Exam 2 Flashcards
win
Problem with Meaning
Why do we initially pick one
interpretation (often the wrong one)
rather than another?
Syntactic Ambiguity
the different meanings reflect different dependencies within the sentence “she said he tickled her yesterday”
Frequency effects (Certain structures are more frequently used than
others) : Garden Path Sentences
Why do we do this?
Picking the wrong interpretation of the sentence and having to backtracking, we do this without taking into account meaning
Ambiguity Resolution: structural accounts
Picking the most frequent structure when reading, always, without regard to the meaning of the actual sentence
Ambiguity Resolution: Incremental Interaction
Basing meaning off the context being input - as each word is input, so is its interpretation with respect to context
Referential context: Avoiding Garden Path…Using
the sentence structure in order to determine the meaning - then looking at the towel with the apple on it
Language in visual contexts:
“Put the apple on the towel in the box.”
Looking at the apple, then the towel, then the apple again, then the box -
Language in visual contexts:
“Put the apple that’s on the towel in the box.”
only looking at the apple on the towel, then putting it in the box - with the sentence being far less ambiguous than the one before, there is a faster response to that sentence than the other one
Incremental Interpretation..par
As each word within a sentence is inputted, we process it, then building a partial interpretation of the sentence
Prediction in Sentence Comprehension
The man and the girl: “will ride” - based on the pictures you can predict
“The boy will eat the cake”: based on the pictures”
Sentence processing is ________: interpret each new word, and the sentence thus far, to
the. __________
Incremental; Fullest Extent
Fullest Extent
Predicting what will come next but only based what has already been read
Writing Systems
Logograms: Chinese, Japanese
Syllabic: Japanese Kana
Alphabetical: English, Hebrew, Arabic
Convert text to meaning based on the….
Direct connections between words and meaning
Converting alphabetic language and infrequent words in English
Word to sound, sound to meaning
Dual-Route model of reading can be used to
.. to assess the reading profiles of people with developmental dyslexia
Direct/Surface Route is used for
Irregular and Frequent words
Phonological Route
mapping letters onto corresponding sounds for Infrequent and Non-Words
Phonological Dyslexia
prefer to use the direct route; not good with non-words, new words, tests on phonological awareness like speech minus “S” is peach with s; rhyming games
Surface Dyslexia
not good with irregular words, fine with phonological awareness tasks, rare dyslexia <20%.
Fixations: eye stays still
200-250msec determined by, length, freq, Syntactic Cat, predicta, cognitive load.
Saccades: when the eyes moves
25-30msec, length is language specific
English: 8 characters
Hebrew: 5.5 characters
Japanese: 3.5 characters
Chinese: 2 characters
Perceptual Span: information extracted
English: 15 characters to the right of the fixation
Perceptual Span Equation
saccadic length x 2 = span
Rayner (1975)
Within ~7 characters of the fixation point: subjects notice the change
More than ~12 characters from their fixation points: subjects don’t notice anything
The more similar the original misspelling to the final word,
the shorter the fixation durations on the final word
Why care about eye movement?
useful experimental too, diagnosing schizophrenia, Alzheimer type dementia, Parkinson’s
What drives eye movements?
physical properties of the stimulus:
- the number of letters in the word
Linguistic properties of the stimulus: - – Frequency, syntactic category, predictability
Semantic Knowledge: World Knowledge
Paris is in France
Semantic Knowledge: Object Knowledge
Cups are used for drinking - the purpose of the object
Semantic Knowledge: Language knowledge
Symbolism referring to the cup
Hints about how semantic memory is organized?
