Language Chapter 11 PDF

Language Chapter 11  Language What is a language? Language: A collection of symbols, and the rules for combining these symbols, that can be used to generate an infinite variety of messages. □ A language is symbolic; we use sounds and words as symbols for...

Language Chapter 11  Language What is a language? Language: A collection of symbols, and the rules for combining these symbols, that can be used to generate an infinite variety of messages. □ A language is symbolic; we use sounds and words as symbols for things out in the world. language object in world DUCK  Language What is a language? Language: A collection of symbols, and the rules for combining these symbols, that can be used to generate an infinite variety of messages. □ A language is symbolic; we use sounds and words as symbols for things out in the world. □ A language is structured; we use rules to combine these symbols so that other people who know these rules can make sense out of what we are saying. beach going I am the I am going to the beach  Language What is a language? Language: A collection of symbols, and the rules for combining these symbols, that can be used to generate an infinite variety of messages. □ A language is symbolic; we use sounds and words as symbols for things out in the world. □ A language is structured; we use rules to combine these symbols so that other people who know these rules can make sense out of what we are saying. □ A language is generative; we can combine a limited number of words to make an unlimited number of sentences. For my birthday I want a puppy and a hamster and a pony and a moose and a mongoose and…  Language How do we combine words to form sentences? Association Theory (Skinner, 1957): We rely on learned associations between words to construct sentences. The → cat → chases → the → mouse. □ But people can’t possibly have associations between all word combinations; there are just too many. □ People also often generate sentences for which they have never been reinforced. Mommy, I hate you!  Language How do we combine words to form sentences? Grammar Theory (Chomsky, 1957): We learn a system of rules, called a grammar, that enables us to generate an infinite number of correct sentences in a language. chases mouse The cat chases the mouse. the cat the grammar □ Once you learn a grammar frame, making a new sentence is as simple as plugging in the right word types in the right places subject verb object cat chases mouse dog bites man  Language Language Deficits Broca’s Aphasia (Broca, 1861): An inability to speak in grammatically correct sentences. Yes...ah...Monday er...Dad and Peter H..., and Dad...er... hospital...and ah...Wednesday... Wednesday, nine o'clock...and oh...Thursday...ten o'clock, ah doctors...two...an' doctors...and er... teeth...yah. □ The words may be meaningful, but there is no subject-verb- object grammatical structure.  Language Language Deficits Wernicke’s Aphasia (Wernicke, 1874): An inability to speak in meaningful sentences. The tall blue thought stops with haste.  Language Language Deficits Wernicke’s Aphasia (Wernicke, 1874): An inability to speak in meaningful sentences. Well this is... mother is away her working her work out o'here to get her better, but when she's looking in the other part. One their small tile into her time here. She's working another time because she's getting, too… □ The sentences are grammatically correct, but they carry no meaning.  Language Language Deficits Broca’s Aphasia (Broca, 1861): An inability to speak in grammatically correct sentences. Wernicke’s Aphasia (Wernicke, 1874): An inability to speak in meaningful sentences. Broca’s and Wernicke’s aphasias result from damage to two different regions of the left hemisphere of the brain. These disorders tell us that grammar and meaning are separate components of a language.  Language The Components of a Language Morphemes: The smallest units of a language that have a definable meaning or grammatical function.  Language The Components of a Language Morphemes: The smallest units of a language that have a definable meaning or grammatical function. □ Root words (e.g., “speak”, “dog”) and suffixes (e.g., “ing”, “er”, “s”) are both morphemes because both carry meaning. □ Morphemes allow us to create new words by modifying or adding meaning to root words. morpheme + morpheme = new word speak + ing = speaking speak + er = speaker speak + s = speaks  Language Morpheme Acquisition Grammatical rules exist for how to combine morphemes into words. Once we know these rules we can make a word plural or past tense without someone teaching us. Some rules are easy to learn (adding “s” to make a word pural); other are harder, such as making contractions. Children will learn… Dogs are big. The dog is running. before… A dog can’t fly.  Language Three Stages of Morpheme Acquisition No combination of morphemes; root words are just strung together. Glass break. Daddy go home. Memorization of the irregular verbs The glass broke. Daddy went outside. Learning grammatical rules The glass was broken when I found it. Daddy was going to take me to the zoo.  Language Morpheme Acquisition Grammatical rules exist for how to combine morphemes into words. Once we know these rules we can make a word plural or past tense without someone teaching us. Some rules are easy to learn (adding “s” to make a word pural); other are harder, such as making contractions. And sometimes mistakes are made. A child may say “mouses” instead of “mice” or “catched” instead of “caught” □ This happens when standard grammatical rules are applied to irregular words (to make a word plural add an “s”, to make a word past tense add an “ed”).  