DISCOURSE 1 NOV 30, 2015 – DAY 38 Brain & Language LING NSCI Fall 2015

Course organization Schedule: topics topics Today's chapter: Fun with Quiz on Monday will be in class & on Blackboard. 11/30/15Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 2

Grades Q1Q2Q3Q4Q5Q6Q7Q8Q9 MIN AVG MAX 10 11/30/15Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 3

COMBINATORIAL NET 2 11/30/15Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 4

The lexical interface 11/30/15Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 5

ERPs to last verb in sentence 11/30/15Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 6 What does the scale mean? Where does the dashed line diverge most from the solid line? Where does the dotted line diverge most from the solid line?

What do they do? N400 A temporarily localized increase in processing load caused by a discrepancy between the meaning of a word and its sentential context. P600 A sustained effort to reinterpret or re-parse a garden path sentence. However, these two may be too slow to reflect modular lexical or syntactic processing. So lets look at a faster ERP. 11/30/15Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 7

The early left anterior negativity N150 or ELAN 11/30/15Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 8 Basic flaws in phrase structure: The shirt was on the hanger. The shirt was ironed. *The shirt was on ironed.

Modular vs. interactive processing English example (orig. German) Phrase structure obeyed Argument structure obeyed N150N400P600 The old cat slept in the garden and … ✔✔ -- The cat old slept in the garden and … ✖✔✔✖✔ The old cat slept the garden and … ✔✖✖✔✔ The cat old slept the garden and … ✖✖✔✖✔ 11/30/15Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 9 Modular: an error found early could turn off additional processing. Interactive: errors should add up.

What is this? `Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe. 11/30/15Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 10

Jabberwocky sentences Table 13.2, adapted from Hahne & Jescheniak (2001) English example (orig. German) Phrase structure obeyed Real words N150N400P600 The old cat slept in the garden. ✔✔ -- ✔*✔* The lon garp frept in the kayton. ✔✖✖✖*✖* ✔ The old cat slept the in garden. ✖✔✔✖*✖* ✔ The lon garp frept the in kayton. ✖✖✔✖*✖* ✔ 11/30/15Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 11 Modular: an error found early could turn off additional processing. Interactive: errors should add up.

What do you understand as discourse? To me, a text (perhaps spoken) that is longer than 1 sentence. 11/30/15Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 12

Major problems underlying discourse deficits associated with RHD Reduced ability to generate inferences. Reduced ability to comprehend and produce main concepts and central themes. Reduced level of informative content. Reduced ability to manage alternative meanings. Reduced sensitivity to communicative context (Theory of Mind). Odd fact: RHD often looks like prefrontal disorders. 11/30/15Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 13

11/30/15Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 14 Describe to yourself what you see here.

Responses: NBD ~ RHD (list from Myers 1999:190, Fig. 6-2; see discussion of Main Concepts Guidelines p. 167) NBDRHD Thanksgiving96%73% turkey93%68% mother/grandmother73%56% father/grandfather48%32% serving/bringing in the turkey55%31% everybody happy/laughing/having a good time 38%14% 11/30/15Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 15

11/30/15Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 16 Describe to yourself what you see here.

11/30/15Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 17 Rockwell’s waiting room scene Printing on wall “lence … lease” 3 people … watching a baseball game sitting in a church pew looking at television or a movie returned from a war house/docto's office, but not sure whether waiting or daydreaming see table of main concepts next slide

Responses: NBD ~ RHD (list from Myers 1999:190, Fig. 6-1; see discussion of Main Concepts Guidelines p. 167) NBDRHD waiting room (hospital, doctor's office)76%27% bandage on man’s head59%36% The boy is scared/worried/tense/concerned.48%14% They are waiting.41%32% sitting on a bench/couch/pew3%23% 11/30/15Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 18

11/30/15Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 19 Operations involved in drawing inferences and their status in RHD Attention to individual cues > deficient. Selection of relevant cues > deficient. Integration of relevant cues with one another > deficient. Association of those cues with prior experience/world knowledge > OK.

11/30/15Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 20 Describe to yourself what you see here.

