Psycholinguistics FINAL EXAM YAY

Listening vs reading speed

Listening ≈ 150 words/min; Reading ≈ 200–400 words/min

Why listening is harder than reading

Listeners cannot control speed; no word boundaries in speech

Word recognition in speech

Identifying sounds, locating word boundaries, mapping sound strings to words

Why speech perception is active

The speech signal is continuous, variable, and overlapping

Mental lexicon

A mental store of words, organized in interconnected networks

Lexical access

Process of retrieving a word from the mental lexicon

Lexical neighborhoods

Words that sound similar and compete during recognition

Dense neighborhood

Many phonological competitors → slower recognition

Sparse neighborhood

Fewer competitors → faster recognition

Spreading activation

Activation of one word partially activates related words

Incremental processing

Meaning is built as speech unfolds, not after it ends

Eye-tracking studies

Show activation of related words during spoken word recognition

Naming task

Task measuring how quickly a word or object can be named

Lexical decision task

Task deciding if a letter string is a word or nonword

Tachistoscopic identification

Brief word presentation to test perception thresholds

Priming

Residual activation from previously encountered stimuli

Semantic priming

Meaning-based facilitation (nurse → doctor)

Form priming

Phonological facilitation (beer → deer)

Masked priming

Prime presented too quickly to be consciously perceived

Repetition priming

Faster recognition of previously encountered words

Stroop effect

Semantic conflict slows reaction time

Why impossible nonwords are rejected fast

They violate phonotactic rules

Zipf’s Law

Frequent words are accessed faster than rare words

Polysemy

Words having multiple meanings

Role of context in word recognition

Context suppresses irrelevant meanings but doesn’t prevent initial activation

Cohort model

Words sharing initial sounds are activated and narrowed down

Recognition point

Moment when only one word candidate remains

Cross-linguistic cohort effect

Bilinguals activate words from both languages

Rhyme effect

Words with similar endings compete in recognition

Motor theory of speech perception

Speech perception relies on internal motor representations

McGurk effect

Visual input influences perceived speech sounds

Phonemic restoration

Missing sounds are perceptually filled in

Ganong effect

Ambiguous sounds are biased toward forming real words

Bottom-up processing

Perception driven by acoustic input

Top-down processing

Contextual knowledge influences perception

Language production

Process of encoding ideas into speech

Preverbal message

Idea or concept the speaker wants to express

Main stages of speech production

Conceptualization → Formulation → Articulation → Monitoring

Levelt’s model

Conceptualizer, Formulator, Articulator, Comprehension System

Lexicalization

Process of finding and preparing words for speech

Two-stage lexical access

Lemma selection → Lexeme selection

Lemma

Abstract word representation (meaning + syntax, no sounds)

Lexeme

Phonological form of a word

Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon

Semantic access without phonological retrieval

Speech errors

Evidence for structure and organization of language

Spoonerism

Swapping initial sounds of words

Anticipation error

Future sound appears too early

Perseveration error

Previous sound persists

Exchange error

Two elements swap positions

Malapropism

Incorrect word with similar sound

Serial model of production

Each stage completes before the next begins

Cascaded model of production

Stages overlap and activate in parallel

Evidence for cascade model

Phonological competitors influence naming speed

Syntactic planning

Given information precedes new information

Topic–comment structure

Old information followed by new information

Syntactic priming

Tendency to reuse recently heard sentence structures

Phonological encoding

Organizing sounds into correct order and prosody

Frame-based models

Abstract syllabic frames filled with phonemes

Speech hesitations

Filled or unfilled pauses during speech

Bilingualism

Functional use of more than one language

Simultaneous bilingualism

Two languages learned at the same time

Early sequential bilingualism

L2 learned early after L1

Late bilingualism

L2 learned in adolescence or adulthood

OPOL principle

One person uses one language consistently

Language attrition

Loss of a language due to lack of use

Metalinguistic awareness

Awareness of language as a system

Separate-store model

Separate lexicons for each language

Common-store model

Shared semantic system for both languages

Cognates

Words with shared origin across languages

False cognates

Similar form but different meaning

Code-switching

Alternating languages depending on context

Code-mixing

Switching languages within a sentence

BICS

Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (~2 years)

CALP

Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (5–7+ years)

Additive bilingualism

L1 and L2 both develop fully

Subtractive bilingualism

L2 replaces L1

Conceptual mediation

Accessing meaning during translation

Backward translation

L2 to L1 via word association

Language diversity

Normal variation in language use

Patho-linguistics

Study of pathological language differences

Linguicism

Discrimination based on language

Dialect

Regional variety of a language

Sociolect

Language variety associated with a social group

Idiolect

Individual’s unique language use

Ecolect

Language use within a small group

Sociophonetic variation

Speech variation influenced by social identity

Accent modification

Learning new phonological distinctions

Speech organs

Anatomy adapted for speech but not evolved for it

Monogenesis hypothesis

All languages descend from one source

Polygenesis hypothesis

Languages developed independently

Hearing impairment

Not a language disorder but affects access to language

Language delay

Late but typical language development

Language deviance

Atypical language patterns

Dysarthria

Motor speech disorder due to muscle weakness

Apraxia of speech

Difficulty planning speech movements

Fluency disorders

Disruptions in speech flow

Stuttering

A fluency disorder involving repetitions and blocks

Production disorders

Impairments in speech output

Receptive disorders

Impairments in language comprehension

Domains of language impairment

Phonology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics