chapter 8 understanding language language – shared symbolic system for communication. natural...

Chapter 8 Understanding Language

Language shared symbolic system for communication. Natural Language: Emerged from peoples attempts to communicate. culturally agreed upon (arbitrary) symbolic system - refers to things not currently present. / to abstract concepts (e.g., love) Nearly five thousand languages are spoken in the world today.

Is language Learned or do humans have an innate ability to learn language?

7 th Century BC Egypt Psamtik thought language was innate (inborn)! He sought to discover the origin of language by conducting an experiment with two children. He gave two newborn babies to a shepherd, with the instructions that no one should speak to them, but that the shepherd should feed and care for them while listening to determine their first words. The hypothesis was that the first word would be uttered in the root language of all people.

When one of the children cried "bekos" with outstretched arms the shepherd concluded that the word was Phrygian because that was the sound of Phrygian word for "bread." Thus, they concluded that the Phrygians were an older people than the Egyptians, and that Phrygian was the original language of men.

We are not born speaking! Language must be acquired. If we think of all that is entailed in knowing a language, it seems quite a challenge. Child acquire language very quickly. By 5 they have mastered grammar. 3 year old talking about a monster on TV. 3 year old talking about a monster on TV.

Noam Chomsky The ability to learn language is instinctive His theory explains why all babies language development follows a pattern Humans have a Language Acquisition Device (LAD) a structure within the brain that allows babies to absorb and understand the rules of language they are being exposed to. The brain is able to analyse the language and work out the system that the language uses.

Explains why children can quickly understand and then use their language creatively and correctly without ever being formally taught or knowing the rules Later replaced LAD with Language Universals Language features present in all human languages.

All languages have a grammar Nouns and verbs Subjects and objects Consonants and vowels Basic word order (English is Subject, Object, Verb) The man kicked the Ball. Greenberg (1963) in 98% of languages subject comes before the object.

Criticisms of Chomsky Language Environment much richer Child-Directed Speech Child-Directed Speech (AKA: Parentese) Evan and Levinson (2009) - Universals are not as universal

Pidgin and Creoles Languages Pidgin is a simplified language that develops as a means of communication between two or more groups that do not have a language in common. Commonly used in trade. A pidgin is not the native language of any speech community, but is instead learned as a second language. A pidgin may be built from words, sounds, or body language from multiple other languages and cultures. Pidgins allow people or a group of people to communicate with each other without having any similarities in language and do not have any rules, as long as both parties are able to understand each other.

Creoles have been nativized by children as their primary language, with the result that they have features of natural languages that are normally missing from pidgins. Hawaii Creole

Language Bioprogram Hypothesis Bickerton (1984) Creolization occurs when the linguistic exposure of children in a community consists of a highly unstructured pidgin. Children use their innate language capacity to transform the pidgin into a language with a highly structured grammar. As this capacity is universal, the grammars of these new languages have many similarities.

Bickerton (1983), ungrammatical utterances made by English-speaking children (2 4 years) are very similar to perfectly grammatical sentences of English-based creole languages. ChildCreole Where I can put it?Where I can put om?Hawaii Daddy throw the nother rockDaddy t'row one neda rock'toneJamaica I go full Angela bucket Guyana Lookit a boy play ballLuku one boy a play ballJamaica Nobody don't like meNobody no like meGuyana I no like do that Hawaii Johnny big more than me Jamaica Let Daddy get pen write itMake Daddy get pen write amGuyana I more better than Johnny Hawaii

The Birth of New Sign Language in Nicaragua

Reading Why is English So Hard? History of EnglishHistory of English (to 2.15) - numerous irregular or exception words. Comb Yacht Paradigm Though Danger, Anger, Hanger Ch 8 pt 216

Phonics Vs. Whole Word Phonics emphasis on teaching children to pronounce words letter by letter. Whole Word Approach (look-and-say) focus on related the entire word to its meaning. Ch 8 pt 217

Whole Language Approach Relies on Top down processes reader uses context to predict and guess as they try to make sense of print. Phonics is useful for teaching reading in almost every language (share, 2008). Phonics instruction more beneficial (even in English) than whole word or whole language. Ch 8 pt 218

Simple View of Reading (SVR) Reading skill is related to listening (language) comprehension and decoding skills (phonics and whole word). Ch 8 pt 219

Reading Eye Tracking Studies Gaze Duration Eye Movement Fixations Saccades Regression Video Ch 8 pt 220

Readers typically fixate about 80% of content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives). Only 20% of function words (pronouns, conjunctions, articles) are fixated. Words not fixated are short, common or predictable. Longer fixations occur on longer, unusual or unpredictable words. Ch 8 pt 221

