Language Comprehension Flashcards
week 10
what is NOT evidence for the strong phonological model of reading?
Orthographic neighbours
An individual with phonological dyslexia would:
Have difficulties reading words/non-words
Which cue helps us deal with variability when perceiving speech?
Coarticulation
what are the 2 main levels of sentence comprehension analysis?
- Syntactical structure
○ Analyse the rules (e.g. word order) for the formation of grammatical sentences
○ Parsing= pulling apart of a sentence
○ Syntax= words order, rules for formation of grammatical sentences
PARSING - Sentence meaning
○ Analyse the intended, as opposed to literal, meaning (e.g. irony, sarcasm)
○ Pragmatics= analysing the intended as opposed to the literal meaning.
PRAGMATICS
WHAT IS PARSING?
Separating things out and analysing them in pieces.
* Analyse the syntactic/grammatical structure of sentences
what are the 4 different possibilities of when parsing is used?
- Syntactic analysis occurs before semantic analysis
§ We explore grammatical structure before meaning of sentences
2. Semantic analysis occurs before syntactic analysis
§ We explore the meaning of the sentence before grammatical analysis
3. Syntactic and semantic analyses occur together
§ Both meaning and grammatical analysis occur together
4. Syntax and semantics are closely related
§ They are pretty much the same thing so cant be explored separately.
what ambiguous senteces?
- Don’t completely make sense, not as straight forward to understand.
- Reveal information about the parsing process
- Ambiguity at a global level
○ A whole sentence can have two or more meanings - Ambiguity at a local level
○ Various meanings possible at some point when parsing
Particular aspect of the sentence that can change the meaning (where it is being parsed)
what are prosodic cues?
- Make rapid use of prosodic cues to resolve ambiguity and facilitate understanding
- Prosodic cues include:
○ Stress (or accent)
§ Stressing a particular word to emphasise it
○ Pauses
§ Natural pause in sentence to help it make sense
○ Intonation (rise/fall)
§ Loud and quite speech in a sentence
○ Rhythm
§ Some aspects quickly or slowly
§ Pace of speech
○ Word duration
How long you hang onto a word in a sentence- emphasises them as a collective (if hanging on to multiple words)
- Prosodic cues include:
what are the two models of parsing?
- Divided into two categories
- Two-stage, serial processing models
○ (one step after the other)
○ e.g. Garden path model (Fraizier & Rayner, 1982) - One-stage, parallel processing models
○ (multiple processes occur together)
e.g. Constraint-based model (MacDonald et al, 1994)
- Two-stage, serial processing models
what is the garden path model?
- Misleading content/structure at the beginning of a sentence
○ Instantly make assumption of where the sentence is going
○ Reader enticed toward incorrect interpretation (i.e. led-down the garden path!)- Must retrace mental footsteps to find understandable alternative
○ When get to the second part of the sentence- retrace footpath to find the end of the sentence
○ Reinterpret the sentence
* Detected by recording eye movements
○ Tells us where/when a reader has gone wrong and is re-reading a sentence
○ Read first part of the sentence, then the second, then go back to the beginning to make sense of it all.
- Must retrace mental footsteps to find understandable alternative
what type of processing is used in the garden path model?
- Two-stage, serial processing model
○ One step after the other
what are the assumptions of the garden path model?
○ One syntactical structure (syntax) considered
○ Semantics (meaning) not involved initially
§ Just the grammatical structure
○ Simplest syntactical structure chosen using minimal attachment and late closure
○ If a sentence is incompatible with additional semantic information, interpretation revised (2nd stage)
§ Only when there is misinterpretation, do we begin to apply the semantic structure of the sentence to help us reinterpret what we originally interpreted.
what is minimal attachment in the garden path model?
- Minimal attachment
○ Grammatical structure producing fewest nodes preferred
§ Nodes = major parts of sentence (e.g. nouns/verbs)- Few nouns or verbs a sentence has in a sentence, the better our brain understands it.
- “by heart” doesn’t grammatically change the sentence which is why it is not considered as a node.
Answer and knew are connected instantly in our brain - We prefer the first sentence because the noun and the verb link
- Second requires more cognitive effort because there are more nodes than the first
what are models of parsing within the graden path model?
- Late closure
○ New words encountered are attached to current phrase if grammatically permissible- Can track this with eye tracking movements
e.g.:
Grammatically, we put jog and mile together so works for the first sentence
The second sentence, we cant create “jog” and “mile” together as it creates ambiguity in the second sentence
Should have a pause after “jogs” so the sentence makes sense
what are the strengths of the garden path model?
○ Provides a simple account
○ Use of principles reduced processing demands
§ As little cognitive demand on our processing of sentences as possible.
Syntax then meaning.
what are the weaknesses of the garden path model?
○ Assumption that we do not use meanings of words initially is inconsistent with some evidence
§ We may actually use semantics initially.
○ Syntax then meaning can lead to ambiguities within sentences.
○ Do not always adhere to principles
○ No definitive test of model
○ Does not account for difference in languages that have a preference for early closure (e.g. Spanish, French)
Some concepts specific to English language- cant be generalised.
what are the models of parsing for the constraint based model?
