Language Behaviour: Psycholinguistics

Psycholinguistics investigates the mental

mechanisms underlying language
processing. (Cognitive)
How to perceive words and store them in the
mind, how to understand a sentence, how to
learn to read, how language and writing
systems influence mental organizations.

What is Psycholinguistics
Two Aspects:
Language Comprehension how we
understand the meaning of words and
sentences (receptive process)
Language Production how we speak and
use language (productive process)

Example: Visual Word Recognition

When people encounter a printed word,
how do they identify it?
Properties of the word
Visual or auditory (Modality)
Orthographic whether a word is constructed in a legal
way (e.g. math vs mtah)
Phonological (syllable: /cat/; phoneme: /k/, /e/, /t/,
Meaning
Time course of activation of the 3 types of linguistic info in
visual word identification

Example: Word Recognition

In identifying a written word,
Visuo-orthographic analysis occurs.

(activate, activation)
Is the meaning of a word accessed
automatically?
Is the phonological information of a word
accessed automatically?

Example: Word Recognition

An Experiment:
Task: Speak out the color name of the stimulus you
will view. (red, blue, green)
Requirement: Complete the task as quickly and
accurately as possible.

(The task was devised by Stroop, 1935 --the Stroop task.)

Example: Word Recognition

Expected results:
For color words (red, green, blue), when their
ink color is inconsistent with the meaning of
the words,
Naming time is longer (i.e.response latency);
Responses are less accurate.

Example: Word Recognition

Why there is such an interference effect?

The mental lexicon

red

/blu:/
blue

*
red

Example: Word Recognition

The above finding suggests that the

meaning of words is activated
automatically people cannot
control the activation of meaning.

automaticity

Example: Word Recognition

What about the phonological information

of a written word in a silent reading task?
Is a words phonology activated in a task
that does not require reading aloud?

Example: Word Recognition

Another experiment:

Task: On each trial, you will first see a semantic

category name (e.g., flower). Following the
semantic category, you will see a target word
which may be an exemplar of the category
(e.g., rose). Judge if the target word you will
see is an correct exemplar of the category.

Example: Word Recognition

A servant

Example: Word Recognition

maid

Example: Word Recognition

Type of food

Example: Word Recognition

meet

Example: Word Recognition

Part of a mountain

Example: Word Recognition

peek

Example: Word Recognition

A flower

Example: Word Recognition

rows

Example: Word Recognition

Expected results:
High false YES responses to
homophones of the exemplars.
Suggest that the meaning of words is
accessed via phonology.

flower
rose
/rouz/
rows

rows

Yes
(false)

Why we do this sort of stuff???

Research on normal readers word identification

processes provide a solid basis for treating
abnormal readers.
13%
7-15%

poor readers
developmental dyslexics (dyslexia)

(Developmental dyslexia: Individuals with normal to

high intelligence have severe reading problems.)

Findings with normal readers indicate that

word meaning and phonology are activated
automatically.
Apply the same tasks to dyslexia. There is a
phonological deficit for dyslexics they
cannot activate phonological information
obligatorily.

Research Methodology in
Psycholinguistics
1.

Reaction time (RT) approach

It measures peoples RT (response latency) to a
language stimulus. It includes many on-line
methods of studying peoples language behavior
continuously in a laboratory setting
RT measures time from onset of a stimulus to
onset of a response.
Infer the mental activity in terms of RTs.

dog

dog
/dawg/

Research Methodology in
Psycholinguistics
2. Memory and Classroom Approach
It investigates language behavior in
classroom, a more natural setting.
To study the developmental pattern of
childrens reading ability:

cross-sectional (grades 1 to grade 5)

longitudinal (a 5-year study)

Research Methodology in
Psycholinguistics
3. Eye movements Approach
Use the eyetracker to measure the position
and duration of peoples eye fixations upon
the text
It is a most reliable psycholinguistic
technique.

Research Methodology in
Psycholinguistics
How the Eyes Work?
When people read, the eyes do NOT move
continuously. Instead, the eye will stop on
some word for a brief period (150 to 500
milliseconds). This is called fixation.
Between the fixations are periods where the
eye moves rapidly. These rapid eye
movements are called saccades.