E-Z Reader Model How does the reader know when to move their eyes to the next word? How do they know they can skip a word? Eye movement is planned after only PART of the currently fixated work is processed. Ch 8 pt 222

Reader can fixate on two words at a time but processes them one at a time. If word one is a common word there is time left over to process word two so it will be skipped. If word one is rare, the next fixation will be on word two. Longer fixations occur after rare words. One Two Ch 8 pt 223

Reading silently (cont.) Silent reading goes faster than reading aloud (250-300 words per minute, depending on reader, text, and goal). People remember more after silent reading than after reading aloud. Once mastered very powerful skill, because then reading becomes automatic (cf. Stroop effect) Ch 8 pt 224

Reading silently (cont.) Not purely based on visual information inner voice phonological loop in working memory homophones (Knows/Nose) produced errors in sentence verification tasks and in priming studies. errors in proofreading particularly frequent for homophones tongue-twister effect (e.g., Boris burned the brown bread badly.). Knows Ch 8 pt 225

Words can be read without phonology. -Used for low frequency rather than high frequency words. -Poor readers use phonology more than better readers. Ch 8 pt 226

Some definitions Internal Lexicon Representation of words in permanent memory. When the word is found, the properties we associate with the word become available for use. Graphemes basic units of written language Phonemes basic units of language sounds Regular and irregular (e.g., comb and yacht) spellings. Ch 8 pt 227

Two Routes to Reading A lexical and a nonlexical route. Both routes begin with an orthographic analysis (visual feature units and letter units). Ch 8 pt 228

Non-lexical (indirect route)Route Used to read new words and pseudowords. Graphemes are converted to phonemes. Letter strings converted into pronounceable form. Slow serial processing. Evidence: Longer pseudowords take longer to process than shorter pseudowords. Ch 8 pt 229

Lexical (Direct Routes) We access information about the meaning and sound of the word in an internal lexicon. Parallel processing all levels of analysis are activated simultaneously and give feedback (excitatory and inhibitory) to each other. This system is faster. Ch 8 pt 230

We use both routes when reading aloud. Irregular words must use the direct route (e.g., yacht) or they will be mispronounced. New and nonwords require use of the indirect route. Ch 8 pt 231

Surface Dyslexia Can read words phonetically but has problems with whole word recognition (i.e. yacht ---> yatchet). Rather than recognizing words visually, these patients sound out the words on the basis of correspondences between letters and sounds. Therefore, they trouble reading aloud words that are irregularly spelled. Rather than recognizing words visually, these patients sound out the words on the basis of correspondences between letters and sounds. Ch 8 pt 232

Phonological Dyslexia Person can read familiar words by using whole word method but has difficulty "sounding out" words that are new or letter- to-sound decoding problems. They have difficulty distinguishing between similar- sounding phonemes, for example b/p or d/t. Given the word bat, for example, the dyslexic person might read or write pat. Ch 8 pt 233

The Dutch Language Union Founded in 1980 by the Netherlands and Belgium, is the source of official spelling reforms. In 1995 issued the "Green Booklet reform. Although in Belgium the official spelling reform was generally accepted without protest, in the Netherlands there was a popular backlash and the release of the White Booklet. Currently these two spellings are both in use in the Netherlands- the 'green' one by schools and officials, and the 'white' one by newspapers, magazines and television stations Ch 8 pt 234

Speech Perception Speech is difficult to decode because: Language is spoken very quickly (10 phonemes per sec). Energy breaks do not correspond to breaks between words. Co-articulation Background noise Ch 8 pt 235

Speech Perception Involves both Bottom-up and Top-down processes. Degraded auditory input impairs speech perception (bottom-up) Dual tasks (increased cognitive load) impairs speech perception (Top-down). In poor listening conditions people adjust top- down or bottom-up processes to accommodate. Ch 8 pt 236

Incorporates both bottom up and top down processes acting in parellel. There are individual processing units, or nodes, at three different levels: FEATURES (place & manner of production, voicing) PHONEMES WORDS TRACE Model (McClelland and Elman 1986) Ch 8 pt 237

Connectionist model Interactive activation network (McClelland and Rumelhart 1981) Ch 8 pt 238

Feature nodes are connected to phoneme nodes Phoneme nodes are connected to word nodes Connections between levels operate in both directions, and are only facilitatory (i.e. no inhibition) There are connections among units or nodes at the same level. These connections are inhibitory. Ch 8 pt 239

Nodes influence each other in proportion to their activation levels and the strength of their interconnections As excitation and inhibition spread among nodes, a pattern of activation, or TRACE, develops. The word that is recognized is determined by the activation level of the possible candidate words. Ch 8 pt 240

