Language processing in mind

I. the scope of psycholinguistics

--two core questions:
what knowledge of language is needed for us to use language?
What cognitive processes (perception, memory and thinking) are involved in the use
of language?
II. Psychological Mechanisms
I.1 information processing system
incoming information
sensory stores
selective attention
working memory
successfully coded for storage
permanent memory
procedural memory declarative memory
semantic memory episodic memory
I.1.1 sensory stores
--incoming information first enters sm, which retain them , for a brief time, in raw
unanalyed form!
I.1.2 working memory
--limited in sie" it can hold appro#imately $ plus or minus % whatever units of
information, average &
I.1.3 permanent memory
--acts as a permanent storehouse for meaningful information
--have a limitless storage capacity
--information is stored on the base of meaning and importance , not sound!
--when new information enters wm, some old information will be retrieved from pm
to the working memory so that this new information can be coded as meaningful or
not by relating it to the old information!

I.1.4 summary
--the information processing mechanism consist of sensory stores, working memory,
permanent memory and a set of control processes!
I.2 central issues in language processing
I.2.1 serial processing vs. parallel processing
erial processing
--'ased on the electronic computer, which tend to e#ecutive processes rapidly in a
serial manner!
!!(f a group of processes takes place one at a time, with none overlapping, it is called
serial processing!
I.2.2 modularity
--modularity has % meanings!
)) independence of the lang processing system from the general cognitive system!
--*g! +homsky
--the speech perception is a special lg module ! the properties belong to the
perception of speech but not to the perception of say, music!
%) the ling subsystems, such as semantics, synta#, operate independently rather
than interactively!
--eg! in comprehending a sentence, we apply syntactic principles first, than semantic
knowledge! (the interactive view is that we use the knowledge in syntactic and
semantic simultaneously!)
III. "ord perception
I.3 dimension of word knowledge
I.4 organi#ation of the internal le$icon%spreading activation models
I.4.1 the concept of a semantic network
--'iologically, the brain is composed of neurons that are connected to other neurons
and that these connections can be either facilitative or inhibitory!
I.4.2 spreading activation models
--+ollins and ,oftus ()-$&)
--the organiation of the internal le#icon
--such relations are not equal" some nodes are more accessible than other and the
degree of accessibility is related to factor such as frequency and typicality!
--by 'ock and ,evelt ()--.)
)) our knowledge of words e#ists at three levels!
%) /he conceptual level: similar to the +ollins and ,oftus model! +onsisting of
nodes that represent concept" nodes are connected to other nodes by various
relations!
0) ,emma level
--a lemma refers to syntactic aspects of word knowledge (such as part of speech,
gender, and sub1ect requirement such an animate sub1ect?)
--e!g!
.) le#eme level: phonological properties of a word (phonemes and pronunciation)
I.& le$ical access
I.&.1 cohort model
--by 2arslen-Wilson ()-3$, )--4)
)) --designed specifically to account for auditory word recognition!
%) finally the recognied word is fit into the connected discourse!
I.&.2 varia'les that influence le$ical access
1( word fre)uency
Low frequency words take longer time to be retrieved!
2( morphological comple$ity
Response time (in e#periments such as eye-fi#ation, retrieving affi#es to change word
part of speech) was longer for affixed words than words without affixes.
*!g! in retrieving 5decision6, we retrieve 5decide6 and 57sion6 and then combine them!
3( semantic priming *semantic association(
--8emantic priming: 9 occurs when a word presented earlier activates another,
semantically related word!
4( le$ical am'iguity
,e#ical :mbiguity has generated a substantial amount of research because it raises a
number of intriguing ;uestions!
ummary *Le$ical +ccess(
)! ,e#ical access influenced by factors including frequency, phonological
structural, syntactic categories, morphological structural, the presence of
semantically related words and the e#istence of alternative meanings of the
words!
%! +ommon words and meaning appear to be in a state of greater readiness then
less frequency word and meaning!
0! ambiguous word: we briefly consider all meanings of an ambiguous word!
<owever, when a preceding conte#t primes the most dominant meaning of
ambiguous word, le#ical access may be selective!
I,. entence -omprehension and Memory
2ost, you barely notice their structure!
8ome, the wording is so cumbersome that you6ll struggle to unravel what6s been said!
We often forget the e#act words used to convey a message!
8ome sentences linger in our memories for years!
+omprehension involves attention to syntactic, semantic, pragmatic factors!
4. Immediate Processing of entences
4.1 Parsing
.!)!) =ef! 7 /he first step in understanding a sentence is a procedure to assign
elements of the sentence surface!
4.1.2 Immediacy Principle
/ust > +arpenter ()-34): in ?arsing we are making decisions though not necessarily
in a conscious manner, about which to place incoming words in the tree diagram we
are building!
4.1.3 Parsing trategies
4.1.3.1 Late closure strategies
e!g! /om said that 'ill had taken the cleaning out yesterday!
--- Whenever possible, we prefer to attach new items to the current constituent, i!e!, to
reduce the burden on working memory during parsing!
4.1.3.2 Minimal +ttachment trategy
--- We prefer attaching new items into the tree diagram being constructed using the
fewest syntactic nodes!
&. Memory for sentences
(n natural discourse, it6s unlikely that we can retain all of sentences accurately since
one sentence follows another in a successive flow!
(n this part, we6ll e#amine what we remember and what we don6t remember for
sentences!
&.1 Memory for meaning ,. surface form
&.1.1 ;uestion: Whether we retain the e#act form of a sentence or simply its
meaning?
&.1.2 .etention interval in memory
&.1.3 Pragmatic factors
(n some case, we seem to remember the e#act form of what6s said, puling,
confusing, insulting liger for years in our memory!
--- <oltgraves )--$
/. 0iscourse processing
/.1 strategies to esta'lish coherence
/he comprehension of discourse depends less on the meaning of individual sentences
than on their arrangement!
/.1.1 2iven3new strategy
--- this strategy status: a process of understanding a sentence in a discourse conte#t
involves 0 stages:
/.1.2 0irect Match
e!g! @ak hopped into a waiting car and sped around the corner! <e swerved to avoid
the parked car and smashed into a building!
e!g! @ak hopped into a waiting car! /he old car lost a wheel and smashed into a
building!
/.1.3 4ridging
--- (n some cases, people must make an inference to bridge the gap between the target
sentence and antecedents!
e!g! ,ast +hristmas he went to a lot of parties!
+omprehension: ,ast +hristmas he got absolutely smashed!
/his +hristmas he goes very drunk again!
/.1.4 .einstating old info.
*#ample: 8): (6m trying to find a black dog! <e6s short and has a dog tag on his neck
that says Ared! Besterday he bit a little girl! 8he was scared but she
wasn6t really hurt!
8%: yesterday, a black dog bit a little girl! (t got away and we6re still trying to
find it! <e is shortC! 8he was scared butC!!
/.1 chemata and 0iscourse Processing
/.1.1 0ef.
8chema: a structure in semantic memory that specifies the general or e#pected
arrangement of a body of info! +onte#t schema
8tructure schema 7 genre

