Word Recognition

Question 1

Lexical Organization: Semantic Networks

Answer 1

• Words are interconnected in terms of meaning (semantic networks)
• Activating a word “spreads activation” to other semantically-related words

eg: “cake” — sweet, cupcake, sugar, dessert

Data from two methods:
1) lexical decision tasks
2) visual world eyetracking

Question 2

METHOD 1: Lexical Decision Task

Answer 2

A task requiring participants to identify whether a stimulus target is a real word (eg. “lion”) or not (eg. “plouk”)

A semantically-related word (prime) aids in retrieving another word (the target)

             TIGER      LION
             Prime      Target

Question 3

Semantic Priming

Answer 3

The ability to recognize a target (and identify it as a word) is affected by a prime that shares its meaning.

Question 4

Facilitation

Answer 4

Processes that “speed up” lexical retrieval

Question 5

Spreading Activation

Answer 5

• Words are interconnected in terms of meaning (semantic web/network)
• Activating a word “spreads activation” to other semantically related words

Question 6

Mediated Semantic Priming

Answer 6

A prime word (eg. lion) speeds up responses to a target word (eg. tiger) due to an indirect connection via some other intervening word (eg. jungle)

Question 7

Decay Function

Answer 7

Rate at which information fades in memory, such that info that has become activated gradually returns to a baseline level of activation

• decay function reduces the transfer of activation between unrelated nodes (connectivist view)
• eg. cake —> dessert —> flour … (wheat) —> (mill) …
• connection is reduced with time

Question 8

METHOD 2: Visual World Eyetracking

Answer 8

• Records eye movement gazes/saccades in real-time
• Eye movements are influenced by thought processes and presented stimuli
• Location of gazes = function of stimulus characteristics

Question 9

Lexical Ambiguity

Answer 9

Homophones: same sound, different meaning
- eg. bred, bread
- eg. missed, mist
- eg. “the performer took a deep bow”; “it’s difficult to hunt with a bow and arrow”

Synonyms: same meaning, different sound (polysemous words)
- eg. small, little
- eg. “she’s got a run in her stockings”; “let’s run through the various options”

Question 10

How do we retrieve the correct meaning of polysemous words?

Answer 10

Two proposed models for determining correct meaning of polysemous words:

1) Access and Selection Model
2) Early Selection Model

Question 11

Access and Selection Model

Answer 11

A&S Model supports that context will bias the interpretation of an ambiguous word, so that only the intended meaning is accessed

• a “bottom-up” process: activation begins at the phonological level and spreads upwards
• processing sounds, words, and meaning in order of sentence (as it is heard)
• all potential meaning are equally active until ruled out
• efficient for unfamiliar words/meanings

Question 12

Access and Selection Model (EXAMPLE)

Answer 12

“Sameera got her paycheque from the bank”

Activation:
Step 1) Sound : b æ ŋ k
Step 2) Words : bank (a) OR bank (b)
Step 3) Meaning : (a) “financial institution” OR (b) “land by water’s edge”
Step 4) Selection : incorrect meaning is inhibited

Question 13

Early Selection Model

Answer 13

Early Selection posits that stimuli are filtered, or selected to be attended to, at an early stage during processing

• “top-down” process—interpretation is driven by previous knowledge
• activation begins at semantic level and spreads down, and is then reactivated from the bottom phoneme level, reconfirming meaning

Question 14

Early Selection Model (EXAMPLE)

Answer 14

“Sameera got her paycheque from the bank”

Activation:
Step 1) Upon hearing “Sameera got her paycheque”, meaning is revealed — context clue “paycheque” begins to activate meaning
Step 2) Upon hearing “bank”, meaning is confirmed
Step 3) Activation is reactivated at the phonemic level by sensory input, spreading upwards and reconfirming meaning

Question 15

Access and Selection Model EVIDENCE (*)

Answer 15

Cross-Modal Lexical Decision (Swinney 1979)
Research Q: looking at how we process linguistic stimuli (access and selection VS early selection)

Method:
- 2 modalities (audio & visual)
- participants listened to audio of a sentence; eg: “the man was not surprised when he found spiders, roaches and other bugs”
- bug = prime; manipulation; polysemous/ambiguous word
- visual target (word) was then presented either immediately after target word or several syllables after
- ant (context—related to intended meaning of prime)
- spy (related to unintended meaning)
- sew (unreleated)

Predictions:
Unambiguous prime (insects)
- related | ANT | reaction time: faster
- inappropriate | SPY | reaction time: slower
- unrelated (control) | SEW | reaction time: slower

Ambiguous prime (bugs) (multiple meanings)
- related | ANT | reaction time: faster
- inappropriate | SPY | reaction time: faster
- unrelated | SEW | reaction time: slower

Results:
Unambiguous prime (insects); if the visual target immediately appears after the prime
- related | ANT | reaction time: faster
- inappropriate | SPY | reaction time: slower
- unrelated (control) | SEW | reaction time: slower

Ambiguous prime (bugs); visual target presented immediately
- related | ANT | reaction time: faster
- inappropriate | SPY | reaction time: faster
- unrelated | SEW | reaction time: slower
- first, both meanings are accessed

Ambiguous prime (bugs); visual target presented a few hundred ms later
- related | ANT | reaction time: faster
- inappropriate | SPY | reaction time: slower
- unrelated | SEW | reaction time: slower
- then, the appropriate meaning is selected (the inappropriate meaning is discarded

SUPPORTS ACCESS & SELECTION MODEL (BOTTOM-UP)

Question 16

Lexical Organization: Phonological Networks

Answer 16

Words are also connected by sound

• phonological neighbours: words that differ by only one sound
• many neighbours: cat — (m)at, (b)at, (p)at, ca(p), ca(b), ca(n) c(u)t, c(o)t …
• few neighbours: wolf — wo(ol), wo(of), (g)olf
• slower recognition for words with MORE neighbours than those with less — more neighbours means the web is more complex and activation is slowed