Research Methodology in
Psycholinguistics
To understand a sentence, the eyes
sometimes move back to some word, refixating it. These backward saccades are
termed regression.
Words that are fixated are in the fovea; words
surrounding the fixated words are in the
parafovea.

Research Methodology in
Psycholinguistics
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. .
.
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.
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212

question the payoff, some recent research

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Research Methodology in
Psycholinguistics
How the Eyes Work?
Fixation

Saccades

duration

length (characters)

English

231 msec.

7.8

Hebrew

265 msec.

5.5

Chinese

300 msec.

2.0

Research Methodology in
Psycholinguistics
How the Eyes Work?
Information extracted from the parafovea aids in reading:
Reading rate is about 200 words per minute when only
the fixated word is visible on each fixation, but it is 300
words per minute when both the fixated word and the one
immediately to the right are visible on each fixation.

Research Methodology in
Psycholinguistics
4. Neurolinguistic Approach
It studies the brain mechanism for language
functioning where is language functioning
localized in the brain?
Lesion study using brain-damage patients
Functional brain imaging study using the
intact human brain

Research Methodology in
Psycholinguistics

Left
hemisphere

cortex

Right
hemisphere

Research Methodology in
Psycholinguistics
Basic Neuroanatomy:

The outer layer of the brain cerebral cortex

Hidden underneath the cortex are
subcortical parts of the brain
The left and right hemispheres are
connected by a band of nerve fibers
corpus callosum

Research Methodology in
Psycholinguistics
Basic Neuroanatomy:

An important feature of the human nervous

system is that each cerebral cortex is
connected to the opposite side of the body.
This is termed contralateral connections.
(Same-side connections are very weak.)

Research Methodology in
Psycholinguistics

Split-brain patients those who have a

damaged corpus callosum but an
undamaged brain.

Research Methodology in
Psycholinguistics

Research Methodology in
Psycholinguistics

Results:
The left hemisphere is a language
hemisphere. (dominant).

Research Methodology in
Psycholinguistics

Brain Imaging Techniques

Language processing requires energy.

Brain imaging techniques depend on the
fact that working brain tissue calls more
blood its way and consumes more
glucose.

Research Methodology in
Psycholinguistics

 General Comments on Lesion

Studies:
1. The association between language
processing (e.g. syntactic processing)
and the damaged brain areas is direct.

2. The primary limitation is that lesions studies

rely on damaged brains. This has several
drawbacks because
* patients with distinct lesions and specific
functional impairments are rare; in many
case, lesions are large;
* following brain damage, performance may
not reflect normal language processing
because patients may compensate for their
deficits by using unusual processing
strategies.

 Can we reliably investigate

normal peoples intact brain by
using noninvasive techniques??

Research Methodology in
Psycholinguistics
Brain Imaging Techniques (PET & fMRI)
Language processing requires energy.
Brain imaging techniques depend on the
fact that working brain tissue calls more
blood its way and consumes more
glucose.

Functional brain imaging:

Directly visualize brain activities of normal
people.

 PET (positron emission tomography)

Subjects are injected with glucose that
has been tagged with a radioactive
substance; through this, brain images
can be got indicating which regions of
the brain have the greatest blood flow
are are using the most energy.

Washington University at St. Louis:

1986: Fox et al., Nature
1988: Fox et al., Science
1988: Petersen et al., Nature
1988: Posner et al. Science

fMRI (functional magnetic resonance

imaging):
When subjects perform a task (e.g., reading), neural
activity in specific areas of the brain increases. This
results in greater need for glucose and oxygen, both of
which are met by increasing blood flow. There is a
small difference in magnetic susceptibility (a property
of molecules) between oxygenated hemoglobin and deoxygenated hemoglobin. With increased blood flow to
active brain areas, there is a change in the proportion
of oxygenated to de-oxygenated hemoglobin. This
difference is detected by MRI scanners.

Massachusetts General Hospital

(Harvard University):

1992: K.K. Kwong et al. (PNAS)

S. Ogawa et al. (PNAS)
Peter Bandettini

Brain Imaging -- visualize the

activity of the intact human brain

 Brain science is (over-)interdisciplinary

and is a teams work. Psycholinguistics
and Linguistics are parts of it.