around breathes A IS IS A has feathers can fly Fish has wings n Semantic Features has fins can swim has gills Collins and Quillian Hierarchical Network model n n Lexical entries stored in a hierarchy Representation permits cognitive economy n Reduce redundancy of semantic features

Spreading Activation Models n Collins & Loftus (1975) street n n vehicle n car bus truck blue n house orange Fire engine fire red apple tulips pear roses flowers Retrieval of information fruit Spreading activation Limited amount of activation to spread Verification times depend on closeness of two concepts in a network

Conceptual combination n How do we combine words and concepts n Relational combination n Property mapping combination n Relation given between head and modifier “squirrel box” a box that contains a squirrel Property of modifier attributed to head “skunk squirrel” a squirrel with a white stripe on its back Hybrid combinations n n A cross between the head and modifier “helicopter flower” a bird that has parts of helicopters and parts of flowers

Memory for sentences Sachs (1967, 1974) n Heard (read): n n Tested: n n n “He sent a letter about it to Galileo, the great Italian scientist. ” Same: He sent a letter about it to Galileo, the great Italian scientist. Act/Pass: A letter about it was sent to Galileo, the great Italian scientist. Formal: He sent Galileo, the great Italian scientist, a letter about it. Meaning: Galileo, the great Italian scientist, sent him a letter about it. Measured accuracy of detecting changes

Memory and comprehension This one may be legal, but n Center embedded structures n n n that doesn’t mean that it is (easily) comprehensible The house burned down. The house the handyman painted burned down. The house the handyman the teacher hired painted burned down. n (the handyman that the teacher hired painted the house that burned down)

Memory and comprehension n Brief summary so far: n What do we remember about sentences? n Syntax may not be too important later, we remember the meaning of sentences but not so much the form (syntax) of the sentence n What is the role of syntax in comprehension? n Syntax is important for getting the right interpretation during on-line comprehension n Memory capacity may play an important role in determining what kinds of information we can use to comprehend sentences

Propositions n How do we representence meaning? n Propositions n Two or more concepts with a relationship between them A mouse bit a cat bit (mouse, cat) mouse agent n patient relation bit Can represent this within a network framework cat

Inference in comprehension n Not all propositions come from the bottom-up n Elaboration - integration of new information with information from long term memory n n Memory for the new information improves as it is integrated Inferences - a proposition (or other representation) drawn by the comprehender n From LTM, not directly from the input

Embodiment in language n Embodied Representations n Many researchers assume that cognition is “embodied” (or “grounded”) rather than “abstract” (e. g. , Barsalou, 2008) n n Activates representations associated with the body and actions Theoretical proposals from many disciplines n n Linguistics: Lakoff, Langacker, Talmy Neuroscience: Damasio, Edelman Cognitive psychology: Barsalou, Gibbs, Glenberg, Mac. Whinney, Zwaan Computer science: Steels, Feldman

Characteristics of Discourse n Local Structure (microstructure): n The relationship between individual sentences n n n Cohesion Coherence Global Structure (macrostructure): n The relationship between the sentences and our knowledge of the world

Characteristics of Discourse n Local Structure (microstructure): n The relationship between individual sentences n n Cohesion • Does the discourse “stick together”? • Interpretation of one sentence depends on other sentences? Coherence • Does the passage make sense? • Logical consistency and semantic continuity?

Effects of world knowledge n Schemas (Scripts) n Mental structures of how the world works, acquired through experience n A whole package of information about what we know about the world and events n n n Generic story of situations A framework with causal information Used to facilitate comprehension of discourse, as well as to guide recall (and reconstruction)