Quiz 6 - Language

Phonology

studying the production and perception of sounds found for a particular language.

Prosody

the rhythm and stress (emphasis) found in speech

Syntax (Grammer)

studying the structure and rules of constructing well formed sentences

Discourse comprehension

understanding the context of how sentences are related to each other and their relation to semantic memory.

The Competition model (MacWhinney & Bates, 1989, MacWhinney, 1987)

• A theoretical framework describing cross-linguistic performance of different syntactic and semantic features.

• Different languages use different sets of syntactic and semantic features that guide the sentence comprehension.

• Cue validity refers to the reliability of a given syntactic or semantic form in guiding comprehension.

• Children can become sensitive to these syntactic and semantic cues early in language acquisition

Cue validity

refers to the reliability of a given syntactic or semantic form in guiding comprehension.

MacWhinney, Bates & Kliegl (1984)

• Participants heard a set of two nouns and a verb, in any order (VNN, NVN, NNV) in some combination of animate and inanimate items.

• Ex. (The boy ate the apple, ate the boy the apple, the apple ate the boy, the wall ate the apple)

• Participants were asked to decide which of the nouns is performing the action. (English, Italian, German):

• English speakers relied on word order

• Italian speakers relied on the animacy of the nouns

• German speakers relied on animacy and a case marker.

Order of importance of cues to actor assignment by adult speakers across languages (from MacWhinney & Bates, 1989)

• English - word order > animacy, agreement > stress

• Italian - subject-verb agreement > clitic agreement > animacy > word order > stress

• German - case marker > agreement > animacy > word order

Surface Level Representation

The word-for-word and briefly activated form captures the exact syntax, semantics, and pragmatics for a sentence or series of sentences.

Propositional Level Representation

the summary meaning of a discourse is captured by a richly interconnected network of propositions in a semantic network

or

A set of nodes are activated in a semantic network to represent the gist of sentences without surface representation. A series of sentences can be linked with each other based on common nodes activated.

Situation Level Representation

the long-term level of representation similar to the representation that results from direct experience with the situation described by a discourse (Walter Kintsch, 1988, 1993).

Examples for the Levels of Representation

Surface level is the “statement”: the boy ate the apple

Propositional level is the “key concepts”: boy, ate, apple

Situation level is seeing it (seeing a boy eating an apple)

Evidence for Short-Term Surface level memory: Jarvella (1971)

The researcher interrupted a spoken story and tested surface memory in participants for the last three clauses under two conditions:

• A) The confidence of Kofach was not unfounded. To stack the meeting for McDonald the union had even brought in outsiders.

• B) Kofach had been persuaded by the international to stack the meeting for McDonald. The union had even brought in outsiders.

• People were asked to free-recall the clauses they were listening.

The researcher found poor memory for clauses BEFORE the sentence boundary. Therefore, the Surface form is held in STM/WM until a sentence boundary is reached, then removed to make room for the next sentence. Only sentence meaning (or the gist) is stored in LTM.

Evidence for Long-term Surface Level Memory: Bates, Kintsch, Fletcher & Giuliani (1980)

• Using an “in context" Recognition Test can help researchers differentiate Reconstructive Memory versus Reproductive Memory.

• "Mary told me she saw John/him at the basketball game."

• Embedding the Recognition Test in the context of a discourse or paragraph. Any difference between participants with and without prior exposure to the discourse can be attributed to "real" surface memory.

• Studies using this procedure (e.g., Bates, Kintsch, Fletcher & Giuliani, 1980) provide strong support for long-term surface memory.

Further evidence for Long-term Surface memory

• Re-reading times are slower when the surface form is changed

• sentence verification times are slower when the surface form is changed

Distinctiveness (Kintsch& Bates, 1977)

Sentences that are different in some way (e.g., jokes and announcements) produce stronger surface memor

Interactive Content (Keenan, MacWhinney & Mayhew 1977)

sentences that tell us about the relationship between the speaker and listener produce more surface memory

Cognitive Effort (Bates, Kintsh, Fletcher & Giuliani, 1977)

Sentences that require more processing effort produce more surface memory.

Crossmodality Integration

How do we combine the information from verbal directions (auditory) and a map (visual)? (interaction between analogical and propositional representations?)

Individual Differences in Comprehension

Two people can agree on what was said but disagree on its meaning

(ex. Visiting relatives can be annoying, can be interpreted in two ways: relatives visiting ME is annoying/ME visiting relatives is annoying

The lady hit the man with an umbrella, can be interpreted in two ways: The lady with the umbrella hit the man/The lady hit the man who was holding an umbrella)

Learning

Learning from a text is not the same as remembering a text.

