the acquisition of morphology and the lexicon - biuarmonls/922/922_online_methods.doc · web...

Online methodsDr. Sharon Armon-Lotem

On-line methods

Reading: Clahsen, H. 2008. Behavioral Methods for Investigating Morphological and Syntactic Processing in Children. In I. Sekerina, E. Fernández & H. Clahsen, (eds.), Developmental psycholinguistics: On-line methods in children’s language processing. Benjamins: Amsterdam, pp. 1-27.

On-line experimental techniques tap into automatic unconscious processes involved in language comprehension and production and minimize participants‘ reliance on explicit or metalinguistic knowledge.

What is the difference between off-line and on-line tasks? ( from Vicky Chondrogianni & Theo Marinis, Cost meeting, Cyprus, 2010)

Off-line tasks measure how participants interpret a sentence after they have heard the complete sentence;

In off-line tasks, participants can have time to think about the meaning of the sentence >> explicit knowledge.

On-line tasks measure the participants’ performance as the sentence unfolds.

In on-line tasks, participants don’t have time to think about the sentence >> implicit knowledge.

“There are two basic types of time-sensitive measures available to examine language processing: behavioral measures (e.g. comprehension response times and production latencies) and physiological measures (e.g. event-related brain potentials (ERPs) and eye-movements).” (Clahsen 2008, p. 3)

Neuroimaging

EEG (Electroencephalography) – monitors different parts of the brain for local electrical activity.

Advantages – avasive (external)

Disadvantages: shallow and imprecise – records a large number of brain activities.

ERP (event related potentials) – computerized comparison between the random background ‘noise’ of the EEG and the voltage fluctuation which follows the stimulus. For example, it can record a surprise effect (N400 – negative spike 400 msc after the onset of the word)

1 - The boy ate Pizza2 - The boy ate pajamas(http://upload.wikimedia.org/ wikipedia/commons/c/cd/Priming-N400-Graph.png)

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Neville, H., J. L. Nicol, A Brass, K. I. Forster and M. F, Garrett. 1991. Syntactically based sentence processing classes: Evidence from event-related brain potentials. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 3.2: 151-165

a. The scientist criticized Max’s proof of the theorem

The scientist criticized Max’s event of the theorem

b. The scientist criticized a proof of the theorem

The scientist criticized Max of proof the theorem

c. The scientist criticized Max’s proof of the theorem

What did the scientist criticize [Max’s proof of--]?

d. Was proof of the theorem criticized by the scientist?

What was [proof of --] criticized by the scientist?

Figures 1(a-d)

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CAT (Computerized Axial Tomography) - inspection of the living brain (a series of brain slices) of people who suffer some neurological disorder (tumor, lesion).

Advantages: three-dimensional information that helps in identification for treatment

Disadvantages: Static rather than dynamic picture

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PET (Positron Emission Tomography) – mapping areas of high brain activity (blood flow) which are related to particular cognitive tasks

Advantages: dynamic view of the normal brain in action

Disadvantages: invasive

MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) - A strong magnetic field is created flooding the brain with radio waves. Radio waves are absorbed by hydrogen yielding a three dimensional picture which shows fine distinctions between different tissues.

fMRI (Functional MRI) - since MRI is highly sensitive of blood flow, by a computerized comparison between the blood flow at rest and blood flow during activity we can detect where the activity takes place

TMS (Transcranial magnetic stimulation) - It uses a powerful electromagnet discharge to alter brain activity. This tool can be used to induce temporal brain damage in a normal brain and gain many insights into the physiology of the brain.

Eye tracking

Linguistic abilities are assessed by tracking and recording eye movements in response to predetermined verbal and visual stimuli

Eye-tracking in language processing studies allows researchers to track and record participants' eye movements when they:

o Read a sentenceo Look at the pictures on the computer screen as they listen to sentences that

describe these pictures

Experimental eye tracking data is obtained to investigate: understanding of spoken language cognitive processes related to spoken language ability to process and interpret metaphor and figurative language body language and lip reading

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תנועות הפהאזור ברוקה

השמעת מילים





ורניקהאזור קורטקס שמיעתי

שמיעת מיליםאזור ברוקה






turn taking in conversations audio-visual integration reading behavior tracking-task performance scene exploration strategies

(http://www.tobii.com/eye-tracking-research/global/research/linguistics/)

Preferential looking, Head-turn method

Children (and adults) tend to look at pictures corresponding to a sentence they hear. This can be used to test word comprehension as well as sentence comprehension

