Presentations

Abstract

An important issue in current psycholinguistics is the relationship between the production and comprehension systems. It has been argued that these systems are tightly linked, and that, in particular, listeners use the speech production system to predict upcoming content. We tested this view using a novel version of the visual world paradigm. Participants heard mathematical equations and looked at a clock face showing the numbers 1 to 12. On alternating trials they either heard a complete equation (3+8=11) or they heard the first part (3+8) and had to produce the solution (11, target hereafter) themselves. Participants were encouraged to look at the relevant numbers throughout the trial. On listening trials, the participants typically looked at the target before the onset of target name, and on speaking trials they typically looked at the target before naming it. However, the timing of the looks to the targets was slightly different, with participants looking earlier at the target when they had to speak themselves than when they listened. This suggests that predicting during listening and planning to speak are indeed very similar but not identical. The further methodological and theoretical consequences of the study will be discussed.

Abstract

The generation of an utterance begins with event apprehension and continues with sequential linguistic
encoding of all message elements [2]. The timecourse of formulation, however, is relatively flexible and varies
with the ease of structural encoding [3]. While previous work has shown that syntactic structure may be primed
independently of thematic roles across sentences [1], here we tested whether exposure to conceptually similar
events interacts with structural processes to facilitate the mapping of a message onto a sentence.

Abstract

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Abstract

Recently many authors have stressed that domain-general cognitive processes may affect performance in linguistic tasks. This challenges the traditional view that speaking and listening are fairly modular processes. Going beyond this broad claim, we aim to determine exactly how domain-general processes influence linguistic processes. In the present study we examined the influence of selective inhibition (invoked to suppress responses to potent competitors to target stimuli and taking some time to build up) on performance in two classic word production tasks, the semantic blocking task (naming sets of objects that do vs. do not belong to the same semantic category) and the pictureword interference task (naming pictures accompanied by categorically related vs. unrelated words). Both tasks were completed by the same participants. Analyses of the size of the interference effects for fast and slower responses (using delta plots) and of the correlations of the effect sizes in the two tasks demonstrated that selective inhibition was recruited in both tasks. We propose that the process supported by selective inhibition is lemma selection. We discuss the implications for theories concerning the origin of the interference effects in the two paradigms and the nature of lexical selection processes.

Abstract

Multiple syntactic alternatives are often available to express one message. One of the factors driving the
choice for a syntactic frame is verb bias. This study focuses on the role of verb bias in the process of selecting
a syntactic frame for dative sentences. While some verbs are typically used with one structure (e.g.,
voorleggen [submit] and the prepositional object dative in Dutch), other verbs have a weaker bias towards one
syntactic frame (e.g., voorstellen [propose]): the latter can be used interchangeably in the prepositional object
dative (PD) and double-object dative (DO) construction, and thus allows for some degree of syntactic flexibility
during production. On one view, syntactic flexibility may facilitate production because it enables speakers to fill
the post-verbal sentence slots with either a direct object or an indirect object (the incremental view), while on a
different view, flexibility can lead to competition between structural alternatives, delaying the production of the
sentence until this competition is resolved (the competition view)1. The two views make opposite predictions
regarding the production of sentences featuring verbs with different biases. The incremental view predicts
shorter verb onsets for sentences featuring weak-bias verbs than strong-bias verbs, while the competition view
predicts shorter onsets for sentences with strong-bias verbs. In addition, if the competition view holds,
sentence production may benefit from a mechanism that helps resolve competition between two syntactic
frames by suppressing one frame to enable fast selection of the other frame. We hypothesized that executive
control (EC) can mediate this selection process, facilitating structure selection in the weak verb bias condition.

Abstract

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Abstract

If message and sentence planning are closely linked processes, planning scope may vary depending on what speakers want to say and how they say it. We compared speakers’ gaze pattern to pictures in displays eliciting sentences like “The lion and the tiger are above the basket” when speakers were a) more familiar or less familiar with the spatial layout of these displays, and b) more familiar or less familiar with the phrasal structures used in these sentences. Familiarity with spatial layout was induced by presenting prime trials with a similar or dissimilar layout of pictures (“The bell and the nail are above/below the crutch”) before the target trial, and familiarity with sentence structure was manipulated via structural priming (prime trials elicited sentences like “The bell and the nail are above the crutch” or “The bell is above the nail and the crutch”). When describing pictures on target trials, speakers looked earlier at the second object (tiger) when they were familiar with both the spatial layout and sentence structure, but speech onsets were reduced (structural priming) only when both spatial layout and sentence structure were repeated. The results show that linguistic planning is facilitated by congruence between message-level and sentence-level structure.

Abstract

Studies of lexical access in speech planning often use priming or interference paradigms, where a target picture is combined with a written prime or distracter word. A difficulty in interpreting the results of studies using interference paradigms with clearly visible distracters is that effects arising during lexical access cannot be distinguished from effects arising during self-monitoring. A difficulty with using masked priming paradigms is that the effects tend to be small and fragile. We report a series of picture naming experiments using both the conventional masked priming procedure and the sandwich priming procedure first used in lexical decision experiments by Lupker and masked prime the participants are briefly (i.e., 33 ms) presented the name of the target picture. Although neither categorically nor phonologically related primes significantly affected picture naming in the traditional masked priming experiments, in the sandwich priming experiments: (a) categorically related primes (e.g. “dog-cat”) interfered more than unrelated distracters with picture naming and (b) phonologically related primes (“mat-cat”) facilitated picture naming. The theoretical implications of these findings will be discussed. Lupker, S.J., & Davis, C.J. (2009). Sandwich priming: A method for overcoming the limitations of masked priming by reducing lexical competition effects. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 35, 618-639.