TRACE model Similar to interactive activation model but applied to speech recognition Connections between levels are bi-directional and excitatory top-down effects Connections within levels are inhibitory producing competition between alternatives Ch 8 pt 241

TRACE model Phonemes activate word candidates. Candidates compete with each other Winner completes missing phoneme information Ch 8 pt 242

Context Effects Top Down Processes Word Superiority Effect phonemes detected faster in a word than in isolation. Lexical Identification Shift Ganong (1980) demonstrated a bias to perceive phonemes so they form words. For example sounds that could be either /d/ or /t/ tend to be heard as /t/ when followed by "ask" (to make the word "task") and as /d/ when followed by "ash" (to make the word "dash"). Ch 8 pt 243

Try this example: identify the phoneme at the end of each utterance, is it /s/ (as in "lease") or /S/ (as in "leash")? Ch 8 pt 244

Context Effects It is likely that you heard the first as /S/ and the second as /s/. However, they were identical sounds! Your knowledge that "goldfish" and "fortress" are English words but "goldfiss" and "fortresh" are not, changed your perception of the sounds. Ch 8 pt 245

McQueen (1991) found the Lexical Identification shift when bottom-up information was degraded but not when it was not. Suggests that top-down processes are relied on more when bottom-up processes are ambiguous. Ch 8 pt 246

Understanding Sentences Grammar Rules of combining words within a sentence. Parsing - analyzing a sentence into its component categories and functions. Ch 8 pt 248

Syntax/Grammar word order and combination critical to meaning: He showed her the boys pants. He showed her boys the pants. Same words, different order produces different meaning. Ch 8 pt 249

When making sense of sentences we use both semantic and syntactic (grammatical) information. One theory says we do it one word a time, assigning words to a grammatical role as we interpret the meaning. Sentence meaning can however be ambiguous sometimes because of the grammatical structure. Ch 8 pt 250

Garden Path (Structurally Ambiguous) Sentences Grammatically correct sentences that starts in such a way that a reader's most likely interpretation will be incorrect; the reader is lured into a parse that turns out to be a dead end. e.g., The horse raced by the barn fell Ch 8 pt 251

Garden Path Sentence Examples The raft floated down the river sank. The florist sent the flowers was pleased. The cotton clothing is made from grows in Mississippi. They told the boy that the girl met the story. The daughter of the king's son admires himself.

Parsing Four major possibilities: Syntactic analysis generally precedes (and influences) semantic analysis Semantic analysis usually occurs prior to syntactic analysis Syntactic and semantic analysis occur at the same time, in parallel.

Dec 11, 200654 Theories Garden-path model (Bever, 1970) : you pick one structure early on, later have to revise if it isnt the right one.

Constraint-based model MacDonald et al., (1994) Another possible interpretation is that multiple competing syntactic structures are available at the same time with different versions being eliminated when they dont make sense. Ranked according to activation strength. Activation strength comes from semantic, syntactic and world knowledge. Probabilistic commit to most probable interpretation. Readers become confused when the correct syntactic structure is less activated than one or more incorrect structures.. Ch 8 pt 255

Activation Strength creates Syntactic Heuristics (rules of thumb) e.g., Verb bias: The verb read is most often followed by a direct object. The man read the book. The man read the book had been lost. People identified correct sentence structure more rapidly when the sentence structure was consistent with the verb bias. Ch 8 pt 256

Non/Verb Homographs Words that can serve as nouns or verbs The woman saw her duck and chickens by the barn and stumble by the barn. Readers experiences problems (eye gaze data) when the noun/verb homographs were used in the less common form. Ch 8 pt 257

When Syntax and content clash! The mouse was eaten by the cheese. (passive) Often misinterpreted as The cheese ate the mouse. Noun Verb- Noun Heuristic !! Subject (Agent) verb- object (active voice) Ch 8 pt 258

Swets et al. (2008) Good Enough Theory People process sentences at a level that is good enough for their current purposes. Processing time depends on ones expectations about the uses of the information. Ch 8 pt 259

Extracting Meaning Literal versus Intended Meaning. Irony/Sarcasm /understatement Idioms and sayings Metaphors Give me a hand. You can say that again. Ch 8 pt 260 Lovely!