- One-stage, parallel processing model
○ Everything is happening at the same time- Makes the following assumptions
○ All sources of information (syntax, semantics, context) are available to parse
○ Constrain the number of possible interpretations
§ Analyse everything at the same time-
○ Competing syntactic analyses of a sentence activated at the same time
§ minimal number of interpretations.
○ Structure receiving most support from constraints is highly activated
The one we tend to go to
- Makes the following assumptions
what are the strengths of the constraint based model?
○ Efficient that use all relevant information from the outset when interpreting sentences
§ Grammar and syntax at the same time
○ Able to account for more than one syntactic analysis at a time
Decide which is the best fit
what are the weknesses of the constraint based model?
○ Unlike the garden path model, fails to make precise predictions about parsing
Don’t know the full extent to whether parsing happens because everything happens at the same time.
what is the unrestricted race modle?
- Combines (best?) aspects of both garden path and constraint-based models
- Makes the following three assumptions
- All sources of information used to identify syntactic structure of a sentence (constraint based model)
- All other structures are ignored, unless favoured structure disconfirmed by subsequent information (garden path model)
If a chosen structure discarded, reanalysis undertaken before another structure chosen (garden path model)
- Makes the following three assumptions
what are pragmatics?
- The study of intended (not literal) meaning
○ What they intend to say rather than what they are actually saying - Figurative language = not to be taken literally
○ Metaphor
○ Irony
Idiom
how do we understand metaphors?
- Traditionally, assumed that understanding metaphorical statements is very effortful
○ Lots of cognitive effort- Two differing accounts
- Standard pragmatic model (Grice, 1975)
Prediction model (Kintsch, 2000)
- Standard pragmatic model (Grice, 1975)
- Two differing accounts
what is the standard pragmatic model?
- Understanding metaphorical statements involves three stages
1. Literal meaning first accessed
2. Reader/listener decides if literal meaning makes sense
3. If literal meaning inadequate, search for suitable non-literal meaning- Predicts metaphorical meaning accessed more slowly than literal one
○ Go straight to the literal meaning first
But, some metaphors understood rapidly- so well rehearsed in our experience
- Predicts metaphorical meaning accessed more slowly than literal one
what is the prediction model?
- Understanding metaphorical statements involves two stages
- Latent semantic analysis
○ Represents the meanings of words based on relations with other words
○ Semantics= meaning - Construction-integration
○ Use information from first stage to construct interpretation
Construct interpretation from all knowledge gained
- Latent semantic analysis
what is common ground?
- Need to adopt the speaker’s perspective to comprehend what they are saying
- Common ground = shared knowledge between speaker and listener
○ Work together to ensure mutual understanding
Very attentionally demanding
- Common ground = shared knowledge between speaker and listener
what are egocentric heuristics?
- Interpretation based on our own knowledge, rather than that shared with speaker
○ Use egocentric heuristics
○ When there is no shared understanding between you and the speaker- Often the cause of misunderstanding between listener and speaker
Misinterpretation of language
- Often the cause of misunderstanding between listener and speaker
what are the 3 types of inferences?
- Three types of inference
1. Logical
○ Depends on the meaning of words
○ Applying own meaning of words
2. Bridging (or backward)
○ Establish coherence between current part of text and preceding text
○ New piece of information, applying meaning based on old information
○ Piecing two and two together
3. Elaborative
○ Embellish, or add, details to text using knowledge to expand on information
○ Add details based on the knowledge you have to expand on info
what are casual inferences?
- Two stages of forming causal inference
1. Bonding
○ Automatic activation of words from preceding sentence
○ Bonding to similar words at semantic level together
2. Resolution
○ Ensures interpretation is consistent with contextual information
○ As causal inference is built upon, there is a resolution of interpretation to ensure it is consistent with information already provided.
what is an inference?
fill in the. blanks to make sense of something
what is the schema theory?
helps with making inferences
* Description of a story is highly selective
* Relate information just read to relevant knowledge stored in long-term memory
* Knowledge stored in the form of schemas
○ Determine what we remember
Help us go to necessary info quickly soi they can be applied to an area of knowledge quickly
* Schemas can be defined as
○ ‘Packets’ of information about the world, events, people, actions etc.
* Contain information needed to understand language
* Allow the formation of expectations - minimal cognitive load possible.
○ Used to infer typical sequence of events
Make the world predictable, as our expectations are generally confirmed (but not always!)
explain the importance of the title when provided with a shcema description?
- Hearing the passage in the absence of a title
○ Incomprehensible and not well-remembered- But, if provided title beforehand…
○ Easy to understand and greater recall - Scheme knowledge provided by title helped comprehension
○ If presented title after the passage, but before recall, less information remembered
○ Go to own interpretation of the scheme- overrides the info given
(Bransford & Johnson, 1972)
- But, if provided title beforehand…
what are the strengths of the schema theory?
○ Schematic knowledge helps with text comprehension and general understanding
○ Accounts for errors and distortions
Beneficial in helping with our own understanding of experiences.
what are the weaknesses of the schema theory?
○ Schema theories are hard to test
§ Hard to analyse under test conditions
○ When/how schemas are used is unclear
§ What stage do we unlock a schema- unknown
○ Exaggerate how error prone we are
Not always the case