Question 17

Onset Competitors

Answer 17

Words that begin with the same set of sounds
eg bee
- beetle
- beeper
- beefy
- beetroot
- beehive …

Question 18

Cohort Activation Model

Answer 18

Marlsen-Wilson (1987)
We partially begin to process the word as soon as we hear the sounds, activating onset competitors
- b… bee… beet…

Incompatible options are then discarded as more sound input is processed
- b… (b)ag, (b)an, (b)olt, (b)ees, (b)eehive, (b)eetle…
- bee… bag, ban, bolt, (bee)s, (bee)hive, (bee)tle…
- beet… bag, ban, bolt, bees, beehive, (beet)le…

Question 19

Cohort Activation Model EVIDENCE

Answer 19

(Allopenna et al., 1998)
Method: visual world eyetracking
- task: a word (ex. beaker) is played
- participants need to click on the corresponding visual image
- stimuli:
- target: beaker
- onset competitor: beetle
- unrelated: carriage

Results:
- people look at target and onset competitor at 200-400 ms
- evidence that people are activating onset competitor as well
- supports cohort model; we don’t wait until the end of stimuli to start processing

Question 20

Incrementality

Answer 20

Incrementality: we process stimuli signals as soon as it is available (heard)

Question 21

Cohort Activation Model: Limitations

Answer 21

• we won’t always hear the word correctly
• onset vs offset: do we only care about left edges of words? eg bea ker
• segmentation Issues: no breaks between words
• noise
• disruptions in speech

Question 22

TRACE Model

Answer 22

McClelland & Elian (1986)
- connectionist model of speech perception
- by segmenting the individual sounds, phonemes can be determined from spoken words
- provides a potential explanation for cohort model limitations

Continuous Mapping: we continuously process sounds as we hear them
- sounds in the middle and ends are also activated

Rhyme Competitors: words that share the same sound endings
- eg beaker
- spea(ker), coo(ker), tal(ker), mar(ker)…

Question 23

TRACE Model EVIDENCE

Answer 23

(Allopenna et al., 1998)
- OG study with manipulation to assess the activation of rhyme competitors

Method: visual world eyetracking
- task: a word (ex. beaker) is played
- participants need to click on the corresponding visual image
- stimuli:
- target: beaker
- onset competitor: beetle
- rhyme competitor: speaker
- unrelated: carriage

Results:
- looks to target (beaker) throughout
- effect of rhyme competitor (speaker)
- lesser extent of activating rhyme competitors (speaker) than onset competitors (beetle)
- supports TRACE model

Question 24

Semantic Activation

Answer 24

(Yee & Sedivy, 2006)
Research Q: do words that are semantically-related to target/onset competitor also light up?

Method: visual world eyetracking
- task: a target word (ex. hammock) is played
- participants need to click on the corresponding visual image
- stimuli:
- target: hammock
- semantic onset competitor: nail
- unrelated: tissue, grasshopper

• when we hear the segments of ‘hamm…’ would there be looks to the
  
  • hammock?
  • nail? (“hamm…er”)

Results:
- participants look more to nail (than to unrelated) when hearing hammock, but effect is short-lived
- the reveals transient semantic effects for parts of words

Question 25

Recognizing Written Words

Answer 25

Some writing systems encode meaning, others encode sound

Question 26

Logographic Writing Systems

Answer 26

Symbols map directly to a concept/meaning
- eg Chinese Hanzi, Japanese Kanji, Korean Hanza
- some phonetics involved (tonal languages)

Question 27

Syllabic Writing Systems

Answer 27

Symbols map directly to a syllable
- eg Japanese hiragana/katakana, Cherokee

Question 28

Alphabetic Writing Systems

Answer 28

Each symbol maps directly to a sound
- eg English, Spanish, Greek, Russian …

Question 29

Shallow (Transparent) Orthography

Answer 29

Correspondances between letters (graphemes) and sounds (phonemes) are one-to-one—each symbol maps to a sound

• eg Serbian, Italian, Spanish

Words are pronounced as they appear

Question 30

Deep Orthography

Answer 30

Correspondances between letters and sounds are not one-to-one—symbols do not necessarily map to sounds (lots of irregularities)

• eg French, Hebrew

Question 31

Dual Route Model of Reading

Answer 31

DIRECT: visual symbols directly map to word recognition—works for high frequency words

VISUAL WORD → perceive visual symbol → immediate retrieval → recognize as a word → access the meaning

ASSEMBLED: symbols are “sounded out” prior to accessing meaning—language learning/novel words

VISUAL WORD → perceive visual symbol → sound it out → recognize as a word → access the meaning

Question 32

Cross Modal Lexical Decision

Answer 32

Research Q: does auditory stimulus have impact on visual stimulus?

Method:
- participants hear a word (prime)
- word is flashed on screen (target)
- participants must identify whether the target is a word or not
- prime: beaker
- target: glass (sem. related to beaker), insect (sem, related to beetle), stereo (sem. related to speaker)

• manipulation: timing of target presentation for [bea][ker]
  
  • present glass at time 1 (bea)
  • present glass at time 2 (ker)

Prediction:
Time 1 presentation : (bea)
- glass | faster
- insect | faster
- stereo |slower

Time 2 presentation : (ker)
- glass | faster
- insect | slower
- stereo | slower

Results:
- matched predictions
- stronger activation for onset competitors than for rhyme
- at time 2, there is an inhibitory connection due to delay in presentation, preventing activation of incorrect item
- not consistent with Allopenna (1998)—due to difference in modality/methodology?
- weaker effect of onset comp.