認知心理学12. Language: 言語
Today
- How is language organized?
- How are sentences produced and -comprehended?
Properties of language
- Despite all this variation, there are some characteristics that all languages share- and the course of development of language is amazingly similar despite the variety of outcomes.
- So, some characteristics that are similar for all languages:
Language is..
- symbolic
- arbitrary labels
- The use of symbols, such as spoken or written words, to represent ideas (CP 244)
- (except in the case of onimonipea) nothing inherent about this object that would lead me to call it x and not ‘chazwouzes’
- generative
- Almost limitless combination of words available to make statements
- The capability to produce many different messages by combining symbols in different ways (CP 244)
- you can make an almost unlimited number of statements from a relatively small number of possible sounds.
Organization of language
- phoneme
- unit of sound: th, a, aaa; there are about 100 phonemes across all languages, but only about 40 or so get used in a language- speakers of one language often have trouble with unfamiliar phonemes. Fa ra ra ra ra
- only about 40 in English
- The treth ef thes stestement shed be evedent frem thes bref demenstreten.
- morpheme
Organization of language
- phrase/ propositions
- groups of morphemes that convey a meaning: in the den, it’s raining
- Formed according to rules of grammar.
- sentence
- organized sequences of words that express a thought or intention
- organized by syntax
- semantic
- rules for organizing meaning (constrained by syntax)
- The woman kissed her date.
- Could have multiple meanings (is ambiguous), maybe she really likes middle-eastern fruit.
- The woman kissed her anxious date.
- meaning is clear because we know through syntax that an adjective modifies a noun and fruit can’t be anxious.
Aphasias
- Wernicke’s aphasia
- difficulty understanding speech, even their own.
- A language disorder attributed to damage in the temporal lobe of the brain (CP 247)
- Problems with phonemes and words
- Broca’s aphasia
- For them, speech is difficult to initiate, non-fluent, labored, and halting.
- A language disorder attributed to damage in the frontal lobe of the brain (CP 247)
- difficulty producing language
- Paralysis on right side of body
- Song repetition intact
The nature/nurture of language development
- Nature provides:
- 10 months- phoneme sensitivity (forming prototypes)
- below 10 months of age can discriminate between all known phonemes.
- ‘Perceptual magnet’
- sounds get pulled closer to their prototypes.
- 10 months- phoneme sensitivity (forming prototypes)
(Werker, 1989)
What is learned
- How to make phonemes.
- How to combine phonemes to create words and sentences.
Schematic of language
Hierarchical organization of speech
- Looking at how grammar constrains speech errors indicates hierarchical organization of speech.
- Speech errors
- slip of the tongue
- A speech error (CP 250)
- exchange error
- An error in which two linguistic units are substituted for each other during sentence production (CP 250)
- word exchange:
- morpheme exchange:
- phoneme exchange:
- slip of the tongue
NOAM CHOMSKY’S (1957) THEORY OF LANGUAGE
- PHRASE STRUCTURE GRAMMAR
- Divide these sentences into meaningful parts:
| The strong | youths | carried | the heavy boxes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Noun phrase | Verb phrase | ||
| Adjective | Noun | Verb | Noun phrase |
| The doctor | consoled the grieving parent. |
|---|---|
| Noun phrase | Verb phrase |
| The cottage | across the lake | was purchased |
|---|---|---|
| Noun phrase | Verb phrase | |
| Noun phrase | Adjective phrase | verb phrase |
Phrase Structure Grammar alone is insufficient.
Another issue with phrase structure grammar
- Flying planes can be dangerous
- Surface structure mapped onto two meanings
- flying planes are dangerous to the pilot.
- the planes themselves are dangerous.
- The problem is that the sentence can only be partitioned in one way; thus, the ambiguity cannot be resolved using different phrase structure rules.
NOAM CHOMSKY’S (1957) THEORY OF LANGUAGE
- transformational grammar:
- Transform the KERNEL into PASSIVE TENSE:
- “The cat is being chased by the dog.”