Language The Components of a Language Morphemes: The smallest units of a language that have a definable meaning or grammatical function. Phonemes: The basic sounds of a language from which morphemes and words are built.  Language The Components of a Language Morphemes: The smallest units of a language that have a definable meaning or grammatical function. Phonemes: The basic sounds of a language from which morphemes and words are built. □ Changing one phoneme can change the meaning of a word. The word “bit” consists of the /b/, /i/, and /t/ phonemes. Replacing /b/ with /p/ gives “pit’ Replacing /i/ with /a/ gives “bat”  Language The Components of a Language Morphemes: The smallest units of a language that have a definable meaning or grammatical function. Phonemes: The basic sounds of a language from which morphemes and words are built. □ Changing one phoneme can change the meaning of a word. □ But the individual phoneme doesn’t convey meaning. A morpheme is the basic unit of meaning in a language, and the phoneme is the basic unit of sound in a language. □ There are 37 phonemes in English, with 24 corresponding to the consonant sounds and 13 corresponding to vowel sounds. The vowel “o” sounds different in “boat” and “hot”  Language The Components of a Language Morphemes: The smallest units of a language that have a definable meaning or grammatical function. Phonemes: The basic sounds of a language from which morphemes and words are built. □ Changing one phoneme can change the meaning of a word. □ But the individual phoneme doesn’t convey meaning. A morpheme is the basic unit of meaning in a language, and the phoneme is the basic unit of sound in a language. □ There are 37 phonemes in English, with 24 corresponding to the consonant sounds and 13 corresponding to vowel sounds. □ Each language has its own set of phonemes (Hawaiian has only 11 but some African dialects have as many as 60).  Language The Components of a Language Phoneme Recognition: Just as visual object recognition is made difficult by noisy inputs (blur, occlusion), so too is the recognition of phonemes in speech. □ And just as top-down context assists visual object recognition, context also helps phoneme recognition.  Language Warren (1970) Presented listeners with a sentence, but erased one phoneme by introducing a cough sound. The task was to report where in the sentence the cough occurred. Not only did subjects not correctly report the position of the cough, they often didn’t notice that a phoneme was missing.  Language Warren (1970) Phoneme Restoration Effect: A phoneme that is missing from the auditory signal gets “restored” by top-down knowledge and context. The missing /s/ is perceived and the cough is moved off of a word  Language Developmental changes in phoneme recognition Adults are impaired in recognizing phonemes that don’t exist in their native language. □ This makes it hard to learn other languages as adults. □ You will also never speak the language like a native speaker. Because you can’t recognize all the phonemes, you literally can’t tell when you are mispronouncing words.  Language Developmental changes in phoneme recognition The “perceptual magnet” (Kuhl, 2000): Phoneme prototypes that we acquire over the course of language development. □ Before the age of one, human infants can tell the difference between all the phonemes that make up all languages. □ But the brain becomes “tuned” to respond best to speech sounds that are in the environment (our native language); after about six months we lose our ability to differentiate sounds that we don’t hear, resulting in the adult impairment in phoneme recognition. □ Interpreted as a prototype effect; we develop prototypes for the phonemes in our native language. This allows us to easily recognize our native phonemes, but this prevents us from perceiving phonemes for which we don’t have prototypes.  Language Speech Errors A “slip of the tongue”; you mean to say one thing but something else comes out of your mouth (Dell, 1986). Speech errors usually occur within a level, not between (words are exchanged with other words, morphemes with other morphemes, etc.)  Language Three Types of Exchange Errors Word Exchanges You intend to say: I gave the bone to the dog. But instead say: I gave the dog to the bone. Morpheme Exchanges You intend to say: The dog is getting fat. But instead say: The dog is fatting get. Phoneme Exchanges You intend to say: the brown dog But instead say: the down brog  Language Speech Errors A “slip of the tongue”; you mean to say one thing but something else comes out of your mouth (Dell, 1986). Speech errors usually occur within a level, not between (words are exchanged with other words, morphemes with other morphemes, etc.) These errors provide psycholinguists with an opportunity to understand language; like visual illusions, a lot can be learned about a system by how it makes errors.  