1. PSY 369: Psycholinguistics Language Comprehension: Meaning beyond the word

2. Announcements Exam 3 on Thursday 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)

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

4. 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. The story has a structure, a story grammar

5. Narrative structure Story grammar - can depict with a tree structure Story SettingEpisode EventReaction GoalOvert ResponseActionConsequence Event 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.

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

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

8. Sequential 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 bought the purse. Her mother was very happy. Several days later, Betty saw her friend knitting. 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. Betty was very happy. Betty found that everything was too expensive. Betty could not buy anything. Betty felt sorry. Betty gave the sweater to her mother. Her mother was excited when she saw the present. Hierarchical version How does this sentence connect up with the rest of the story?

9. Trabasso & Suh (1993) Hierarchical version 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. S G A A O A A O R S E G A O O R E S = Setting E = Event R = Reaction G = Goal O = Overt Response A = Action 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 that everything was too expensive. Betty could not buy anything. Betty felt sorry. Several days later, Betty saw her friend knitting.

10. Trabasso & Suh (1993) 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 that everything was too expensive. Betty could not buy anything. Betty felt sorry. Several days later, Betty saw her friend knitting. Hierarchical version 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. SEGAOOR E S G A A O A A O R SGAAO AAOR S E G A O O R E Is a superordinate goal that motivates the subgoal of the next episode

11. Trabasso & Suh (1993) 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 bought the purse. Her mother was very happy. Several days later, Betty saw her friend knitting. Sequential version 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. Betty was very happy. S G A A O A A O R S E G A O O R E SEGAOOR ESGAAOAAO The goal is already filled, so not related to the subgoal of the next episode

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

13. Expository Structure Reading texts, listening to lectures, etc. Organized with different relationships (but can still draw a tree structure) Relationships 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

14. Quick Summary Genres refer to an overall structure to a discourse Can be conceptualized as structured hierarchies Similar to syntactic structure Some differences Not as much agreement about what the pieces are 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 are a finite number of words Story, not a finite number of propositions

15. Discourse in memory Kintsch’s model The Construction-Integration Model Discourse occurs in a series of cycles As each sentence comes in it gets integrated into the discourse In each cycle 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 Surface form, textbase (propositional), situation model

16. Discourse in memory Kintsch and colleagues (1990) Jack scanned the newspaper. Jack looked through the newspaper. Jack looked through the movie ads. Jack looked over some editorials. 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. Did this sentence occur in the paragraph? Read before

17. Discourse in memory Kintsch’s model Jack scanned the newspaper. Jackscannedthenewspaper S NVP NPV Surface form

18. Jackscannedthenewspaper S NVP NPV Surface form Discourse in memory Kintsch’s model Jack scanned the newspaper. Textbase Examine JackNewspaper

19. Jackscannedthenewspaper S NVP NPV Surface form Discourse in memory Kintsch’s model Jack scanned the newspaper. Textbase Examine JackNewspaper Situational Model

20. Discourse in memory Kintsch and colleagues (1990) Jack scanned the newspaper. Jack looked through the newspaper. Jack looked through the movie ads. Jack looked over some editorials. 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. Did this sentence occur in the paragraph? Read before Evidence for surface form Similar meaning If Better memory here

21. Discourse in memory Kintsch and colleagues (1990) Jack scanned the newspaper. Jack looked through the newspaper. Jack looked through the movie ads. Jack looked over some editorials. 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. Did this sentence occur in the paragraph? Read before Evidence for Strong textbase If Better memory here Adds inference Infers which section did he scan.

22. Discourse in memory Kintch and colleagues (1990) Jack scanned the newspaper. Jack looked through the newspaper. Jack looked through the movie ads. Jack looked over some editorials. 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. Did this sentence occur in the paragraph? Evidence for Strong situation model inconsistent If Better memory here consistent Consistent with situation model.

23. Discourse in memory Kintch and colleagues (1990)

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

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

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

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

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

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

30. Storing linguistic information Some models of Lexical Access Auditory stimuli Visual stimuli Auditory analysis Visual analysis Logogen system Output buffer Context system Responses Available Responses Semantic Attributes catcat dogdog capcap IAM McClelland and Rumelhart, (1981) Logogen Morton, (1969) Entries in order of Decreasing frequency Visual input cat Auditory input /kat/ Access codes Pointers matcatmouse Mental lexicon Search Forster, (1976) /s//sp//spi//spin/ … soap spinach psychologist spin spit sun spank … spinach spin spit spank … spinach spin spit … spin time Cohort Marslen-Wilson, (1978)

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

32. Eye-movements in reading Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society. One of the most common measures used in sentence comprehension research is measuring Eye-movements Eye-movements in reading are saccadic rather than smooth Eye-movements in reading Video examples: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 1234 5

33. Sentence Comprehension Autonomous (modular) Interactive models

34. Minimal attachment Garden path sentences 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 (Rayner & Frazier, ‘83)

35. Minimal attachment Garden path sentences 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 (Rayner & Frazier, ‘83)

36. Common methodologies 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 Word by word reading Line by line reading Using eye movement monitoring techniques

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

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

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

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

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

42. Memory for sentences Sachs (1967, 1974) Heard (read): “He sent a letter about it to Galileo, the great Italian scientist.” Tested: 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

49. Local Structure (microstructure): The relationship between individual sentences 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? Characteristics of Discourse

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