- Transform the KERNEL into a NEGATION:
- “The dog is not chasing the cat.”
- Transform the KERNEL into a QUESTION:
- “Is the dog chasing the cat?”
- Transform the KERNEL into a ALL THREE:
- “Isn’t the cat being chased by the dog?”
- Transformational grammar alone is insufficient.
- “Puffy clouds relax the couch.”
- Transform the Kernel into PASSIVE TENSE:
- “The couch is relaxed by puffy clouds.”
- Transform the Kernel into a NEGATION:
- “Puffy clouds do not relax the couch.”
- Transform the Kernel into a QUESTION:
- “Do puffy clouds relax the couch?”
- ''PROBLEM'': Although transformational grammar provides the rules for transforming sentences into various meanings, it does not guarantee that a sentence will be meaningful.
- Chomsky tried to rectify this problem by placing constraints on which words could be used and substituted in a sentence.
- In this example, the verb relax requires an animate object.
- Clouds and couch’s don’t relax.
NOAM CHOMSKY’S (1957) THEORY OF LANGUAGE
- To help understand these problems with transformational grammar, Chomsky included two levels.
2. deep structure:
EVIDENCE FOR TRANSFORMATIONAL GRAMMAR: ''Chase & Clark (1972)''
- Processing negative transformations
- STAR IS TO RIGHT OF PLUS. +- (KERNEL SENTENCE)
- Negative transformation:
- STAR IS NOT LEFT OF PLUS. +- (TRANSFORMATION)
- To evaluate this sentence, we first mentally transform it to its kernel sentence:
- ''STAR IS TO RIGHT OF PLUS. +- (KERNEL SENTENCE)''
- This transformation takes time to process.
Semantic influence on syntactic parsing
- Animate vs. inanimate nouns
- The defendant examined by the lawyer turned out to be unreliable.
- The evidence examined by the lawyer turned out to be unreliable.
- Ss do not experience this slow down because there assumption that examined is the main verb is correct.
- In other words, the context (whether the sentence begins with and animate or inanimate noun) influences the ease of later comprehension.
Semantic Context and Word Recognition
- When we read something semantic context can facilitate recognition of later words
- Ex: we’ve all encountered handwriting that is difficult read, an we can often use previous words to identify an illegible word.
- We don’t have any trouble reading and comprehending either of these two sentences even though the two sentences contain a physically identical word.
- The context in both sentences allows us to correctly guess which word comes next and thus we interpret it correctly.
- high-constraint sentence:
- In H.C. sentences reaction times are slower when the word is not expected.
- low-constraint sentence:
- Produce an expectation for a broader range of words.
- A sentence that produces an expectation for a broader range of words (258)
- The lady was a competent chef
- The lady was a competent cook
- In L.C. sentences both the expected and unexpected word have equally fast reaction times.
Contextual factors
- Although he was continually bothered by the cold…
- When we read this partial sentence, the word cold is somewhat ambiguous without any prior context.
- Thus, it is unclear whether cold refers to the temperature or whether it refers to the subjects health.
Processing ambiguous words: ''Swinney & Hakes, 1976''
- Swinney tested whether a clarifying context made an ambiguous sentence easier to comprehend.
- ambiguous sentence
- 2 tasks simultaneously while listening to pairs of sentences.
- IV: type of text (ambiguous or contextualized)
- DV: RTs for button press
- Target phoneme: /k/ (in corner)
- (1) Rumor had it that, for years, the government building had been plagued with problems. The man was not surprised when he found several ''bugs/ insects'' in the __c__orner of his room. (ambiguous)
- Findings: RT for bugs > RT for insects
- In the control condition bugs was replaced with insect and responses were significantly faster when word insect.
- (2) 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 __c__orner of his room. (contextualized)
- In this version the preceding context sets up the word bugs for the correct interpretation.
- 1 interpretation: correct context activates only a single meaning of the word
- Findings: RT for +1 > RT for +2
What happens to alternative interpretations of words?
