PSY 369: Psycholinguistics

Cognitive Psychology

The ‘standard model’

Long term memory

The Multiple Memory Stores Theory

Declarative episodic - memories about

events semantic - knowledge of

facts

Procedural

Long term memory

How is semantic memory structured? Networks (more next week)

Long term memory How long do our memories last?

Ebbinghaus (1885/1913) He memorized non-sense

syllables. Memorize them until perfect

performance, Test to relearn the lists

perfectly. This was called the

"savings."

Long term memory

Bahrick (1984) He has done a number of

studies asking people about memories for things (e.g., Spanish, faces of classmates, etc.) that they learned over 50 years past. He has found evidence that at least some memories stick around a really long time.

How long do our memories last?

Long term memory How much can we remember?

Lots, no known limits to how much memory storage we have.

More important issue concerns questions about encoding and retrieval

Encoding - getting memories into LTM what gets in? Retrieval - getting memories out of LTM what gets out? exact

memories or reconstructed memories?

Long term memory Properties

Unlimited capacity Decay/interference, retrieval difficulty Organized

Multiple subsystems for type of memory Associative networks (more on these next week)

Working Memory Working memory instead of STM

Working Memory Working memory instead of STM

Phonological rehearsal mechanism Phonological store Very limited capacity

Rehearsal maintains information

in the store

Working Memory Working memory instead of STM

Store and manipulate visual and spatial

information Directly from perception Indirectly from imagery

Working Memory Working memory instead of STM

Allocate attentional resources to the

subcomponents Directs elaboration/manipulation of

information

Attention Major tool of the central executive

Limited capacity resource

Filtering capabilities

Integration function

Automaticity Controlled processes

Require resources Under some volitional direction Slow, effortful

Automatic processes Require little attention Obligatory Fast

Stages of skill acquisition Stages of skill acquisition

Cognitive stage Establish declarative encoding of an action

Associative stage Strengthen the connections between elements of the skill

Autonomous stage

Skills can be performed without interference form other activities

Bottom-up & Top-down Terms come from computer science

Bottom up (data driven) relies upon evidence that is physically present, building larger units based on smaller ones

Top down (knowledge driven), using higher-level information to support lower-level processes

Bottom-up & Top-down

Selfridge s Pandemonium system, 1959

Bottom-up & Top-down

C T

Bottom-up & Top-down

T E

Bottom-up & Top-down

T EC T

Bottom-up & Top-down

FROG

Bottom-up & Top-down

FROG

Bottom-up & Top-down

Half the class close your eyes

Title: Doing laundry

Bottom-up & Top-down

Read story

Rate how comprehensible the story is 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5

hard to easy to understand understand

Half the class close your eyes

Summing up Psycholinguistic view

Language and cognition are inextricably linked Notice that almost all of the experiment demonstrations

involved language elements as stimuli