Schmalhoffer & Glavanov (1986) conducted a study where participants were instructed to study a computer programming text

for (a) later recall or (b) programming a computer.

• Participants asked to study a text for programming computer were able to create a program for the computer, but they had poor performance on surface and propositional recall and vice versa.

Perceptual and Sensory Qualities:

Some texts (or listening to stories) give rise to perceptual and sensory properties that are not well captured by propositions

• Reading stories can “transport” you to another place and time. In addition, there can be a suspension of disbelief (i.e. reading fantasy and science fiction). (Suggestibility, Empathy)

Updating

Where and how is information from related sentences combined?

Causal Structure Model of Discourse Comprehension (Trabasso, van den Broek, & Suh, 1989)

• Readers generate a causal network representation of the states and events in a story that lead towards goals.

• Events with more causal connections are better remembered than events with few causal connections. (Trabasso, van den Broek, & Suh, 1989)

• Reading stories to children helps them start understanding the foundation of the causal connections of events in stories.

• Children and adults watching TV programs understand the story based on the causal structure of events. (van den Broek, Lorch, Thurlow, 1996)

Pragmatics

studying the ability of speakers to communicate more than that which is explicitly stated.

• Pragmatics are an important component of conversations: Can you open the door? - Can you please open the door?

Maxim of Quality

Truth (do not say what you believe to be false, don’t lie, and don’t exaggerate)

Maxim of Quantity

Information (don’t say more or less than you know, do not make your contribution more informative than is required, and don’t be too informative)

Maxim of Relation

relevence (stick to the topic of conversation, rather than shifting topics; don't say what others are not interested in the conversation

Maxim of Manner and Tone

Clarity (avoid obscurity of expressions ("Eschew obfuscation"), avoid ambiguity, be brief, and be orderly.

Violations of the Conversational Maxims between speakers results

in an uncoordinated conversation and confusion.

Aphasia

Difficulty in producing or understanding speech caused by brain damage, and not due to deafness or a simple motor deficit.

Most of what researchers know about the neural circuits devoted to language is

through brain damage and its effects on language behavior.

Broca’s area (Broca, 1860)

found on the inferior left frontal lobe; Damage to this area causes disruption of fluent speech, but with intact meaning. (Syntax (Grammar) module)

• Not a bunch of grammar going on but gets to the point although with hesitation

Wernike’s area (Wernike, 1874)

found on the superior temporal lobe gyrus; Damage to this area causes a disruption of speech production and comprehension, but with intact grammatical sentences. (Semantics (Meaning) module)

Symptoms of Broca’s Aphasia

• Slow, laborious and non-fluent speech.

• Agrammatism: difficulty in using grammatical constructions

• They have difficulty saying function words (words that specify a grammatical structure such as articles and prepositions) (ex. a, the, some, in, on, about)

• They have difficulty with word order

• Anomia:

• Difficulty with articulation: Words are mispronounced by patients.

Agrammatism (Symptoms of Broca’s Aphasia)

difficulty in using grammatical constructions

Anomia (Symptoms of Broca’s Aphasia)

Difficulty in finding or remembering the correct word to describe an object, action, or feature

Difficulty with articulation (Symptoms of Broca’s Aphasia)

Words are mispronounced by patients.

Symptoms of damage to Wernike’s area

• Fluent speech with the use of function words and forming grammatical sentences.

• Poor word and sentence comprehension.

• Difficulty in converting thoughts into words

• Neologisms: creating new words that lack meaning

• Word deafness: inability to understand the meaning of speech, but ability to hear non-speech sounds, to recognize prosody, to speak and (usually) reading and writing are intact. • They are often unaware of their language deficits.

Word deafness (Symptoms of damage to Wernike’s area)

inability to understand the meaning of speech, but ability to hear non-speech sounds, to recognize prosody, to speak and (usually) reading and writing are intact.

Neologism (Symptoms of damage to Wernike’s area)

creating new words that lack meaning (making up words that already have a label - comb to → have you seen my gabaga

Right cerebral cortex and Language

• Right cerebral cortex helps organize a discourse by selecting and assembling what to say.

• Right cerebral cortex is specialized for holistic processing of information about the world (geometic shapes, navigation, analysis of space).

• Right cerebral cortex is specialized to detect emotions of speakers.

• Right cerebral cortex controls prosody in spoken language.