PSY%20369:%20Psycholinguistics

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PSY 369 Psycholinguistics

• Language Comprehension
• Discourse

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Homework 3 (Due in 1 week)

• Try to be vigilant for four or five days in
  noting speech errors made by yourself and others.
  Write each slip down (carry a small notebook and
  pencil with you). Then, when you have accumulated
  a reasonably size sample (aim for 20 to 30, but
  don't panic if you don't get that many), try to
  classify each slip in terms of
• the unit(s) involved
• the type of error
• Remember that each error may be interpreted in
  different ways. For some of them, see if you can
  come up with more than one possibility.

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• Read story aloud

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Discourse Psycholinguistics

• How we resolve/understand sentences against the
  current discourse representation

• What is discourse?
• Units of analysis larger than a sentence

• Local Structure (microstructure)
• The relationship between individual sentences
• Coherence
• Cohesion
• Global Structure (macrostructure)
• The relationship between the sentences and our
  knowledge of the world

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Characteristics of Discourse

• Global Structure (macrostructure)

• The relationship between the sentences and our
  knowledge of the world

Jill bought a new sweater. Sweater are
sometimes made of wool. Wool production gives
some farmers a good livelihood. Farming is a
high-risk business. On the news last night, I
saw a group of business executives discussing
recent trends in the stock market.
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Characteristics of Discourse

• Global Structure (macrostructure)

• Okay local structure, but each sentence isnt
  relevant to an overall topic of discourse

Jill bought a new sweater. Sweater are
sometimes made of wool. Wool production gives
some farmers a good livelihood. Farming is a
high-risk business. On the news last night, I
saw a group of business executives discussing
recent trends in the stock market.
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Characteristics of Discourse

• Global Structure (macrostructure)

• Schemas Scripts
• General knowledge structures for common social
  situations
• Genres
• Narrative structure
• Story grammars - extension of idea of grammatical
  rules, specify the organization of a story
• Expository structure
• Different structures

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Effects of world knowledge
Rocky slowly got up from the mat, planning
his escape. He hesitated a moment and thought.
Things were not going well. What bothered him
most was being held, especially since the charges
against him had been weak. He considered his
present situation. The lock that held him was
strong but he thought he could break it. He
knew, however, that his timing would have to be
perfect.
Prison escape
OR Wrestling match
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Effects of world knowledge

• Bartlett (1932)

• Read native American folk tale
• Write down everything that you can remember from
  that story that I read earlier
• Bartlett had them recall after a longer periods
  of time (between 15 mins. Up to 10 years later)

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Effects of world knowledge

• Bartlett (1932)

• Participants memories changed to fit their
  existing beliefs (reconstructive memories)
• Added new details
• Changed details
• Deleted details

• Schema
• Mental structures of how the world works,
  acquired through experience
• A whole package of information used to facilitate
  comprehension of discourse, as well as to guide
  recall (and reconstruction)

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Effects of world knowledge

• Invernizzi Abouzeid (1995)

• Read two European tales
• 2 audiences
• European North American children
• Ponam children (New Guinea)

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Effects of world knowledge

• Invernizzi Abouzeid (1995)

• Retelling of boy who cried wolf
• Ponam children (New Guinea)
• Once upon a time Kalai and his family they lived
  on an island. Kalais mother always carried him
  everywhere. One day Kalais mother and father
  went out fishing. Kalais mother said, Kalai,
  you are too small to go out fishing in the sea.
  You should stay home with your grandfather.
  Kalai was lonely on the beach. Kalai said, How
  could I get my family home? He sat down and
  decided to get his family home. He got his red
  laplap and ran down to the beach and waved his
  laplap to his family and said, Fire, fire. His
  brother saw his laplap and went home. When they
  arrived they saw nothing.

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Effects of world knowledge

• Invernizzi Abouzeid (1995)

• Retelling of boy who cried wolf
• European North American children
• Kalai was running up and down the beach yelling
  Fire, fire. Everybody came home. The next day
  the same thing happened. They came home. The
  next day came, but the house caught on fire. He
  ran up and down the beach, but nobody came.
  Kalai kept waving the flag. Nobody came.
  Suddenly they saw the flames and the smoke and
  they came, but it was too late. Everything had
  burnt down to the ground, and his brother told
  him if he kept telling lies that nobody will come
  when you call for help.