/.1.2 +ctivation of appropriate schemata *conte$t schema(
--- ,ack the appropriate schema: comprehension and memory are poor!
*#periment: 'artlett ()-0%) found it6s hard for 'ritish college student to understand
*skimo folk tales!
--- *ven if one has the appropriate schema, but if one fails to activate them,
comprehension and memory are poor! (course book ?!%4$)
/.2 5arrative discourse Processing%story grammar
--- 8ome schemata concerns certain forms of discourse! : type of discourse which has
a characteristic structure genre! Denres provide general e#pectations regarding the
way info in a discourse will be arranged!
/.2.1 tory grammar
--- 9 is a schema in semantic memory that identifies the typical or e#pected
arrangement of events in a story!
6. Perception of "ritten Language
6.1 Levels of written language process
?rocessing written language e#ists at 0 levelsEfeature level, letter l, and word l
)) :t feature level, the stimulus is represented in terms of the physical features that
comprise a letter of alphabet!
%) :t letter level, the stimulus is represented more abstractly as an identity separate
from its physical manifestation:
0) :s the word is recognied, various properties of the words (spelling,
pronunciation meaning) become available to us!
6.2 7ye moments during .eading
:ll these three above pieces of visual info are e#tracted through a series of eye
movement!
)) 8accades:
%) Fegression:
0) Ai#ation:
.) 8pan of fi#ation (perceptual span):
&) Feading speed is determined by the duration of our fi#ations! /he span of material
fi#ated and the proportion of regressive eye movement!
8. Production of peech and "riting
8.1 lips of 9ongue
--- +ollect speech errors in spontaneous speech (live /G or radio)
--- =etermine whether there are consistent patterns in when and how they occur!
--- Why study errors?
3 basic types of speech errors
)) 8hift
e!g! /hat6s so she6ll be ready in case she decide to hits it
%) *#change
e!g! Aancy getting your model renosed! (nose remodeled)
0) :nticipation
e!g! '(/)ake my bike!
.) ?reservation
e!g! <e pulled a p(t)antrum!
&) :ddition
*!g! ( didn6t e#plain this c(l)arefully enough!
H) =eletion
e!g! (6ll 1ust get up and mutter (un)intelligible!
$) 8ubstitution
e!g! :t low speed it6s too light (heavy)!
3) 'lend
e!g! /hat child is looking to be spaddled! (spanked I paddled)
8.2 2arrett *1:84( & stages in speaking a sentence
e!g to produce sentence: 8he6s already packed two trunks!
)! 2assage-level representation
%! Aunctional-level F
0! ?ositional-level F
.! ?honetic-level F
:. Production of "ritten Language
:.1 Issue; writing product vs. writing process
--- writing-as-a process approach
:.2 <=>
:.3 4=?s model of the writing!process
--- proposing that: the writing process cannot assume a single processing model, but
should consider different processing models at different developed stages!
--- focus more an describing why and how skilled and less-skilled writer compose
differently!
--- % models: Jnowledge-telling model
Jnowledge-transforming model