some different kinds of things you know as english speakers what’s wrong with each of the...
TRANSCRIPT
Some Different Kinds of Things You Know as English Speakers
What’s wrong with each of the following?
!ort
sfort
bort
‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimbel in the wabe.
The cats won’t bake the meat loaf.
The cats won’t eating the meat loaf.
Some ERP Components Related to Language
N400 = ERP component related to meaning - Bigger when word’s meaning doesn’t fit context - Bigger for unfamiliar words - May reflect amount of work required to integrate with context
Can evoke both at once - But not always as nice as here! - Depending on size of each component & timing of P600, can partially or completely cancel each other out
P600 = ERP component related to form - Bigger when word property other than meaning wrong or hard to process - May be a type of P300 - Sometimes called Syntactic Positive Shift (SPS)
Priming in Word Comprehension
A word preceded by something related to it is recognized & understood faster & more easily
tree tree
blanket blanket
job job
doctor sports
nurse Faster nurse Slower
pencil pencil
window window
… …
Coulson, Federmeier, Van Petten, & Kutas (2005)
How do priming effects of lexical & sentence-level context compare, & do they add or interact?
Stimulus Materials:Congruous sentence plus highly associated word:They were truly stuck, since she didn’t have a spare TIRE.
Congruous sentence but no associated word:During the test, Ellen leaned over and borrowed my spare PENCIL.
Incongruous sentence plus highly associated word:During the test, Ellen leaned over and borrowed my spare TIRE.
Incongruous sentence but no associated word:They were truly stuck, since she didn’t have a spare PENCIL.
Word pairs only__ spare tire… spare pencil
Word-in-sentence fx__ …stuck… spare tire …test… spare pencil… …stuck … spare pencil …test … spare tire
Sentence context fx__ …stuck… tire …test… pencil--- …stuck… pencil …test… tire
N400
N400
Conclusions
When a word is at the end of a sentence it fits into well, it doesn’t matter much whether the word right before it is an associate
But out of sentence context, does matter
So, by the end of a sentence, sentence context trumps individual word associations Word associations (& word familiarity) have more
influence for words near the beginnings of sentences
“A University student charged with threatening to kill the President via email was arrested Thursday, following issuance of a complaint and warrant, officials said.”
- Daily Illini, 2/27/94
Relationships Among Words in Sentences
Being Led “Down the Garden Path”
emailemail“A University student charged with threatening to kill the President via XY
A Slightly More Subtle Example
“Marge Schott, managing partner of the Cincinnati Reds, at first did not want to apologize for her remark that Hitler‘was good at the beginning but he just went too far’. Under pressure, she finally said that she regretted her remarks ‘offended many people’.”
- NY Times, 7/21/96, Tannen, I’m sorry, I won’t apologize
What did she regret? Not her remarks, only their consequences
But her choice of wording gives the appearance of expressing regret for what she said
Including an optional that would have made it clearer
"Under pressure, she finally said that she regretted her remarks 'offended many people'."
that
^
The referees warned the spectators would probably get too rowdy.against heckling the other team.
Ambiguity arises because that optional (in English)
that
^
Temporary ambiguity about relationship between the Verb
Is the nounA Direct Object (DO) , orSubject of an Embedded Clause?
Temporary Structural Ambiguity
& the Noun after it
Verb Bias
Verbs differ in how often they're used in particular sentence structures
Compare The referees warned the spectators ...with The bus driver worried the passengers ...
warned = Direct-Object Biased Verb worried = Clause-Biased Verb
In English, verb's most likely use guides choices about initial interpretation of words following it
Plausibility of Nounas Direct Object
Plausibility of particular Verb + Noun combinations varies
Compare The referees warned the spectators ... with The referees warned the game ...
In English, plausibility of a particular Verb + Noun combination sometimes guides initial interpretation
Example Sentences
DO-Bias Verbs: (e.g., warned, discovered, heard ...) The referees warned the spectators
Clause-Bias Verbs: (e.g., worried, realized, suspected ...) The bus driver worried the passengers
EQ-bias Verbs: (e.g., regretted, predicted, knew, ...) The senior senator regretted the decision
The referees warned the game would probably go into overtime.
The bus driver worried the tires were starting to go flat.
The senior senator regretted the reporter had ever seen the report.
would probably get too rowdy.
were starting to get annoyed.
had ever been made public.
Results of Reading Time Studies
DO-Bias Verbs: The referees warned the spectators would probably get too rowdy.
The referees warned the game would probably go into overtime.
Clause-Bias Verbs: The bus driver worried the passengers were starting to get annoyed.
The bus driver worried the tires were starting to go flat.
The senior senator regretted the reporter had ever seen the report.
EQ-Bias Verbs: The senior senator regretted the decision had ever been made public.
read slowly
read slowly
Verb Bias Rules (in English)!