She is kissing the key/ballThe girl/boy is waving

Garden-Path sentences

1. Since Jay always walks a mile seems like a short distance to him.2. The horse raced past the barn fell3. As the woman edited the magazine about fishing amused all the reporters4. As the woman sailed the magazine about fishing amused all the reporters

“A regression is any eye movement that begins at the right-most point the reader has fixated and leaves the currently fixated region to the left. This definition is therefore only concerned with disruption occurring during initial processing. First-pass time is the sum

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of the fixations occurring within a region before the first fixation outside the region. If the eye fixates a point beyond the end of a region before fixating the region for the first time, then the first-pass time for that region is zero. (This measure is equivalent to the gaze-duration measure [e.g., Rayner & Duffy, 1986], when the region is a single word.) Total time is the sum of all fixaions in a region” (Pickering & Traxler, 1998)

“The regressions and total-time data demonstrate that: o readers misanalysed both types of ambiguous sentenceo sentences with implausible object analyses were harder to process during

the critical noun phraseo sentences with plausible object analyses were harder to process during the

syntactically disambiguating verb phrase. The regressions data demonstrate further that readers incrementally interpreted

the sentences, because plausibility effects emerged before the point of syntactic disambiguation.

Readers must have initially treated the magazine about fishing as the object of the subordinate verb (with magazine as the head noun).”

Behavioral methods

Reaction time (children are usually slower than adults) Lexical decision task (priming) Cross-Modal Priming Monitoring task (self paced reading/listening)

Word monitoring Tasks (Tyler & Marslen-Wilson, 1981)

Monitoring for the word hand in auditory stimulus.

a. John had to go back home. He had fallen out of the swing and had hurt his hand on the ground. b. John had to sit on the shop. He had lived out of the kitchen and had enjoyed his hand in the mud c. The on sit top to had John. He lived had and kitchen the out his of had enjoyed hand mud in the

Participants – 5, 7,10 and adults Reaction time was measured Findings – all showed the same gradation The gap was smaller for 5s – limited processing

Priming tasks - Lexical decision task

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“The cortical representations of the prime and target are interconnected or overlap in some way such that activating the representation of the prime automatically activates the representation of the target word.”(Forster 1999, p. 6)

Morphological decomposition & Semantic transparency (Marslen-Wilson et al 1994)

Government – govern Apartment – apart

Government facilitates its base governApartment does not facilitate its etymological base apart

Cross-Modal Priming - Auditory prime, visual target

Phonological priming (Marslen-Wilson & Zwiserlood 1985)

Coreference (McKee, Nicol & McDaniel, 1993) - alive or not alive?

The reindeer knows that the alligator with gigantic teeth is looking at himself /him ALLIGATOR/REINDEER in an old shiny mirror.

Traces in relative clauses (Roberts et al 2007 from Clahsen 2008) - The effect of memory span

John saw the peacock to which the small penguin gave the nice birthday present __ in the garden last weekend. (PEACOCK, CARROT)

High memory span – shorted RT to identical target in the gap position Low memory span – no antecedent reactivation, but no difference in comprehension

Monitoring task (self paced reading/listening)

Participants listen and press a button for the next word/phrase. RT is measured as well as comprehension/judgment at the end.

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Online processing of clitic pronouns in Greek

Chondrogianni, V., Marinis, T. & Edwards, S. (2010) Production and processing of articles and clitic pronouns by Greek children with SLI. In Proceeding of 34th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development, Cascadilla Press, 78-89

The lion wanted to eat the deerThe deer / got really scared / when / the lion / *(it) bit / in the jungle / on the rock.

Tense agreement in English (Chondrogianni, V. & Marinis, T. Cost meeting, Cyprus, 2010)

a. Mary is a great baker. Every weekend / Mary / buys / flour / and / she / bakes /cakes / for the whole family

b. Mary is a great baker. Every weekend / Mary / buys / flour / and / she / bake /cakes / for the whole family

Taxler 2005 (from Clahsen 2008)

When Sue tripped the girl fell over and the vase was brokenWhen Sue tripped the table fell over and the vase was brokenWhen Sue fell the policeman stopped and helped her up

Advantages (Chondrogianni, V. & Marinis, T. Cost meeting, Cyprus, 2010):

Processing of words/phrases in milliseconds. No time to think about the sentences. Insight into implicit processes. RTs for each word/phrase within a sentence. Independent from educational level & reading skills (age & socio-economic

status).

Disadvantages (Chondrogianni, V. & Marinis, T. Cost meeting, Cyprus, 2010):

Speed of pressing the button. Large number of sentences, length of experimental session. Flat intonation or natural intonation - this is not how we listen to sentences.

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the acquisition of morphology and the lexicon - biuarmonls/922/922_online_methods.doc · web...

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