PSY 369: Psycholinguistics

Cognitive PsychologyDay 2

What is “psycholinguistics”?

Mental Processes- Short Term Memory- Long Term Memory- Encoding- Retrieval- Mental

Representations

Linguistic Theory- Phonology- Morphology- Syntax- Semantics- Rules

Psycho LinguisticsThe study of language from a psychological perspective.

The ‘standard model’

The Multistore Model

Long term memory Properties

Capacity: Unlimited? Duration: Decay/interference, retrieval difficulty Organization

Multiple subsystems for type of memory Associative networks (more on these next week)

Long term memory: Capacity

How much can we remember? Lots, no known limits to how much memory storage we

have.

More important issue concerns questions about encoding and retrieval

Encoding - getting memories into LTM what gets in? Rehearsal Depth of processing – organization, distinctiveness, effort, elaboration

Retrieval - getting memories out of LTM what gets out? exact memories or reconstructed memories?

Long term memory: Duration

How long do our memories last?

Ebbinghaus (1885/1913) He memorized non-sense

syllables. Memorize them until perfect

performance, Test to relearn the lists

perfectly. This was called the

"savings."

Long term memory: Duration

Bahrick (1984) He has done a number of

studies asking people about memories for things (e.g., Spanish, faces of classmates, etc.) that they learned over 50 years past. He has found evidence that at least some memories stick around a really long time.

How long do our memories last?

Long term memory: Organization

This theory suggests that there are different memory components, each storing different kinds of information.

Declarative episodic - memories about

events semantic - knowledge of facts

Procedural - memories about how to do things (e.g., the thing that makes you improve at riding a bike with practice.

The Multiple Memory Stores Theory

Declarative

Procedural

episodic semantic

Long term memory

How is semantic memory structured? Networks (more next week)

Attention Major tool of the central executive

Limited capacity resource

Filtering capabilities

Integration function

Attention: Limited resource

Only have so much ‘energy’ to make things go, so need to divide it and allocate it to processes Single pool (e.g., Kahneman, 1973)

Central bank of resources available to all tasks that need it Multiple pools (e.g., Navon & Gopher, 1979)

Several banks of specialized resources – divided up in terms of input/output modalities, stages of info processing (perception, memory, response output)

Dual task experiments

Attention: An information filter

Information bottleneck. There is so much info, only some is let through, while the rest is filtered out Early selection (e.g., Broadbent, 1958, Triesman, 1964) Late filters (Deutsch & Deutsch)

Everything gets in, bottleneck comes at response level (can only respond to limited number of things)

Cocktail party effect, dichotic listening

Attention: Integration

Attention is used to ‘glue’ features together Feature integration theory & Visual search exps

XX

X

XXX

X

X

X

XX

X

XX

X

Find the X

OO

X

OOX

X

X

O

OX

XOOX

Pop out

Slow search

Where’s Waldo

Attention: How do we control it?

Attention as a ‘spotlight’ Move it around

Attention: How do we control it?

Attention as a ‘spotlight’ Move it around, make it

focused or diffuse

Attention: How do we control it? Attention as a ‘spotlight’ Move it around, make it

focused or diffuse Is it ‘aimed’ or ‘pulled’

Automaticity Controlled processes

Require resources Under some volitional direction Slow, effortful

Automatic processes Require little attention Obligatory Fast

Stages of skill acquisition Stages of skill acquisition

Cognitive stage Establish declarative encoding of an action

Associative stage Strengthen the connections between elements of the skill

Autonomous stage

Skills can be performed without interference form other activities

Bottom-up & Top-down Terms come from computer science

Bottom up (data driven) relies upon evidence that is physically present, building larger units based on smaller ones

Top down (knowledge driven), using higher-level information to support lower-level processes

Bottom-up & Top-down

Selfridge’s Pandemonium system, 1959

Bottom-up & Top-down

C T

Bottom-up & Top-down

T E

Bottom-up & Top-down

T EC T

Bottom-up & Top-down

FROG

Bottom-up & Top-down

FROG

Bottom-up & Top-down

Half the class close your eyes

Title: Doing laundry

Bottom-up & Top-down

Read story

Rate how comprehensible the story is 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5

hard to easy to understand understand

Half the class close your eyes

Summing up Psycholinguistic view

Language and cognition are inextricably linked Notice that almost all of the experiment demonstrations

involved language elements as stimuli