Conceptual Knowledge and Beliefs "My nose runs and my feet smell"

Pragmatics Deals with intended rather than literal meaning Shared knowledge Social context Intonation Gestures Ch 8 pt 262

Does context Matter? What do you make of this conversation? A: I have a fourteen year old son B: Well that's all right A: I also have a dog B: Oh I'm sorry Ch 8 pt 263

Metaphors Kintch Model Two Components: 1.Latent (hidden) semantic analysis component: -represents meaning of words based on their relations or associations with other words. 2: The construction-integration component Used (1.) to form interpretations of statements. Ch 8 pt 264

Dislexie Font Ch 8 pt 265

Lawyers are Sharks Nonreversible Sharks are Lawyers does not work. Lawyer (argument) Shark (predicate) Only features of the predicate relevant to the argument are selected for interpretation. The others are inhibited. High WM capacity better at inhibiting distracting information ~ better at metaphor interpretation. Ch 8 pt 266

Common Ground Mutual knowledge, beliefs, & assumptions among participants in conversation. Comes from community co-membership, physical co- presence, linguistic co-presence, Egotistical heuristic

Keysar et al. (2000) Egotistical Heuristic The simplest experiment: hearer sees three candles of different sizes speaker does not see the largest one hearer knows this speaker says Pick up the large candle

Keysar et al (2000) speaker Hearer Display

Speakers View (Partial Occlusion) Hearers View (Complete) cc Keysar et al (1998; 2000)

Results Hearers often grab the largest of the three, even though they know the speaker cannot see it. Generally people do use common ground in interpreting speech. Children can reason about other minds from at least age 6.

Gestures (Kelly et al., 2010) Congruent (left) and Incongruent (right) gesture for the content unit Sylvester looks through binoculars. Consistent gestures improved comprehension. Ch 8 pt 272

Understanding Discourse Drawing Inferences going beyond the words. Bridging Inferences (backwards) Make coherence between parts of the text. e.g., "Mary poured the water on the bonfire. The fire went out." Elaborative Inferences (forwards) adds detail using world knowledge - may anticipate what comes next. Ch 8 pt 273

Types of Inferences drawn depend on the readers goals. Two Tasks 1.Read for comprehension 2.Anticipate what might happen next. Task 2 drew more elaborative inferences Ch 8 pt 274

Individual Differences in Working Memory Capacity and Inferences Higher Reading Skill = more inferences. People with higher WM Capacity comprehend text better. Seductive Detail Effect Adding additional, irrelevant information to a text, reduces the comprehension of the text as a whole. Ch 8 pt 275

(Harp & Mayer, 1997). College undergraduates given a descriptive text that: (1) did not contain any seductive information, (2) contained seductive text, (3) contained seductive illustrations, or (4) contained both seductive text and illustrations. Both recall and problem-solving performance, In conditions that contained any type of seductive information (textual, visual, or both) performance was worse than individuals in the base text condition. Ch 8 pt 276

The seductive details effect was stronger for people with low WM Capacity. Eye gaze show they spend more time looking at the irrelevant illustrations. Techniques for reducing effects did not work. Highlighting Learning objectives Seductive details at the beginning of passage made effect worse. Ch 8 pt 277

Schema Theory (Scripts and Frames) Provide information not provided in the text or utterance. Allow us to form expectations (predictions). (Hitler Example, Sulin and Dooling, 1974) False recognition of schema based information is greater after longer retention periods. Ch 8 pt 278

Situation Models (Zwaan and Radvansky, 1998): The Event-indexing model suggests that readers monitor five indexes (aspects) of the evolving situation model at the time when they read stories: Protagonist Temporality Causality Spatiality Intentionality Reading speed decreases (35%) when one of those aspects change.

Formation of Situated Models take up WM capacity (reducing reading speed). Formation of situated models improves with practice (both speed and accuracy). Ch 8 pt 280

How are situation models updated during text comprehension If readers keep track of the evolving situation, they should update their models such that the most current information, the here and now, is more available than outdated information. Resonance model (OBrien et al.2010), retrieval of information in LTM is a fast-acting, passive resonance process. Resonance (richness or significance ) is necessary for memory elements to become available. Thus, resonance helps the reader to build a coherent discourse representation. But old, inconsistent resonant information can interfere with text comprehension. Ch 8 pt 281

Sweeney (1979) Ambiguous sentences containing words with multiple meanings. He measured the floor with his ruler.

Followed by letter string A) a word related to the implied meaning inch B) a word related to alternative meaning king C) an unrelated word Pill D) a non-word jokt Lexical decision task If both meanings activated A and B should be equally fast (primed)

Varied the delay between the sentence and the letter string. 400 millisecond delay responses to A and B facilitated. Over 700 milliseconds, only the A was facilitated. So both are activated, but one fades quickly.

Humor - emotional reaction to violation of schema. Timing - If both meanings are activated, schema is not violated. Need to pause to allow alternate meaning to fade.