PSY 369: Psycholinguistics

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PSY 369 Psycholinguistics

• Language Production
• Models cont.

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Dells interactive account

• Dell (1986) presented the best-known interactive
  account
• other similar accounts exist
• Network organization with
• 3 levels of representation
• Semantics (decomposed into features)
• Words and morphemes
• phonemes (sounds)
• These get selected and inserted into frames

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• Dell (1986)
• A moment in the production of
• Some swimmers sink

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Dell (1986)
information

• as well as downwards

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Dell (1986)

• e.g., the semantic features mammal, barks,
  four-legs activate the word dog

FURRY
BARKS
MAMMAL

• this activates the sounds /d/, /o/, /g/

• these send activation back to the word level,
  activating words containing these sounds (e.g.,
  log, dot) to some extent

dog
log
dot
/a/
/g/
/d/
/l/
/t/
this activation is upwards (phonology to syntax)
and wouldnt occur in Levelts account
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Evidence for Dells model

• Mixed errors
• Both semantic and phonological relationship to
  target word
• Target cat
• semantic error dog
• phonological error hat
• mixed error rat
• Occur more often than predicted by modular models
  
• if you can go wrong at either stage, it would
  only be by chance that an error would be mixed

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Dells explanation

• The process of making an error
• The semantic features of dog activate cat
• Some features (e.g., animate, mammalian) activate
  rat as well
• cat then activates the sounds /k/, /ae/, /t/
• /ae/ and /t/ activate rat by feedback
• This confluence of activation leads to increased
  tendency for rat to be uttered
• Also explains the tendency for phonological
  errors to be real words
• Sounds can only feed back to words (non-words not
  represented) so only words can feedback to sound
  level

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Why might interaction occur?

• Cant exist just to produce errors!
• So what is feedback for?
• Perhaps because the same network is used in
  comprehension
• So feedback would be the normal comprehension
  route
• Alternatively, it simply serves to increase
  fluency in lemma selection
• advantageous to select a lemma whose phonological
  form is easy to find

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Evidence against interactivity

• Schriefers, Meyer, and Levelt (1990)
• DOT phonologically related
• CAT semantically related
• SHIP unrelated word

Early Only Semantic effects
Late Only Phonological effects
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Evidence against interactivity

• Schriefers, Meyer, and Levelt (1990)
• Also looked for any evidence of a mediated
  priming effect

DOG (X)
CAT (X)
dog
cat
hat
/cat/
/hat/

• Found no evidence for it

/t/
/a/
/k/
/h/
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Evidence for interactivity

• A number of recent experimental findings appear
  to support interaction under some circumstances
  (or at least cascading models)
• Damian Martin (1999)
• Cutting Ferreira (1999)
• Peterson Savoy (1998)

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Evidence for interactivity

• Damian and Martin (1999)
• Picture-Word interference
• The critical difference
• the addition of a semantic and phonological
  condition
• Picture of Apple
• peach (semantically related)
• apathy (phonologically related)
• apricot (sem phono related)
• couch (unrelated)
• (also no-word control, always fast)

peach
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Results

• Damian Martin (1999)

• early semantic inhibition

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Results

• Damian Martin (1999)

• early semantic inhibition

• late phonological facilitation (0 and 150 ms)

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Results

• Damian Martin (1999)

• early semantic inhibition

• late phonological facilitation (0 and 150 ms)
• Shows overlap, unlike Schriefers et al.

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Evidence for interactivity

• Cutting and Ferreira (1999)
• Picture-Word interference
• The critical difference
• Used homophone pictures
• Related distractors could be to the depicted
  meaning or alternative meaning
• game
• dance
• hammer (unrelated)
• Only tested -150 SOA

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Evidence against interactivity

• Cutting and Ferreira (1999)

BALL (X)
BALL (X)
DANCE (X)
GAME (X)
ball
ball
dance
game
/ball/
Cascading Prediction
dance
ball
/ball/
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Results

• Cutting and Ferreira (1999)

• Early semantic inhibition

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Results

• Cutting and Ferreira (1999)

• Early semantic inhibition

• Early Facilitation from a phonologically mediated
  distractor

• Evidence of cascading information flow (both
  semantic and phonological information at early
  SOA)

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Evidence for interactivity

• Peterson Savoy
• Slightly different task
• Prepare to name the picture
• If ? comes up name it

?
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Evidence for interactivity

• Peterson Savoy
• Slightly different task
• Prepare to name the picture
• If ? comes up name it
• If a word comes up instead, name the word

liar

• Manipulate
• Word/picture relationship
• SOA

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Evidence for interactivity

• Peterson Savoy
• Used pictures with two synonymous names

Dominant
subordinate

• Used words that were phonologically related to
  the non dominant name of the picture

sofa
couch
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Evidence for interactivity

• Peterson Savoy
• Found evidence for phonological activation of
  near synonyms
• Participants slower to say distractor soda than
  unrelated distractor when naming couch
• Soda is related to non-selected sofa
• Remember that Levelt et al. assume that only one
  lemma can be selected and hence activate a
  phonological form
• Levelt et als explanation Could be erroneous
  selection of two lemmas?

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Evidence for interactivity

• Summary
• These the findings appears to contradict the
  discrete two-step account of Levelt et al.

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Can the two-stage account be saved?

• Evidence for interaction is hard to reconcile
  with the Levelt account
• However, most attempts are likely to revolve
  around the monitor
• Basically, people sometimes notice a problem and
  screen it out
• Levelt argues that evidence for interaction
  really involves special cases, not directly
  related to normal processing

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Overall summary

• Levelt et al.s theory of word production
• Strictly modular lexical access
• Syntactic processing precedes phonological
  processing
• Dells interactive account
• Interaction between syntactic and phonological
  processing
• Experimental evidence is equivocal, but
  increasing evidence that more than one lemma may
  activate associated word-form