PSY 369: Psycholinguistics

1
PSY 369 Psycholinguistics

• Language Comprehension
• Discourse

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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.
4
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
• Participants memories changed to fit their
  existing beliefs
• Added new details
• Changed details
• Deleted details

• Schema
• a whole package of information used to
  facilitate comprehension of discourse

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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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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

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

• Test to see if structure effects whether
  inferences are made
• How does Betty really wanted to give her mother
  a present connect up with other statements in
  the story?

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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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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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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, 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