Psycholinguistics investigates the mental mechanisms underlying language processing. It studies both language comprehension, how we understand words and sentences, and language production, how we speak and use language. Research methodologies in psycholinguistics include reaction time experiments, eye tracking studies, brain imaging techniques like PET and fMRI, and studies of patients with brain lesions. Key findings include that the meaning and phonology of words are automatically activated during reading and that language functions are lateralized, with the left hemisphere specialized for language abilities.

1. LANGUAGE
PRODUCTION

2. WHAT IS PSYCHOLINGUISTICS
Psycholinguistics investigates the
mental mechanisms underlying
language processing. (Cognitive)
How to perceive words and store them in the mind, how to
understand a sentence, how to learn to read, how language and
writing systems influence mental organizations.

3. sychological reality of linguisticsychological reality of linguistic
aspectsaspects
ecode spoken language, speech
haracters
ords
lphabetic
ogographic

4. WHAT IS PSYCHOLINGUISTICSWHAT IS PSYCHOLINGUISTICS
wo Aspects:
anguage Comprehension –how we understand the meaning of
words and sentences (receptive process)
anguage Production –how we speak and use language (productive
process)

5. THE PROBLEM
δϖσ
lexicon
Bilingualism
Spoken word
comprehension
Written word
comprehension
ComprehensionProduction
Spoken word
production
Written word
production
Dialogue
/Discourse

6. EXAMPLE: LANGUAGE PRODUCTION
• Language production is a process from idea
generation to language expression.
• It is a mental process that is heavily influenced
by language users’ culture.

7. LANGUAGE PRODUCTION
irst, we must conceptualize what we wish to communicate;
econd, we formulate this thought into a linguistic plan;
hird, we execute the plan through the muscles in the
speech system;
inally, we monitor ore speech, assessing whether it is what
we intended to say and whether we said it the way we
intended to.

8. EXAMPLE: LANGUAGE PRODUCTION
dea: cross-cultural communicationdea: cross-cultural communication
People using the same language (i.e. English) but coming from
different cultures.
Example: Cultural differences in directness – how explicitly and
clearly do we say what we mean.
Case study: letters of recommendation for a bright but immature
student, Peter Gore. (By John McCarthy)

9. EXAMPLE: LANGUAGE PRODUCTION
British Professor
(least direct)
“Mr. Gore impresses one as very intelligent. As to his
maturity and readiness for graduate study, I can say
very little, having had an opportunity to observe him
only under relatively unfavorable conditions.”

10. EXAMPLE: LANGUAGE PRODUCTION
American Professor
(intermediate directness)
“In my judgment, Gore is very intelligent. During the time I have
known him, I have seen him grow in maturity; I hope and expect
that this will continue when he begins graduate study.”

11. EXAMPLE: LANGUAGE PRODUCTION
Australian Professor
(most direct)
“Peter’s brilliant, there’s no doubt about that. But he’s a bit of a baby,
with a lot of growing up to do.”

12. EXAMPLE: LANGUAGE PRODUCTION
Chinese Professor
(from Mainland)
(Ignore the fact)
“Peter Gore is a very smart student. He was doing extremely well in my
class. He gets along well with everyone and is respected by others.”

13. EXAMPLE: VISUAL WORD RECOGNITION
When people encounter a printed word,
how do they identify it?
Properties of the word
 Visual or auditory (Modality)
 Orthographic –whether a word is constructed in a legal way
(e.g. “math” vs “mtah”)
 Phonological (syllable: /cat/; phoneme: /k/, /e/, /t/,
 Meaning

14. EXAMPLE: WORD
RECOGNITION
In identifying a written word,
 Visuo-orthographic analysis occurs. (activate, activation)
 Is the meaning of a word accessed automatically?
 Is the phonological information of a word accessed automatically?

15. EXAMPLE: WORD
RECOGNITION
An Experiment:
Task: Speak out the color name of the stimulus you
will view. (red, blue, green)
Requirement: Complete the task as quickly and
accurately as possible.
Subjects, participants,
(The task was devised by Stroop, 1935 --the “Stroop task”.)

19. EXAMPLE: WORD RECOGNITION
Possible results:
For color words (red, green, blue), when their ink color is inconsistent with
the meaning of the words,
 Naming time is longer (i.e.response latency);
Responses are less accurate.

20. EXAMPLE: WORD RECOGNITION
Why there is such an interference
effect?

21. The mental lexicon
red
*
/blu:/
red
blue

22. The mental lexicon
red
*
/blu:/
red
blue
red
blue
red
blue
red
blue
red
blue

23. EXAMPLE: WORD
RECOGNITION
he above finding suggests that the meaning of words is activated
automatically –people cannot control the activation of meaning.
utomaticity

24. EXAMPLE: WORD
RECOGNITION
 What about the phonological information of a written
word in a silent reading task?
Is a word’s phonology activated in a task
that does not require reading aloud?

25. EXAMPLE: WORD RECOGNITION
nother experiment:
ask: On each trial, you will first see a semantic category name (e.g., “flower”). Following
the semantic category, you will see a target word which may be an exemplar of the
category (e.g., “rose”). Judge if the target word you will see is an correct exemplar of
the category.