Categorical (taxonomic) priming:
cat-dog; stool - table)
Thematic (event-based) priming:
dog - bone; professor - classroom
Perceptual priming:
frisbee - pizza
Motoric priming:
key- screwdriver
Semantic Memory relating to parts of Memory system: Episodic memory
Things that have happened
Semantic Memory relating to parts of Memory system: Perceptual Information
your perception within an item, how it smells, feels, tastes, sounds it makes
Semantic Memory relating to parts of Memory system: Procedural Knowledge
performance of a task or activity, knowledge of how to do that
How is semantic memory acquired?
through experience with that item
What is the dominant theory about the
organization of semantic memory?
Sensorimotor-based (perceptual Symbols);
Overlap between the items like baseball and orange - orange triggers more taste and smell because it has that
Overlap between thinking and doing
Brain regions support physical action, also represent the meaning of actions. So damage here will have an effect on the individuals understanding of action words
People with Parkinson’s Disease have degeneration of cells…
that are involved in planning actions;
more difficulty understanding words involving actions compared to words that don’t
Semantic Relationships: Semantic Dementia (ATL) (3)
- Categorical relationships
- Gradual atrophy of anterior temporal lobe (L > R)
- Knowledge about object properties is lost, however specific knowledge is lost before general
Semantic Relationships: Thematic or event based relationships (AG)
problems here cause problems with:
ambulance - hospital
dog - bone
professor - classroom
Semantic Relationships: Mapping word to meaning (PMTG)
- Damage causes problems with mapping sounds onto meaning
What computational models do, and what are its parts?
Establish the brain might compute meaning;
parts include models of theory about how or what the brain computes, others are their just to make it work
What is meaning?
Knowledge of the contexts in which the word can occur
words used in similar contexts have similar meanings
Latent Semantic Analysis
- distance correlates with e.g. priming and other measures of
“semantic overlap” - the graph is a semantic space
Elman (Co-Occurence) Simple Neural network: Task?
predict what word will come next based on the input
SRN: Adjusting Internal Weights (what does the model learn)
Verbs come after nouns
words like eat are followed by consumable items
“Categories Emerge”
The Nature of Prediction: frequency of occurrence
choosing the word that is most frequent - also correlates more to the context
The Nature of Prediction: Accessing words…frequency
based on how a word is being spelt, understanding the context will assist in predicting what word is it before it is completed
Emergent Representations: Syntactic Knowledge
what we call verbs come after what we call nouns
SRN learned about the contexts in which words could occur
Emergent Representations: Semantic Knowledge
Understanding the context and choosing words for example that are consumable after the word eat
Neural Networks: How they represent
Patterns of Activation
Spreading Activation
Neural networks: How they learn
Adjusting the connection strength to get closer or further from the word you want versus the word you don’t want
We adjust the connection strengths so that “what we get” is closer to “what we want”
Giving SRN memory: structures
Input Layer, Hidden Layer, Copy of hidden layer, Recurrent Layer
Giving SRN memory: steps
- Input first word, activation spreads to hidden layer, hidden unit spreads activation to output unit but also sends copy to recurrent unit (connection change the activation to reflect what may come next)
- Next word, hidden unit gets the word and the copy from the recurrent copy, sends to output unit and copy to recurrent unit,
Modification of connection strengths
Error Driven Learning
Backpropagation: when we want to get closer to what we want to output to the hidden layer - becoming more correct (not biologically plausible)
“Deep” neural networks
Input, hidden, output layers
Learning in deep neural networks
We keep the new weight to one side
We change all the weights in one go at the end, rather than changing them as we go along
What is meaning (neural activity)
Neural activity with a meaning will be different in everyone, however as long as the activity occurs in the same situations - it does not matter
How does the mind represent discourse? : Mental Models
When reading you create a mental model of what is occuring, so when it says John put on a sweater, he is wearing it in your mental model which is why you will respond quicker when prompted on if a sweater was mentioned
How does the mind represent discourse? : Mental Models (Birds)
Pictures that were congruent with what the sentence was saying, were faster as responding to the pictures
3 Types of Discourse
Surface Form, Propositional Form, Situation Model
Surface Form
same meaning, same words
Propositional
same meaning, different words
Situation (mental) Model
different meaning, but same idea.