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Effects of world knowledge

• Invernizzi Abouzeid (1995)

• Impact of different schemata
• European North American children
• Setting, precipitating events, goal reaching
  aspects, story resolutions
• Ponam children (New Guinea)
• Recalled factual detail about settings, events,
  and outcomes, but leaving out things like
  consequence, resolution, moral (generally seemed
  to miss the point)

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Effects of world knowledge

• Scripts

• Generic story of situations

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Effects of world knowledge

• What happened to semantic networks?
• One explanation
• Some representations get so strongly associated
  that they get activated as an entire unit

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Effects of Genre

• Not all kinds of discourse follow the same
  structure
• Different effects, purposes, etc.
• Expository discourse
• Convey info about a subject (e.g., textbook,
  lecture)
• Narrative discourse
• Tell a story Introduce characters settings,
  establish a goal, etc.
• APA style
• Newspaper articles

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Expository Structure

• Reading texts, listening to lectures, etc.
• Organized with different relationships (but can
  still draw a tree structure)
• Relationships
• Collection - ideas or events related on the basis
  of some commonality
• Causation - ideas are joined causally so that one
  idea is identified as the antecedent and another
  as the consequence
• Response - ideas are joined in a problem/solution
  or question/answer relationship
• Comparison - ideas are related by pointing out
  similarities and differences
• Description - general ideas are explained by
  giving attributes or other specific details

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Narrative structure

• Once there was a woman. She saw a tigers
• cave. She wanted a tigers whisker. She put
• food in front of the cave. The tiger came out.
• She pulled out a whisker.

• The story has a structure, a story grammar

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Narrative structure

• Story grammar - can depict with a tree structure

Story
Once there was a woman.
She saw a tigers cave.
She wanted a tigers whisker.
She put food in front of the cave.
The tiger came out.
She pulled out a whisker.
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Narrative structure

• Thorndyke (1977)
• Level effect

• Comprehensibility and recall were tied to
  inherent plot structure, independent of passage
  content

She wanted a tigers whisker.
The tiger came out.
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Characteristics of Discourse
Trabasso Suh (1993)

• Test to see if structure effects whether
  inferences are made
• Task Think aloud task
• Read through the story aloud (one sentence at a
  time) and talk aloud about their understanding of
  that sentence

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• Trabasso Suh (1993)

Sequential version
Hierarchical version
Once there was a girl named Betty. One day, Betty
found that her mothers birthday was coming
soon. Betty really wanted to give her mother a
present. Betty went to the department store.
Betty found a pretty purse. Betty bought the
purse. Her mother was very happy.
Betty found that everything was too
expensive. Betty could not buy anything. Betty
felt sorry.
Several days later, Betty saw her friend
knitting. Betty was good at knitting. Betty
decided to knit a sweater. Betty selected a
pattern from a magazine. Betty followed the
instructions in the article. Finally, Betty
finished a beautiful sweater. Betty pressed the
sweater. Betty folded the sweater carefully.
Betty put it in the closet for the next time
she was going out. Berry was very happy.
Betty gave the sweater to her mother. Her mother
was excited when she saw the present.
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• Trabasso Suh (1993)

Hierarchical version
Betty was good at knitting. Betty decided to knit
a sweater. Betty selected a pattern from a
magazine. Betty followed the instructions in the
article. Finally, Betty finished a beautiful
sweater. Betty pressed the sweater. Betty folded
the sweater carefully. Betty gave the sweater to
her mother. Her mother was excited when she saw
the present.
S
S
Once there was a girl named Betty. One day, Betty
found that her mothers birthday was coming
soon. Betty really wanted to give her mother a
present. Betty went to the department
store. Betty found that everything was too
expensive. Betty could not buy anything. Betty
felt sorry. Several days later, Betty saw her
friend knitting.
G
E
A
G
A
A
O
O
A
O
A
R
O
E
R
S Setting
E Event
R Reaction
G Goal
O Overt Response
A Action
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• Trabasso Suh (1993)