26. EXAMPLE: WORD RECOGNITION
Possible results:
High “false” correct responses to homophones of the exemplars.
Suggest that the meaning of words is accessed via phonology.

27. METHODOLOGY IN
PSYCHOLINGUISTICS
1. Reaction time (RT) approach
It measures people’s RT (response latency)
to a language stimulus. It includes many on-
line methods of studying people’s language
behavior continuously in a laboratory setting
Infer the mental activity in terms of RTs.

28. dog

29. dog
/dawg/

30. METHODOLOGY IN
PSYCHOLINGUISTICS
2. Memory and Classroom Approach
It investigates language behavior in classroom, a more natural setting.
To study the developmental pattern of children’s reading ability:
 cross-sectional (grades 1 to grade 5)
 longitudinal (a 5-year study)

31. METHODOLOGY IN
PSYCHOLINGUISTICS
3. Eye movements Approach
Use the eyetracker to measure the position and duration of people’s eye
fixations upon the text
It is a most reliable psycholinguistic technique.

32. METHODOLOGY IN
PSYCHOLINGUISTICS
How the Eyes Work?
When people read, the eyes do NOT move continuously.
Instead, the eye will “stop” on some word for a brief period (150
to 500 milliseconds). This is called fixation. Between the
fixations are periods where the eye moves rapidly. These rapid
eye movements are called saccades.

33. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
IN PSYCHOLINGUISTICS
To understand a sentence, the eyes sometimes move
back to some word, re-fixating it. These “backward”
saccades are termed regression.
Words that are fixated are in the fovea; words
surrounding the fixated words are in the parafovea.

34. METHODOLOGY IN
PSYCHOLINGUISTICS
A healthy body may seem reward enough for
. . . . . . .
177 196 175 244 302 112 177
most people. However, for all those who
. . . . .
266 188 199 216 212
question the payoff, some recent research…
. . . .
179 266 245 188

35. METHODOLOGY IN
PSYCHOLINGUISTICS
ow the Eyes Work?
Fixation Saccades
duration length (characters)
nglish 231 msec. 7.8
ebrew 265 msec. 5.5

36. METHODOLOGY IN
PSYCHOLINGUISTICS
How the Eyes Work?
Information extracted from the parafovea aids in reading:
Reading rate is about 200 words per minute when only the fixated
word is visible on each fixation, but it is 300 words per minute
when both the fixated word and the one immediately to the right
are visible on each fixation.

37. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
IN PSYCHOLINGUISTICS
4. Neurolinguistic Approach
It studies the brain mechanism for language functioning –where is language
functioning localized in the brain?
 Lesion study –using brain-damage patients
 Functional brain imaging study –using the intact human brain

38. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
IN PSYCHOLINGUISTICS
Left
hemisphere
Right
hemisphere
cortex

39. Left hemisphere Right hemisphere
 Language and speech perception of nonlinguistic sound
Analytic reasoning holistic reasoning
 Temporal ordering visual and spatial skills
 Reading and writing recognition of patterns
 Calculation recognition of musical melodies
 Associative thought
BRAIN LATERALIZATION FOR MAJOR MENTAL
FUNCTIONS UNDER THE CONTROL OF EACH HEMISPHERE
IS GIVEN AS FOLLOWS

40. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
IN PSYCHOLINGUISTICS
asic Neuroanatomy:
he outer layer of the brain –cerebral cortex
idden underneath the cortex are subcortical parts of the brain

41. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
IN PSYCHOLINGUISTICS
asic Neuroanatomy:
n important feature of the human nervous system is that each cerebral cortex is
connected to the opposite side of the body. This is termed contralateral
connections.
(Same-side connections are very weak.)

42. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
IN PSYCHOLINGUISTICS
plit-brain patients –those who have a damaged corpus callosum but an
undamaged brain.

44. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
IN PSYCHOLINGUISTICS

45. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
IN PSYCHOLINGUISTICS
esults:
The left hemisphere is a language hemisphere. (dominant).

46. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
IN PSYCHOLINGUISTICS
 Brain Imaging Techniques
Language processing requires energy. Brain imaging techniques
depend on the fact that working brain tissue calls more blood its way
and consumes more glucose.

47. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
IN PSYCHOLINGUISTICS

48. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
IN PSYCHOLINGUISTICS
“Brain Imaging ” -- visualize the activity of the intact human brain
PET (positron emission tomography)
Subjects are injected with glucose that has been tagged
with a radioactive substance; through this, brain
images can be got indicating which regions of the
brain have the greatest blood flow are are using the
most energy.

49. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
IN PSYCHOLINGUISTICS
• fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging):
When subjects perform a task (e.g., reading), neural activity in specific
areas of the brain increases. This results in greater need for glucose and
oxygen, both of which are met by increasing blood flow. There is a small
difference in magnetic susceptibility (a property of molecules) between
oxygenated hemoglobin and de-oxygenated hemoglobin. With increased
blood flow to activated brain areas, there is a change in the proportion of
oxygenated to de-oxygenated hemoglobin. This difference can be detected
in the scanner.