- BUG- insect related meaning/ spy-related meaning
- Swinney, 1979
- Swinney did another experiment to test whether ambiguous words activated multiple meanings of the word or only one meaning.
- Same study except phoneme detection task became lexical decisions.
- lexical decision task
- A task that requires people to decide whether a string of letters is a word (CP 257)
- Ss heard this sentence:
- 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 his room.
- The asterisks represent when the lexical decision task occurred. Immediately after bugs or after a delay of four syllables.
- Test words:
- Appropriate interpretation: ANT
- Inappropriate interpretation: SPY
- Unrelated: SEW
- However, it is those four syllables that disambiguate the word bugs.
- Results
- IV: timing of lexical decision task
- DV: RT for lexical decision
- At -: ANT = SPY < SEW
- At --: ANT < SPY = SEW
- What we see is that when the task occurs immediately after the word, bugs both ant and spy are faster than the non-related word.
- But there is no difference in reaction times between ant and spy.
- However, when the task occurred after the delay responding to ant was significantly faster than responding to either spy or sew.
- →both meanings of an ambiguous word are activated momentarily, and the context allows the Ss to select the correct meaning quickly.
- Activating both meanings in ambiguous words is an advantage.
- If only one, the most frequent, meaning was activated, it would takes a great deal of time longer to have go back and activate and select the alternative meaning when we ran into a sentence requiring the alternative.
Individual differences
- Factors influencing ambiguity resolution
- Reading skill
- Poor readers are unable to suppress the inappropriate meanings of ambiguous words.
- working memory capacity
- The amount of information that can be kept active in working memory (CP 261)
- Reading skill
- Since Ken really liked the boxer, he took a bus to the nearest…
- Boxer: the dominant meaning is that of a fighter, while the less dominate meaning is that of a dog.
- Readers with small capacities had trouble resolving the ambiguous word if it turned out to refer to a dog (the less dominate meaning).
- Good readers have larger working memory capacities, thus keeping both meanings active in working memory is easy.
- However, poor readers have smaller capacities and are therefore only able to maintain the dominant meaning for any length of time.
error recovery heuristic
- A strategy for correcting comprehension errors (CP 261)
- Used for correcting comprehension errors
- Reinterpret the inconsistent word
- Check previous words that might have lead to the difficulty
- Read on for further information
- Elaborate on the inconsistency to make it consistent
Read out loud the sentence that will appear below
''CINDERELLA WAS SAD BECAUSE SHE COULDN’T GO TO THE DANCE THAT NIGHT. THERE WERE BIG TEARS IN HER BROWN DRESS. ''(CARPENTER & DANEMAN, 1981: Error recovery heuristics)
- Read out loud the sentence that will appear on the next slide
''THE YOUNG MAN TURNED HIS BACK ON THE ROCK CONCERT STAGE AND LOOKED ACROSS THE RESORT LAKE. TOMORROW WAS THE ANNUAL FISHING CONTEST AND FISHERMEN WOULD INVADE THE PLACE. SOME OF THE BEST BASS GUITARISTS IN THE COUNTRY WOULD COME TO THE SPOT. THE USUAL ROUTINE OF THE FISHING RESORT WOULD BE DISRUPTED BY THE FESTIVITIES.'' (CARPENTER & DANEMAN, 1981)
Beyond the words: inferences
- The angry swarm of bees flew out of the hive and landed on Joan's hand. Her hand was soon very sore and she regretted having bothered the insects.
- In this case we are able to use language to imply something without explicitly asserting it.
''Bransford, Barclay & Franks, 1972''
- Studied the effects of inferences on memory.
- Three turtles rested on a floating log, and a fish swam beneath them.
- Specifically they studied how subjects would falsely recognize implied statements.
- Recognition sentence:
- Three turtles rested on a floating log, and a fish swam beneath them.
- Comparison condition:
- Three turtles rested beside a floating log, and a fish swam beneath it.
