PSY 369: Psycholinguistics

Lexical selection

Lexical access How do we retrieve the linguistic

information from Long-term memory? What factors are involved in retrieving

information from the lexicon? Models of lexical retrieval

Recognizing a word

catdogcapwolftreeyarncat

clawfurhat

Search for a match

cat

Input

Recognizing a word

cat

dogcapwolftreeyarncat

clawfurhat

Search for a match

cat

Input

Recognizing a word

cat

dogcapwolftreeyarncat

clawfurhat

Search for a match Select word

cat

Retrieve lexical

information

CatnounAnimal, pet,Meows, furry,Purrs, etc.

cat

Input

Lexical access Factors affecting lexical access

Frequency Semantic priming Role of prior context Phonological structure Morphological structure Lexical ambiguity

Word frequency

GambastyaReveryVoitleChardWefeCratilyDecoyPuldowRaflot

MulvowGovernorBlessTugletyGareReliefRuftilyHistoryPindle

Lexical Decision Task:

OrioleVulubleChaltAwrySignetTraveCrockCrypticEwe

DevelopGardotBusyEffortGarvolaMatchSardPleasantCoin

Word frequency

GambastyaReveryVoitleChardWefeCratilyDecoyPuldowRaflot

MulvowGovernorBlessTugletyGareReliefRuftilyHistoryPindle

Lexical Decision Task:

Lexical Decision is dependent on word frequency

OrioleVulubleChaltAwrySignetTraveCrockCrypticEwe

DevelopGardotBusyEffortGarvolaMatchSardPleasantCoin

Low frequency High(er) frequency

Word frequency

The kite fell on the dog

Eyemovement studies:

Word frequency

The kite fell on the dog

Eyemovement studies:

Word frequency

The kite fell on the dog

Eyemovement studies:

Word frequency

The kite fell on the dog

Eyemovement studies: Subjects spend about 80

msecs longer fixating on low-frequency words than high-frequency words

Semantic priming Meyer & Schvaneveldt (1971)

Lexical Decision TaskPrime Target

TimeNurse Butter

940 msecsBread Butter

855 msecs Evidence that associative relations

influence lexical access

Role of prior context

Listen to short paragraph. At some point during theParagraph a string of letters will appear on the screen. Decide if it is an English word or not. Say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ as quickly as you can.

Role of prior context

ant

Role of prior context Swinney (1979)

Hear: “Rumor had it that, for years, the government bulding has been plagued with problems. The man was not surprised when he found several spiders, roaches and other bugs in the corner of his room.”

Lexical Decision taskContext related: antContext inappropriate: spyContext unrelated sew

Results and conclusions Within 400 msecs of hearing "bugs", both ant and

spy are primed After 700 msecs, only ant is primed

Lexical ambiguity Hogaboam and Pefetti (1975)

Words can have multiple interpretations The role of frequency of meaning

Task, is the last word ambiguous? The jealous husband read the letter (dominant

meaning) The antique typewriter was missing a letter

(subordinate meaning) Participants are faster on the second sentence.

Morphological structure Snodgrass and Jarvell (1972)

Do we strip off the prefixes and suffixes of a word for lexical access?

Lexical Decision Task: Response times greater for affixed words than

words without affixes Evidence suggests that there is a stage where

prefixes are stripped.

Models of lexical access Serial comparison models

Search model (Forster, 1976, 1979, 1987, 1989)

Parallel comparison models Logogen model (Morton, 1969) Cohort model (Marslen-Wilson, 1987,

1990)

Logogen model (Morton 1969)Auditory stimuli

Visual stimuli

Auditory analysis

Visual analysis

Logogen system

Outputbuffer

Context system

Responses

Available Responses

Semantic Attributes

Logogen model

The lexical entry for each word comes with a logogen

The lexical entry only becomes available once the logogen ‘fires’

When does a logogen fire? When you read/hear the word

Think of a logogen as being like a ‘strength-o-meter’ at a fairground

When the bell rings, the logogen has ‘fired’

‘cat’[kæt]

• What makes the logogen fire?

– seeing/hearing the word

• What happens once the logogen has fired?

– access to lexical entry!

– High frequency words have a lower threshold for firing

–e.g., cat vs. cot

‘cat’[kæt]

• So how does this help us to explain the frequency effect?

‘cot’[kot]

Low freq takes longer

• Spreading activation from doctor lowers the threshold for nurse to fire

– So nurse take less time to fire

‘nurse’[nə:s]

‘doctor’[doktə]

nurse

doctor

Spreading activation network

doctor nurse

Search modelE

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er o

f

Dec

reas

ing

freq

uenc

yVisual input

cat

Auditory input

/kat/

Access codes

Pointers

mat cat mouseMental lexicon

Cohort model Specifically for auditory word recognition

Speakers can recognize a word very rapidly Usually within 200-250 msec

Recognition point (uniqueness point) - point at which a word is unambiguously different from other words and can be recognized

Three stages of word recognition1) activate a set of possible candidates2) narrow the search to one candidate3) integrate single candidate into semantic and

syntactic context

Cohort model Prior context: “I took the car for a …”

/s/ /sp/ /spi/ /spin/

…soapspinachpsychologistspinspitsunspank…

spinachspinspitspank…

spinachspinspit…

spin

time

There are other models out there (TRACE, FLMP, various connectionist models, and more)

The models have there advantages and disadvantages