1) The document discusses various topics related to language processing and cognition, including speech perception, word and sentence comprehension, reading, and discourse. 2) Key aspects of language covered include its properties, basic components of words and sentences, understanding meaning and syntax, and lexical and comprehension processes in reading. 3) Theories of speech perception such as categorical perception and the motor theory are examined, as are models of reading such as the interactive-activation model of lexical access. Representing text through propositional structures and mental models is also addressed.

1. Language in cognitive
psychology
Presented by
Ali Bahrani
Iran University of Science and Technology

2. Robert J Sternberg
Karin Sternberg
Adopted from Chapter 10 of Cognitive Psychology (6th edition)

3. 80 is 4*20 in French (quatre-vingt)
The Chinese – The American
DO THE CHINESE THINK ABOUT NUMBERS DIFFERENTLY
THAN AMERICANS ?

4. Helen Keller
I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the motions
of her fingers. Suddenly, I felt a misty consciousness as
of something forgotten—a thrill of returning thought;
and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to
me.
I knew then that “w-a-t-e-r” meant the wonderful cool
something that
was flowing over my hand. That living word awakened
my soul, gave it
light, joy, set it free! … Everything had a name, and each
name gave
birth to a new thought. As we returned to the house
every object which
I touched seemed to quiver with life…. I learned a great
many new
words that day … words that were to make the world
blossom for me

5.  Properties of Language
 The Basic Components of Words
 The Basic Components of Sentences
What is Language?

6. 1. Communicative
2. Arbitrarily symbolic
3. Regularly structured
4. Structured at multiple levels
5. Generative, Productive
6. Dynamic
Properties of Language

7. The Basic Components of Words

8. The Basic Components of Sentences

9.  Understanding Words
 Understanding Meaning: Semantics
 Understanding Sentences: Syntax
Understanding the Meaning of Words,
Sentences

10.  50 phonemes per second
 Get or Git
 Coarticulation
 Speech segmentation
 Also in non-verbal languages
Understanding Words

11.  Speech perception
 As Ordinary
 As Special
 Categorical perception
 The Motor Theory of Speech Perception
Understanding Words
(Views of speech perception)

12. Understanding Words
(Speech Perception as Ordinary)
 the same processes as when we
perceive other sounds
 different stages of neural processing
 phonetic refinement theory
 TRACE model : interactive
 3 phase : acoustic, phonemes, word
 phonemic-restoration effect
 The importance of context

13. Understanding Words
(The View of Speech Perception as Special)
Categorical Perception
• ba vs. da vs. ga
• The pitch vs. category
• It IS a specialized process
The Motor Theory
• use the movements of
the speaker’s vocal tract
• McGurk effect

14. Is a synthesis of these opposing views possible?
We assume YES!!!
linguistic and perceptual attributes
Understanding Words

15.  Denotation and Connection
 Connection varies among people
 Our mental lexicon = our dictionary
 Dominant meaning and subordinating meaning
 context
Understanding Meaning
(semantics)

16. Not only words convey meaning;
the structure of sentences does
as well.
Understanding Sentences
(syntax)

17. Syntax
Syntactical
Priming
Speech
Errors
Phrase-Structure
Grammar
Transformational
Grammar
Relationships
between
Syntactical and
Lexical
Structures
Understanding Sentences
(syntax)

18.  We tend to use the structures we heard
 The experiment of indirect objects
Syntactical Priming

19.  The error we make are syntactically true…
 Just like programming
Speech Error

20. Analyzing Sentences: Phrase-
Structure Grammar
 Parsing
 Different parsing –
different meaning

21. Noam Chomsky

22.  consider the syntactical relationships between sentences.
S1: Susie greedily ate the crocodile.
S2: The crocodile was eaten greedily by Susie
S3: The crocodile greedily ate Susie.
S4: Susie was eaten greedily by the crocodile.
• Map a tree to another tree
• Deep structure and surface structure
A New Approach to Syntax:
Transformational Grammar

23. A New Approach to Syntax:
Transformational Grammar

24.  Our mental lexicon contains more than the semantic
meanings
 Lexical item also contains syntactical information.
 noun versus verb
 the appropriate syntactical contexts
 any idiosyncratic information about the syntactical uses
 Thematic roles
 A link between semantics and syntax
Relationships between Syntactical and Lexical
Structures

25. Thematic Roles

26. Reading

27. processes may be impaired in dyslexia :
 Phonological awareness:
 “Goat” without “-t”
 Phonological reading :
 Words in isolation
 Phonological coding:
 b,z,v,g vs. x,r,y,z
 Lexical access :
 one’s ability to retrieve phonemes from long-term memory.
When Reading Is a Problem—Dyslexia

28.  difficulty in learning the rules that relate letters to
sounds
 both biological and environmental
 abnormalities in certain chromosomes, most
notably, 3, 6, and 15
 Can be reduced by educational interventions
Developmental dyslexia

29. Perceptual Issues in Reading
Letters Sounds
wordsemantics
Sentence
 “ghoti” as “fish.” : The
problem of English
 repeating loops…

30.  Lexical Process
 Comprehension Process
Learn to read

31.  Fixations and Reading Speed
 Lexical Access
 Intelligence and Lexical-Access Speed
Lexical Processes in Reading

32.  Our eyes do not move smoothly
 successive clumps of text - a series of “snapshots”
 Fixate more on longer and less familiar words
 Sentence wrap-up time
 Only 80% of the word will be fixated up to
 visual span : 4 left 15 right
 Terminology: Saccadic
 speed-read -> Less understanding of the text
Fixations and Reading Speed

33.  lexical access: the identification of a word that
allows us to gain access to the meaning of the word
from memory
 lexical access is an interactive process.
 occurs at multiple levels

Lexical Access (cont'd)

34. Lexical Access (cont’d)
 The interactive-activation model
 Visual input
 The letter level
 The word level
 First bottom-up, Second Top-down

35.  The letter is identified for easily in word context
Lexical Access
(word-superiority effect)

36.  Physical matching (A A)
 Name matching (A a)
 Nm – Pm : Lexical Speed
 More verbal ability, more lexical speed
Intelligence and Lexical-Access Speed

37.  Disclosure
 Pronouns
 Knowledge and context
Understanding Conversations and
Essays: Discourse

38.  Semantic encoding
 The importance of vocabulary
 95 for ease – 98 for joy
Comprehending Known Words: Retrieving Word
Meaning from Memory

39.  Dictionary or formulating?
 Learning vocabulary indirectly
 High-verbal people derive easier…
Comprehending Unknown Words: Deriving
Word Meanings from Context

40.  Proposition
 Working memory holds them!!!
 Macropropositions
 1300 word experiment
Comprehending Ideas: Propositional
Representations

41.  Point of view of a thief vs. the one of a potential
buyer of a wealthy house
Comprehending Text Based on Context
and Point of View

42.  After the words were decoded…
 Inferences…
 Bridging
 The minimalist belief
Representing the Text in Mental
Models