Joining up words requires
Knowledge of Grammar
Joining up sentences requires
Knowledge of grammar…and other stuff
Knowledge of how the world works
knowing you wouldnt drink
something hot on a hot day but
instead cold
Knowledge allowing for the creation of mental models
Dialog
Taking account of the (specific)
speaker/listener
How do both speakers and listeners adjust their assumptions in specific communicative circumstance?
What’s Common ground
The reliability of the speaker
Audience Design
What is needed in order to establish CG, take mental state into account, and practice AD
Theory of Mind
Common Ground: Adults
Adults & kids adjust their interpretations based on what is in
common ground
Adults are sensitive to what is in common ground:
the information shared between
those speaking to eachother
(interlocutors)
Common Ground in Kids: 5-6 year olds
they are also sensitive to what the person they are speaking to knows however this is not all or nothing
Evaluating the reliability of speakers: Adults
Interpreting Ambiguous Sentences
When told that the speaker has inpariment so they adjust the reliabilty of what the person is saying which affects their reponse time when told about a specific item or location
Reliability of Speakers (kids)
- based on the confidence of both experimentors, it affected the learning for kids on a specific item
- if experimentor appeared knowledgable on the specific toy, the kids were also just as confident and vice versa - learning is influenced
Audience Design (speaker)
Adjusting your language to communication more effectively with your audience
Audience Design: Referential
Uniqueness in kids
- Developmental in children
- Percentages of unambiguous first
descriptions was higher for those who were older
Theory of Mind
keeping track of what’s going on in other people’s minds, independently of
their own
False Belief Task
Kids under 4 say “In the box”
Kids over 4 say “in the basket”
Shows that when they are able to understand that when sally leaves, she will check in the place she left her item, they engage of theory of mind
Theory of Mind: Identifying common ground
Understanding and being aware that other people can have knowledge that may differ from your knowledge
Theory of Mind: Evalutating reliability of speaker knowledge
have some awareness that their mental states can differ
Theory of Mind: engaging in audience design
In order to successfully adjust communication, you must understand what the person you are speaking to knows and that their knowledge differs from your own
Pragmatics
going beyond the literal meaning
Indirect Speech
Talking about one thing in order to express another
Pragmatic/Conversational Implicatures are:
The parts of the speaker’s meaning that go beyond what the speaker explicitly said
Inferred by the listener based on listener’s expectation that
speaker is cooperative conversational partner
Indirect Speech : Ability
Can you pass me that bag of candy?
Indirect Speech : Knowledge
Do you know what time it is?
Indirect Speech : Fact
I’d like to move the table away from the whiteboard
Inferences are made when
the literal meaning does not give the entire intended meaning
Pragmatic Inferences occur when the listener
infers things that the speaker has not overtly stated
implicatures are
unstated meanings
Grice’s Conversational Maxims : Quality (truth)
Listener assumes that what the speaker is saying is true and not saying anything they do not have evidence for
When it is violated, the listener has to
assumed why the speaker is doing
so: Sarcasm
Grice’s Conversational Maxims : Relevance
Listener assumes that what was said or being said is relevant in the context of their comments
- so when they say something that may not seem too relevant, they must infer why they are doing so
- Butter example
Grice’s Conversational Maxims : Quantity
listener assumes that the speaker is providing as much information as possible, not more, in order to get their point across
- when asked how all class are going - you say, one of them is good - you then assume that with that much information, it is enough to figure out that they do not enjoy their other classes
Grice’s Conversational Maxims : Manner
Listeners assume that speakers avoid obscurity, ambiguity, disorderly communication
- so when they do it, you must infer why. Spelling out walk so the dog doesn’t go wild
-
Pragmatics & Gricean Maxims help explain:
Where divergences from the literal meaning come from
Why, when meaning is ambiguous, we choose a particular interpretation
