Language

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Language
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Word Meanings are Organized in Semantic Networks
Evidence comes from semantic priming in lexical
decision tasks
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Word Meanings are Organized in Semantic Networks
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Dual Routes to Reading

• How do we translate written text into a verbal
  code?
• Evidence exists for two routes
• Grapheme-to-phoneme translation
• Patients with surface dyslexia misread words with
  irregular pronunciations (e.g. say heed for
  head)
• Direct access to the mental lexicon
• Patients with deep dyslexia cannot read non-words
  (.e.g. grimp), but can read even very difficult
  words they know correctly (e.g. chrysanthemum)

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Aphasia
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Aphasia
Brocas Aphasia
Wernickes Aphasia
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Aphasia

• Wernickes aphasia
• Brocas aphasia

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Wernicke-Geschwind Aphasia Model
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PET support for the Broca/Wernicke distinction
between language production/comprehension
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Anomia (video)
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Cortical Representationof Word Meanings?
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Cortical Representationof Word Meanings?
Can you think of why word meanings might be
represented in these areas specifically?
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Whorf-Sapir

• The Whorf-Sapir hypothesis
• The categories and types that we isolate from
  the world of phenomena we do not find there
  because they stare every observer in the face. On
  the contrary the world is presented in a
  kaleidoscopic flux of impression which have to be
  organized in our minds. This means, largely, by
  the linguistic system in our minds. (Whorf,
  1956)
• In other words that our language impacts upon the
  organization in our minds that is, on the
  structure of cognition

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Whorf-Sapir

• Butis it true?
• Most work has been in the domain of color
• English speakers rate colors close to the
  green-blue boundary as being more different than
  do speakers of Taramuhara, which lacks a
  linguistic distinction between green and blue
  (Kay Kempton, 1984, American Anthropologist)
• Is it just me, or is this not particularly
  interesting?
• So what is interesting?

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Whorf-Sapir
Russian has a linguistic distinction between
light and dark blues, whereas English does not.
Winawer et. al., 2006, PNAS
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Whorf-Sapir
English Speakers
Russian Speakers
Winawer et. al., 2006, PNAS
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Whorf-Sapir

• Most languages use spatial metaphors to talk
  about time
• In English, these metaphors are horizontal
• Hes ahead of his time
• Were behind schedule
• We moved the meeting forward
• We pushed the deadline back
• In Mandarin, these metaphors can also be vertical
• Earlier events are up, and later events are down

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Whorf-Sapir
Boroditsky, 2001, Cogn Psychol
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Whorf-Sapir
Example Primes
Boroditsky, 2001, Cogn Psychol
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Whorf-Sapir
Boroditsky, 2001, Cogn Psychol
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Whorf-Sapir
Mandarin-English bilinguals
Boroditsky, 2001, Cogn Psychol
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Whorf-Sapir

• Finally, many languages employ grammatical gender
  for nouns (e.g. French, Spanish, German, and
  Russian)
• Boroditsky et al. (submitted) showed pictures of
  objects paired with pictures of people and asked
  Spanish and German speakers to rate how similar
  they were
• All the objects were chosen so they had opposite
  grammatical gender in Spanish and German
• Subjects showed the expected effect even given
  the identical person/object pairings, people said
  that objects with a particular grammatical gender
  in their native language were more similar to
  people of that gender

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The Ape Language Debate

• An ape using language?
• But
• And
• Heres what happened about 25 years ago

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Freq.play me 375me Nim 328tickle me
316eat Nim 302more eat 287me eat
237Nim eat 209finish hug 187drink Nim
143more tickle 136sorry hug 123
Nims Most Frequent Two-Sign Combinations
Freq. tickle Nim 107hug Nim 106 more
drink 99eat drink 98banana me 97Nim
me 89sweet Nim 85me play 81gum eat 79tea
drink 77grape eat 74hug me 74banana Nim 73
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Freq.eat drink eat drink 15eat Nim
eat Nim 7banana Nim banana Nim 5drink Nim
drink Nim 5banana eat me Nim 4banana me eat
banana 4banana me Nim me 4grape eat Nim
eat 4Nim eat Nim eat 4play me Nim play 4
Nims Most Frequent 4-sign Expressions
drink eat drink eat 3drink eat me Nim 3eat
grape eat Nim 3eat me Nim drink 3grape eat me
Nim 3me eat drink more 3me eat me eat 3me
gum me gum 3me Nim eat me 3Nim me Nim
me 3tickle me Nim play 3
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Nims Longest Utterance
Give Orange Me Give Eat Orange Me Eat Orange
Give Me Eat Orange Give Me You.
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Language Acquisition
Children
MLU
Hearing
Deaf