Lecture 7 - Language Processing Flashcards
What influences the meaning of language?
- Semantics: The meaning of words
- Syntax: Sentence structure and thematic roles (who is doing what to whom)
- Pragmatics: The influence of context on meaning
What are key features of sentence processing?
- Immediacy: Interpretation begins as soon as words are heard or read
- Lexical ambiguity: Words with multiple meanings (e.g., “bank”)
- Lexical ambiguity: Sentences with multiple possible structures or interpretations
What did Warren (1970) demonstrate in the Phoneme Restoration Effect? Any limitation?
- Participants “heard” missing phonemes that were replaced by a cough, depending on context (e.g., eel –> wheel/meal/reel/peel)
- Demonstrates top-down processing
- Limitation: Retrospective design
How do eye movements support sentence comprehension?
- Reading: Eye fixations indicate processing load
- Listening: Object fixation can show focus comprehension
How does context affect reading time? (Morris, 1994) Which principle does this support?
- Fixation on the word “moustache” was shorter when preceded by “barber” vs. “person”
- Supports the immediacy principle: interpretation starts immediately
Why do we interpret language immediately rather than wait for full sentences?
- Working memory limitations
- Processing speed efficiency
- Example: Google’s autocomplete
What is lexical ambiguity (polysemy)?
- Words like “bank” have multiple meanings (e.g., riverbank or financial institution)
- Interpretation may involve:
- Multiple access: All meanings activated
- Selective access: Only contextually appropriate meaning activated
- Meaning dominance: More frequent meanings accessed faster
How did Swinney (1979) study ambiguity and meaning activation? What did he find?
- Swinney used cross-modal priming with the ambiguous word “bugs”
- Participants responded fastest to semantically related probes (e.g., “ANT”)
- Context filters inappropriate meanings quickly
- Context filters inappropriate meaning quickly
What are the results of Swinney’s cross-modal priming study?
- Immediate probe: Priming for both meanings
- Late probe: Only context-relevant meaning retained
What was shown in Duffy, Morris & Rayner (1988)?
- Readers fixate longer on ambiguous words when the meanings are equally frequent
- Contextual dominance can influence ease of disambiguation
What is syntactic ambiguity?
- Sentences with more than one grammatical interpretation, e.g:
- “Flying planes can be dangerous.”
- “I saw the man with the telescope.”
What is parsing and thematic role assignment in syntax?
- Parsing: Breaking down sentences into syntactic structure
- Thematic roles:
- Agent - Instigator
- Theme - Thing being acted upon
- Recipient - Receives the theme
- Additional roles: Location, source, goal, time, instrument
What are phrase structure rules?
- Rules specifying how words combine in a language
- Native speakers have tactic knowledge of these rules
What is minimal attachment in sentence parsing? Evidence?
- Minimal attachment: Prefer the simplest syntactic structure
- Evidence from:
- “The spy saw the cop with the binoculars.” –> Prefer attaching “with the binoculars” to “saw” (minimal)
- Backtracking required if context forces different interpretation
What was shown by Taraban & McClelland (1988)? (Include what they did)
- Used sentences like “The couple admired the house with a garden” vs. “…with a friend”
- Minimal vs. non-minimal attachment depending on plausibility
- Trouble for strict minimal attachment - semantic plausibility matters
What is the garden path model? Is there a debate?
- Readers initially choose the simplest structure (minimal attachment)
- If wrong, they must backtrack, creating a “garden path” effect
- Debate: Is lexical constraint or minimal attachment more dominant?
Give a summary of sentence processing principles
- Immediacy of interpretation
- Lexical ambiguity: Multiple meanings activated
- Syntactic ambiguity: Sentence structure affects parsing
- Context and meaning frequently both play a role in resolving ambiguity
Name the three influences on language learning
Pragmatics, Semantics, Syntax
What does the immediacy principle state? (short)
Words are integrated into meaning as soon as they are encountered
What did Warren (1970) show in the phoneme restoration effect? (short)
Context determines what phoneme is heard
What did Swinney’s (1979) study show about ambiguity? (short)
Multiple meanings are briefly activated
In syntactic ambiguity, what is minimal attachment? (short)
Choosing the simplest syntactic structure