Language Language Comprehension Making sense out of the words we are hearing or reading. Ambiguous sentences can interfere with comprehension. POLICE BEGIN CAMPAIGN TO RUN DOWN JAYWALKERS SAFETY EXPERTS SAY SCHOOL BUS PASSENGERS SHOULD BE BELTED DRUNK GETS NINE MONTHS IN VIOLIN CASE SURVIVOR OF SIAMESE TWINS JOINS PARENTS FARMER BILL DIES IN HOUSE STUD TIRES OUT PANDA MATING FAILS; VETERINARIAN TAKES OVER  Language Language Comprehension Making sense out of the words we are hearing or reading. Ambiguous sentences can interfere with comprehension. SQUAD HELPS DOG BITE VICTIM ENRAGED COW INJURES FARMER WITH AX MINERS REFUSE TO WORK AFTER DEATH STOLEN PAINTING FOUND BY TREE TWO SHIPS COLLIDE, ONE DIES TWO SISTERS REUNITED AFTER 18 YEARS IN CHECKOUT COUNTER NEVER WITHHOLD HERPES INFECTION FROM LOVED ONE  Language Levels of Ambiguity Phonemic Ambiguity: When different words or phrases sound the same. grade A gray day □ Phrases that are phonemically ambiguous sound identical. Lexical Ambiguity: When a word can have multiple meanings. I went to the bank. □ Is “bank” a lending institution or the side of a river?  Language Levels of Ambiguity Syntactic Ambiguity: Ambiguity regarding the function of a word in a sentence. Visiting relatives can be boring. □ Is “visiting” a verb or an adjective? Pragmatic Ambiguity: Sentences can be interpreted in different ways. I forgot how good beer tastes. □ Does the speaker miss drinking beer, or did the speaker just realize that s/he has been drinking bad beer?  Language Levels of Ambiguity Pragmatic Ambiguity: Sentences can be interpreted in different ways. The spy saw the man with the binoculars. □ Did the spy use binoculars to look at the man… □ … or did the spy look at the man who had the binoculars?  Language Levels of Ambiguity Pragmatic Ambiguity: Sentences can be interpreted in different ways. The duck saw the man with the binoculars. □ Ducks can’t use binoculars, so this can be ruled out □ The sentence is no longer ambiguous because this is the only interpretation.  Language Levels of Ambiguity Syntactic Ambiguity: Ambiguity regarding the function of a word in a sentence. Visiting relatives can be boring. □ Is “visiting” a verb or an adjective? Pragmatic Ambiguity: Sentences can be interpreted in different ways. I forgot how good beer tastes. □ Does the speaker miss drinking beer, or did the speaker just realize that s/he has been drinking bad beer? I can’t recommend this person more highly.  Language Swinney & Hakes (1976) Studied how the context of a story changed the effect of these ambiguities on comprehension. Method: Subjects heard two versions of a passage and had to indicate when they heard a particular phoneme. “Rumor had it that, for years, the government building had been plagued with problems. The man was not surprised when he found several bugs in the corner of the room.” ambiguous word target phoneme “bugs” could mean the /c/ sound in listening devices or “corner” insects  Language Swinney & Hakes (1976) Studied how the context of a story changed the effect of these ambiguities on comprehension. Method: Subjects heard two versions of a passage and had to indicate when they heard a particular phoneme. There was also a control condition in which the same passage was made unambiguous. “Rumor had it that, for years, the government building had been plagued with problems. The man was not surprised when he found several insects in the corner of the room.” This word is not ambiguous because, unlike “bug” it does not have an alternative meaning.  Language Swinney & Hakes (1976) Studied how the context of a story changed the effect of these ambiguities on comprehension. Method: Subjects heard two versions of a passage and had to indicate when they heard a particular phoneme. There was also a control condition in which the same passage was made unambiguous. Prediction: Subjects will be slower to respond when the sentence contains an ambiguous word. Results: Subjects took longer to detect the phoneme when it follows an ambiguous words ("bugs") compared to an unambiguous word ("insects").  Language Swinney & Hakes (1976) Conclusion: The presence of an ambiguous word slows detection, but does the sentence context help to resolve this ambiguity? Method: Modified the passage so that the context would be able to resolve the lexical ambiguity. “Rumor had it that, for years, the government building had been plagued with problems. The man was not surprised when he found several spiders, roaches, and other bugs in the corner of the room.” Is “bugs” still ambiguous? context suggesting the “insect” interpretation of “bugs”  Language Swinney & Hakes (1976) Conclusion: The presence of an ambiguous word slows detection, but does the sentence context help to resolve this ambiguity? Method: Modified the passage so that the context would be able to resolve the lexical ambiguity. Results: When the sentence context clarified the meaning of the word "bugs", subjects were able to respond to the /c/ as quickly as when the word "insects" appeared instead of "bugs“.  Language Swinney (1979) Did the sentence context prevent the “listening device” interpretation of “bugs” from becoming active, or did this interpretation activate for a split second? Method: Subjects performed a lexical decision task for visually presented letter strings while they heard a passage of text presented through headphones. □ Lexical Decision Task: press a button indicating whether a letter string forms a valid English word.  