Hierarchical version
Once there was a girl named Betty. One day, Betty
found that her mothers birthday was coming
soon. Betty really wanted to give her mother a
present. Betty went to the department
store. Betty found that everything was too
expensive. Betty could not buy anything. Betty
felt sorry. Several days later, Betty saw her
friend knitting.
Betty was good at knitting. Betty decided to knit
a sweater. Betty selected a pattern from a
magazine. Betty followed the instructions in the
article. Finally, Betty finished a beautiful
sweater. Betty pressed the sweater. Betty folded
the sweater carefully. Betty gave the sweater to
her mother. Her mother was excited when she saw
the present.
S
S
G
E
A
G
A
A
O
O
A
O
A
R
O
E
R
Is a superordinate goal that motivates the
subgoal of the next episode
S
E
G
A
O
O
R
A
A
O
R
E
S
G
A
A
O
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• Trabasso Suh (1993)

Sequential version
Once there was a girl named Betty. One day, Betty
found that her mothers birthday was coming
soon. Betty really wanted to give her mother a
present. Betty went to the department
store. Betty found a pretty purse. Betty bought
the purse. Her mother was very happy. Several
days later, Betty saw her friend knitting.
Betty was good at knitting. Betty decided to knit
a sweater. Betty selected a pattern from a
magazine. Betty followed the instructions in the
article. Finally, Betty finished a beautiful
sweater. Betty pressed the sweater. Betty folded
the sweater carefully. Betty put it in the closet
for the next time she was going out. Berry was
very happy.
S
S
G
E
A
G
A
A
O
O
A
O
A
R
O
E
R
The goal is already filled, so not related to the
subgoal of the next episode
S
E
G
A
O
O
R
E
S
G
A
A
O
A
A
O
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• Trabasso Suh (1993)

Results

• In a think aloud task
• participants mentioned the superordinate goal in
  the hierarchical condition
• but not the sequential condition
• Story grammar structure matters
• Strongly support the hypothesis that readers do
  make global causal connections during reading.

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Discourse in memory

• Evidence supports the psychological reality of a
  number of different representations
• Propositions
• Semantic (propositional) networks
• Inferences
• Schemata and scripts
• Situation models

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Discourse in memory

• Kintschs model

• The Construction-Integration Model

• Discourse occurs in a series of cycles
• As each sentence comes in it gets integrated into
  the discourse
• In each cycle
• Construction phase - activate relevant concepts
• Integration phase - keep only the most relevant
  elaborations
• Multiple levels of representation formed
• Surface form, textbase (propositional), situation
  model

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Discourse in memory

• Kintsch and colleagues (1990)

It was Friday night and Jack and Melissa
were bored, so they decided to catch a movie.
Jack scanned the newspaper. He saw that they
could just make the nine oclock showing of the
hot new romantic comedy. Off they went.

• Did this sentence occur in the paragraph?

Read before
Jack scanned the newspaper. Jack looked through
the newspaper. Jack looked through the movie
ads. Jack looked over some editorials.
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Discourse in memory

• Kintschs model

Jack scanned the newspaper.
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Discourse in memory

• Kintschs model

Jack scanned the newspaper.
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Discourse in memory

• Kintschs model

Jack scanned the newspaper.
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Discourse in memory

• Kintsch and colleagues (1990)

It was Friday night and Jack and Melissa
were bored, so they decided to catch a movie.
Jack scanned the newspaper. He saw that they
could just make the nine oclock showing of the
hot new romantic comedy. Off they went.

• Did this sentence occur in the paragraph?

Read before
Jack scanned the newspaper. Jack looked through
the newspaper. Jack looked through the movie
ads. Jack looked over some editorials.
Similar meaning
Evidence for surface form
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Discourse in memory

• Kintsch and colleagues (1990)

It was Friday night and Jack and Melissa
were bored, so they decided to catch a movie.
Jack scanned the newspaper. He saw that they
could just make the nine oclock showing of the
hot new romantic comedy. Off they went.

• Did this sentence occur in the paragraph?

Read before
Jack scanned the newspaper. Jack looked through
the newspaper. Jack looked through the movie
ads. Jack looked over some editorials.
Evidence for Strong textbase
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Discourse in memory

• Kintch and colleagues (1990)

It was Friday night and Jack and Melissa
were bored, so they decided to catch a movie.
Jack scanned the newspaper. He saw that they
could just make the nine oclock showing of the
hot new romantic comedy. Off they went.

• Did this sentence occur in the paragraph?

Jack scanned the newspaper. Jack looked through
the newspaper. Jack looked through the movie
ads. Jack looked over some editorials.
inconsistent
Evidence for Strong situation model
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Discourse in memory

• Kintch and colleagues (1990)

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Summary

• Discourse processing is both complex and flexible
• Multiple representations
• Processing depends on context