Abstract

Models of the mental representation of morphologically complex words traditionally fall into one of two categories, Single-Route or Dual-Route models. The former further distinguish between Full-Listing (e.g. Butterworth, 1983) and Decomposition (e.g. Taft & Forster, 1976), while the latter assume different systems governing the access of mono- vs. polymorphemic words (e.g. Pinker & Prince, 1994; Pinker & Ullman, 2002). One of the main arguments against decomposition and continuous online computations is the cognitive resources this process would require. Turning this reasoning around, taxing someone's working memory capacities should then uniquely affect the computation of bimorphemic verb forms. We tested this hypothesis on 48 Dutch native speakers with a lexical decision task, comparing reaction times for Dutch regular past tense forms to frequency-matched irregular past tense forms, both under low and under high cognitive load. We found that frequency influenced reactions to monomorphemic but not to bimorphemic forms (F(1, 47) = 4.734, p = .035), favoring a listing account for the former but a computational procedure for the latter forms. This interaction, however, was present only for a certain group of people (F(1, 23) = 6.279, p = .02), namely those whose reaction times were hardly affected by the load manipulation and who thus may be thought of as having larger working memory capacities. On the other hand, participants who showed a strong load effect had no interaction between number of morphemes and frequency (F(1, 23) = .575, ns), indicating that they process monomorphemic and bimorphemic forms in a similar manner. It seems that cognitive capacities influence the storage of and access to polymorphemic verb forms. While people with greater working memory skills use these resources to compute morphologically complex inflections on-line, people with smaller cognitive capacities seem to rely on a list-like storage for bimorphemic forms as well.

Abstract

Speakers clearly differ in how quickly they can retrieve words from the mental lexicon, but little is known about the sources of this variability. The present study investigated the relationship between speakers’ executive control abilities and their speed of picture naming. In two experiments, adult speakers of British English named line drawings of objects and actions. Three main components of executive control - updating, shifting of attention, and inhibiting - were assessed using the operation-span, number-letter shifting, and stop-signal task, respectively (see Myake et al.,2000 ). Reaction times (RT) to action and object pictures were highly correlated. Ex-Gaussian analyses of the RT distributions showed that the speakers’ updating scores correlated with the tau parameter of the RT distributions, i.e. predicted the proportions of slow responses in action and object naming. The inhibiting scores correlated with the mean RTs, whereas the scores obtained in the number-letter shifting task were uncorrelated to the RTs. These results indicate that the executive control abilities of updating and inhibiting contribute to the speed of naming objects and actions. Theories of word production may require modification to take account of these findings.

Abstract

a bitter rain – two silences beneath the one umbrella Is the connotative meaning of texts readily available or is it gleaned at an extra cognitive cost? The eye-movements of 31 English native speakers (10 male, mean age 21 years) were recorded while reading 24 haiku, 12 in the original/symbolic version, and 12 in a modified version where the most symbolic word (the keyword ‘bitter’ in the example) was replaced by a more literal word (‘loud’) reducing the text’s symbolic purport. The effects of keyword substitutions were measured globally, comparing total reading times for the two haiku types, and locally, examining the first pass gaze durations and dwell times on a word closely connected to the keyword, the referent ‘silences’, and on the last word, ‘umbrella’, to examine wrap-up processes. First pass duration showed no effects of the substitution. However, dwell time on referents and last-word regions, and total reading time were significantly longer for the original than for the altered haiku, suggesting that the connotative meaning of the texts was not available immediately but only through re-reading of the texts. The implications of these findings are discussed in relation to the literature on the processing of inferences in symbolic texts.

Abstract

a bitter rain – two silences beneath the one umbrella Is the connotative meaning of a text readily available or is it accessed only after re-examining a text? Thirtyone English native speakers (10 male, mean age 21) read 24 haiku, 12 in their original/symbolic version and 12 in a version in which the most symbolic word (the keyword "bitter" in the example above) was replaced by a more literal word ("loud"), reducing the text’s symbolic purport. Participants' eye movements were recorded using the eye-tracker EyeLink 1000. The effect of the word substitution was measured globally, by comparing the total reading times for the two haiku types, and locally, by examining first pass duration and dwell time on a word closely connected to the keyword (the referent, "silences") and on the last word ("umbrella"), as this might show wrap-up processes. First pass durations showed no effects of the substitution. However, total reading time and dwell time on both the referent and the last-word regions were significantly longer for haiku with the original keyword than for haiku with the altered keyword. These findings suggest that the texts’ connotative meaning was not available immediately but only through re-reading of the texts.

Abstract

When children learn their native language, they have to deal with a confusing array of dependencies between various elements in an utterance. Some of these dependencies may be adjacent to one another whereas others can be separated by considerable intervening material. In this study, we investigate whether both types of dependencies can be learned together, similarly to the task facing young children. Statistical learning of adjacent dependencies (probability = .17) and non-adjacent dependencies (probability = 1.0) was assessed in two experiments using a modified serial-reaction-time task. The results showed (i) increasing online sensitivity to both dependency types during training, (ii) better nonadjacency than adjacency learning, and (iii) nonadjacency learning being highly correlated with adjacency learning, suggesting that adjacency and non-adjacency learning can occur in parallel and might be subserved by a common statistical learning mechanism. An overnight break between two training sessions helped the online learning performance of slower learners to approach that of faster learners, but the same amount of training without such a break (a 15-min interval) did not, suggesting that memory consolidation may play a role in statistical learning of complex statistical patterns, especially for slower learners.