Language Swinney (1979) Method: The meaning conveyed by the passage was either consistent or inconsistent with the word being judged in the lexical decision task. “The secret agent planted bugs throughout the government building.” Lexical Decision Task “SPY” consistent with passage “ANT” inconsistent with passage  Language Swinney (1979) Results: When "spy" or "ant“ in the lexical decision task immediately followed the ambiguous word in the passage ("bugs"), subjects were equally fast in saying that both words were valid words. not statistically different  Language Swinney (1979) Results: When "spy" or "ant“ in the lexical decision task immediately followed the ambiguous word in the passage ("bugs"), subjects were equally fast in saying that both words were valid words. But, when these words were presented 800 msec after "bugs" in the passage, subjects were only fast in saying that "spy" was a valid word (not "ant"). Conclusion: Both meanings of an ambiguous word (e.g., “bug”) initially become active, but context kicks in (after about 800 msec) and suppresses the inappropriate meaning.  Language Gernsbacher (1993) What makes some readers better than others? Found that when poor readers see an ambiguous word, both meanings remain active even after 1 second. Poor readers are less able to suppress inappropriate word meanings—which leads to confusion and reduced comprehension.  Language Is this a dumb way to build a language system? By keeping active multiple meanings of words, won’t this inevitably cause confusion? Why not activate only the most likely word meaning given the context, thereby avoiding confusion? □ If you have been reading about spiders, just activate the "insect" definition of "bug".  Language Is this a dumb way to build a language system? Activating only one meaning would make sense if the context always came before the ambiguous word, but context can also come after. Context comes before the ambiguous word “After watching the documentary on spiders, John had an uneasy feeling that there were bugs in his apartment.” ambiguous word Context comes after the ambiguous word “John had an uneasy feeling that there were bugs in his apartment after watching the documentary on spiders.” context  Language Is this a dumb way to build a language system? Activating only one meaning would make sense if the context always came before the ambiguous word, but context can also come after. Although activation of multiple meanings may create confusion, it increases the likelihood of context resolving the ambiguity. □ Tradeoff between momentary confusion, and misinterpreting the sentence. Repair (error recovery): When you screw up the initial interpretation of a sentence, and have to go back and re- interpret it.  Language Miyake, Just, & Carpenter (1994) Perhaps poor readers just have a smaller short-term memory capacity? Logic: (1) Time-consuming repairs can be minimized if multiple meanings are kept active in memory. (2) The more meanings you can keep active, the better the chance of resolving the ambiguity using context. Result: Found that poor readers tend to have a smaller STM capacity. Two factors can make someone a poor reader: (1) Taking too long to suppress inappropriate meanings, (2) Keeping too few meanings active (due to a limited STM capacity), resulting in repairs.  Language Ambiguities and Word Frequency When no contextual info is available, we have to guess the meaning of an ambiguous word– but some guesses are better than others. What does this sentence mean? The port was a great success. Most people interpret “port” as a seaport rather than an alcoholic beverage– but why? People assume the more common or frequent meaning of an ambiguous word. □ Word frequency: how frequently a word is used in our vocabulary.  Language Using eye movements to study ambiguity Subjects’ eye movements are monitored as they are reading an ambiguous sentence. The device used to monitor eye movements is called an eye tracker. The port was a great success when served at the dinner party. Regression: Looking back to a word read previously in a sentence; often an expression of repair or error recovery.  Language Using eye movements to study ambiguity Subjects’ eye movements are monitored as they are reading an ambiguous sentence. The device used to monitor eye movements is called an eye tracker. The port was a great success for merchants relying on tourism. Because “seaport” is the more common interpretation of the ambiguous “port”, the rest of the sentence about “merchants” and tourism make sense (no need for repair).  Language Using eye movements to study ambiguity Subjects’ eye movements are monitored as they are reading an ambiguous sentence. The device used to monitor eye movements is called an eye tracker. The port was a great success when served at the dinner party. “Port” is again interpreted as “seaport”, but when the subject gets to things being “served” the sentence no longer makes sense. Gaze goes back to “port” in order to reinterpret the sentence.  Language Using eye movements to study ambiguity Subjects’ eye movements are monitored as they are reading an ambiguous sentence. The device used to monitor eye movements is called an eye tracker. Eye movements allow people to study directly the relationship between word frequency and lexical ambiguity, and the process of repairing sentences. Eye tracking has also been used to study syntactic ambiguity. Teacher strikes idle kids. “strikes” can be a noun and “idle” a verb, or… “strikes” can be a verb and “idle” a noun.  Language Using eye movements to study ambiguity Subjects’ eye movements are monitored as they are reading an ambiguous sentence. The device used to monitor eye movements is called an eye tracker. Eye movements allow people to study directly the relationship between word frequency and lexical ambiguity, and the process of repairing sentences. Eye tracking has also been used to study syntactic ambiguity. Teacher strikes idle kids.