No effect of the Plausibility of the Verb + Noun combination when the Verb had a strong bias
But Plausibility did have an effect when
the Verb had no bias
So, the two factors interact, with Verb Bias dominating the interaction
Limitation of Eyetracking Study
Verb Bias & Plausibility both have the same kind of effect on reading time
People slow down when expectations based on either kind of information are violated
Are there other measures that would better distinguish the two kinds of information?
Yes, Event-Related brain Potentials (ERPs)
Stimulus Presentationin ERP Study
READY 1Therefereeswarnedthegamewouldprobablygointoovertime.Were the referees expecting a long game?QUESTION
Waveforms Starting at Temporarily Ambiguous Noun
Plausible Noun:The referees warned the spectators ...
DO-Bias Verbs (warned)
6
3
0
-3
-6
6
3
0
-3
-6
Msec
Pz
0 650 1300 1950 2600
spectators
Finalword
Question
Waveforms Starting at Temporarily Ambiguous Noun
Plausible Noun:The referees warned the spectators ...
DO-Bias Verbs (warned)
I mplausible NounThe referees warned the game ...
Pz N400
6
3
0
-3
-6
6
3
0
-3
-6
Msec0 650 1300 1950 2600
spectators/game
Waveforms Starting at Temporarily Ambiguous Noun
Pz N400
spectators/game
passengers/tires
Plausible Noun:The bus driver worried the passengers ...
Clause-Bias Verbs (worried)
I mplausible Noun:The bus driver worried the tires ...
Plausible Noun:The referees warned the spectators ...
DO-Bias Verbs (warned)
I mplausible NounThe referees warned the game ...
6
3
0
-3
-6
6
3
0
-3
-6
Msec0 650 1300 1950 2600
6
3
0
-3
-6
6
3
0
-3
-6
Msec0 650 1300 1950 2600
Waveforms Starting at Temporarily Ambiguous Noun
Pz N400
spectators/game
passengers/tires
Plausible Noun:The bus driver worried the passengers ...
Clause-Bias Verbs (worried)
I mplausible Noun:The bus driver worried the tires ...
Plausible Noun:The referees warned the spectators ...
DO-Bias Verbs (warned)
I mplausible NounThe referees warned the game ...
P600
6
3
0
-3
-6
6
3
0
-3
-6
Msec0 650 1300 1950 2600
6
3
0
-3
-6
6
3
0
-3
-6
Msec0 650 1300 1950 2600
Summary
In both reading time & ERP studies, Verbs rule
Difficulty at an Implausible Noun only after a Verb that strongly predicts a Direct Object
Difficulty at the disambiguating region only after a Verb that strongly predicts a Direct Object
Why do verbs rule?
Principled reasons: They provide the most useful information
Information about them may be simply retrieved, while plausibility requires combining information from multiple words
More accidental reasons: They precede the critical nouns in these
sentences [ but, see Trueswell (1996) ]
They generally appear early in English sentences, leading English speakers to rely on them
Individual DifferencesOsterhout (1997)
Another harder kind of Garden Path sentence
The boat floated down the river sank. (The evidence examined by the lawyer turned out to be unreliable.)
Stimulus Sentences The boat floated down the river and sank. The boat floated down the river and ate. The boat floated down the river sank.
that was
^
Results Across All Subjects
N400
P600
N400
Results across just “P600 Subjects”
P600
Results across just “N400 Subjects”
N400
Individual Differences
So, different people produce different ERP components in response to exactly the same stimuli !
What does that mean both about How people respond to Garden Path sentences? & The nature of the different ERP components?
Kim & Osterhout (2005)
Experiment 1 Stimulus Sentences
The hearty meal was devoured …
The hungry boys were devouring …
The hearty meal was devouring …
N400 or P600 at devouring???
Experiment 1 Results
P600 P600
Experiment 2
Stimulus Sentences
The hearty meal was devoured … The dusty tabletops were devouring … The hearty meal was devouring …
N400 or P600 at devouring after dusty tabletops???
Experiment 2 Results
P600
N400?
McGurk Effect
Acoustic stimulus = /ba/ Visual stimulus = face /ga/ Hear /da/ = fused audiovisual stimulus
Mismatch Negativity (MMN)(Naatanen & many colleagues)
Deviant sound occurring infrequently in train of frequent sounds Evokes a frontal negativity around 200 msec =
MMN
Initially thought to be purely auditory change detection
Source localization points to auditory cortex e.g., polarity reversal between Fz & Mastoids
Colin et al. (2002, 2005)Auditory-only conditions show MMN
MMNMMN
Visual-only conditions show no MMN(as expected)
McGurk conditions do show MMN
MMNMMN
/gi/Dev = hear /bi/, see /gi/ /bi/Dev = hear /gi/, see /bi/
Conclusions
MMN tracks perception rather than simple acoustics If generated in auditory cortex, Shows that visual info influences early sound
processing, probably in auditory cortex itself