Responses: NBD ~ RHD (list from Myers 1999:190, Fig. 6-3; see discussion of Main Concepts Guidelines p. 167) NBDRHD Dog, without reference to emotion7%69% Going to college/university/school76%32% Father/grandfather55%32% Sitting on the running board24%32% Young boy/young man/boy72%18% Dog looks sad/saying good-bye80%5% Waiting for a train/bus/at the station41%0% (Grand)father looks sad/anxious/depressed31%0% 11/30/15Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 21

11/30/15Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 22 Deficits in macrostructure (central concept ~ thematic inference ) Rockwell’s “Breaking home ties” NBD: 80% identify scene as leaving home & going to college RHD: none identify father’s emotion; few appreciate concept of leaving home.  RHD impaired on giving titles to simple stories, extracting story morals, and summarizing story content Difficulty of macrostructure generation depends on … how explicit links between individual sentences are, how expected the central theme is, and how explicitly the theme is stated.

11/30/15Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 23 Impairment of appreciation of discourse structure Discourse structure is the framework around which conversational, procedural, narrative, and other forms of discourse are organized. Knowledge of routine activities appears to be preserved in RHD, as is knowledge of basic social & emotional scripts. Script: stereotypical sequence of events, e.g. eating in a restaurant. What is script of waiting room scene?

11/30/15Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 24 Faulty integration of discourse features into larger wholes E.g. man with a bandage = patient in waiting room scene. RHD impaired in inferring concepts to describe a scene e.g cookie theft. RHD impaired in eliciting superordinate category for a group of objects: car, plane, truck, train are all what? RHD impaired in abstracting & integrating information in narratives and in visuospatial organization see next slide for visuospatial organization

Reduced level of informative content RHD discourse may be ‘abrupt & perfunctory’ (impoverished or unelaborated output, see next slide) or ‘verbose & excessive’ (excessive or over-elaborated output, see two slides after next). Either way, RHD discourse does not supply an appropriate amount of information. 11/30/15Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 25

11/30/15Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 26 Abrupt & perfunctory discourse Thanksgiving painting: “Looks like the mother’s got turkey. That’s it.” Waiting room painting: “They’re sitting on a bench is all.”

11/30/15Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 27 Verbose & excessive discourse (1): RHD describing ‘waiting room’ scene There are three people waiting, sitting on a bench. An older man. It looks like he has a bandage on his head. And the boy in the middle has his hands clenched in his lap. He’s wearing blue shorts, white shoes with striped socks. And the man on the end of the bench is wearing leather shoes. And the boy on this end of the bench, I guess he’s between the two of them in age. And he has a cigarette tray right by him. And he looks a little anxious. He’s got his elbows on his knees. He’s got his chin in his hand. He’s wearing a khaki suit. The boy’s wearing a short sleeved shirt, blue shorts. The man’s wearing a dark suit with a tie, and the man has a bandage on his head.

11/30/15Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 28 Verbose & excessive discourse (2): RHD describing ‘leaving home’ scene Well, collie or Lassie – looks like they’re going to take him back to college. That's State U, or U State. State U. And they’ve had car trouble somewhere. Old Dad's still puffin’ on cigarettes. This is before cigarettes went out of fashion. They better watch out about that porch they're sitting on there. Isn’t that a mess? It’s all rotted away. Termites must be at it. Look at those bumper shoes that kid – he’s a collegiate. Look at the socks. Striped socks and he’s got those snub-nosed kickers on. Must be gonna be the kicker for the team. He’s got a yellow handkerchief in his shirt – coat jacket – and he thinks he’s very dapper. You'll find this hard to believe, but that is an Atlas tire and I sold those stinkers for 20 years. Now how do I know? I know because of the figuration on the side of the tire. That’s an Atlas junior, sold by Atlas TBA Company to Exxon, and American Oil, and Chevron on a wire wheel and that tire is probably a 475 by 17. I mounted many of those. That's a Model A Ford truck.

11/30/15Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 29 Verbose & excessive discourse Digressions, tangentiality, intrusions, ‘looseness’ of expression > twice as many words as NBD, even after excluding tangential comments. May wander off the topic or bury it an avalanche of unnecessary detail. May confabulate.

Final project Improve a Wikipedia article about any of the topics mentioned in class or any other topic broadly related to neurolinguistics. Write a short essay explaining what you did and why you did it. Print the article before you improve it, highlighting any subtractions. Print the article after you improve it, highlighting your additions. 11/30/15Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 30

NEXT TIME More discourse 11/30/15Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 31