MID SEMESTER EXAM

PSYCHOLINGUISTICS 5A

NOVEMBER 6, 2021

Write an essay (500 words) of what you have learned (personal take away) from chapter 1 to
chapter 3. Essay should follow the format of Introduction, body, and conclusion. You have to include
in-text citations and later put the detail of your citations in your reference.

Points to consider to have good score.

1. The essay is originally written

2. No similar works with other class member (penalty will incur)
What Is Psycholinguistics?
The Domain of Psycholinguistic Inquiry Linguistics is the discipline that describes the
structure of language, including its grammar, sound system, and vocabulary. The field of
psycholinguistics, or the psy- chology of language, is concerned with discovering the
psychological processes by which humans acquire and use language. Conventionally,
psycholinguistics addresses three major concerns (Clark & Clark, 1977; Tanenhaus, 1989):
1. Comprehension: How people understand spoken and written language. This is a broad
area of investigation that involves scrutiny of the comprehension process at many
levels, including investigation of how speech signals are interpreted by listen- ers
(speech perception, discussed in Chapter 3), how the meanings of words are de-
termined (lexical access, Chapter 4), how the grammatical structure of sentences is
analyzed to obtain larger units of meaning (sentence processing, Chapter 5), and how
longer conversations or texts are appropriately formulated and evaluated (discourse,
Chapter 6). Concerns specifically relevant to how written language is processed are
also part of this domain, and are discussed in Chapter 9.

2. Speech production: How people produce language. The chapters that follow suggest
that it is somewhat easier to study comprehension than production; we can use
controlled language stimuli and then analyze patterns of accuracy and error, re-
sponse time, and other behaviors to arrive at an estimate of how listeners process lan-
guage. However, it is more difficult to gain insight into how concepts are put into
linguistic form; the process is largely hidden from observation, and speakers’ verbal
expressions, even in response to rather controlled eliciting stimuli, vary considerably.
As Chapter 7 will indicate, we learn most about the probable nature of the speech pro-
duction process from speakers’ mistakes (speech errors or false starts) and from
breaks in the ongoing rhythm of connected speech (hesitation and pausal phenom-
ena, or speech disfluencies).

3. Acquisition: How people learn language. The major focus in this domain has been on
how children acquire a first language (developmental psycholinguistics). First
language acquisition is covered in Chapter 8 of this volume, and Chapter 10 surveys
what we know about the process of acquiring subsequent languages (foreign language
learn- ing). Developmental psycholinguistics has become, by itself, a formidably large
discipline with a wide array of journals, texts, and monographs specifically addressed
to this issue.
What Is Language?
Language is the ability to produce and comprehend spoken and written words; linguistics is
the study of language.

Is Language Species-Specific?
Bertrand Russell once remarked, “No matter how eloquently a dog may bark, he can- not tell
you that his parents were poor but honest.” One of the properties attributed to language is that
it is a uniquely human behavior. Virtually all human beings spon- taneously acquire a
language without overt instruction and relatively quickly during childhood, unless they
possess handicapping conditions. Researchers have not yet isolated any natural form of
animal communication that embodies all of the features of language we have discussed. They
have probed the communicative systems of many animals, searching for the linguistic
properties that define human language. Al- though bees, birds, whales, dolphins, and
nonhuman primates are capable of fairly sophisticated message exchanges (Akmajian,
Demers, Farmer, & Harnish, 1995; De- mers, 1989), their capacities fall short of those of
young children. Syntax as well as a typical two-year-old child (Akmajian, Demers, Farmer, &
Harnish, 1995; Pinker, 1994).

Distinguishing Between Language and Speech

Although some authors say that language is sound (Dinneen, 1967) or that the medium of
language is sound (Bolinger & Sears, 1981), this is not necessarily true. Most of the world’s
languages are spoken or oral, and for most individuals speaking precedes and is of greater
importance than reading or writing. However, some human languages are signed or gestural.
These languages, of which American Sign Language (ASL) is one example, have the same
basic linguistic features found in oral human languages. Thus, like spoken languages, they are
rule-governed, arbitrary systems of communication with hierarchical substructuring that are
capable of infinite creativ- ity and spontaneously acquired by infants exposed to them. Many
discussions in this book will require the extremely important distinction between language
and speech. In some chapters we will specifically be concerned with how people decode the
sounds of language; in others we will investigate how people respond to written language. In
many cases, we will draw parallels between what we know about oral language
comprehension and production and the process- ing of sign languages.

WHAT SPEAKERS AND LISTENERS KNOW : A BRIEF SURVEY OF

LINGUISTICS
Linguistics is the study of language in its various aspects. As a science, its primary concern is
the structure of a particular language or of languages in general. By struc- ture we mean the
rules for forming acceptable utterances of the language. Linguists take as their data what
people say and what people find acceptable in language use. They work from actual language
examples and individual intuitions about whether such examples are well formed to develop
general accounts of the grammar of a lan- guage. In this sense, linguistics is descriptive,
rather than prescriptive. That is, lin- guists attempt to account for what we actually say and
what we find acceptable or poorly formed rather than to formulate language rules that we all
must live by. By ac- ceptable or well formed we mean that speakers agree that a particular
utterance can indeed be said in a particular language, and we make no judgment about
whether or not it should be said. Many of our experiences in English grammar classes were of
the prescriptive sort, in which we were cautioned about dangling participles. The goal of
linguistics is not to ensure that people follow a standard set of rules in speaking, but rather to
develop parsimonious models to explain the language that people actually use and appreciate
as well formed. In the next sections we will briefly survey the struc- tural properties of
human languages that must be accounted for in understanding

Levels of Language Analysis

A psycholinguist who wishes to understand how a sentence such as How do people
communicate with one another? is processed must first acknowledge that under- standing it
depends on several smaller tasks:
 The sounds of the message must be isolated and recognized. –
 The words must be identified and associated with their meanings. –
 The grammatical structure of the message must be analyzed sufficiently to de- termine
the roles played by each word.
 The resulting interpretation of the message must be evaluated in light of past
experience and the current context.

Only then can the utterance be considered "understood." Linguists, philosophers, and
psychologists have long appreciated that language is a complex system that can be considered
at multiple levels of analysis. Every human language may be analyzed in terms of its
phonology (sound system), morphology (rules for word formation), lexicon (vocabulary),
syntax (rules for combining words into grammatically acceptable sequences), semantics
(conventions for deriving the meanings of words and sentences), and pragmatics (rules for
appropriate social use and interpretation of language in context). Linguists strive to develop
descriptions of a language that capture its characteristics at each of these levels.
Psycholinguists, in turn, seek to determine whether these levels or units of analysis are
represented in the actual process of producing or understanding various forms of language.
Some call this endeavor the search for the psychological reality of linguistic descriptions.
We may more readily appreciate the complex interaction of these systems by con- sidering
efforts to get by in a language we do not know. Anyone who has attempted to function in a
foreign culture using only an English-foreign language dictionary knows the frustrating
limitations of a list of words and their meanings. Below we will examine some of the many
specific abilities that underlie competent use of language. As we do, it may become evident
that, although using and understanding language is a relatively quick and easy task for most
of us, many aspects of our linguistic knowl- edge are subconscious in nature
Phonology
The words of a language are divisible into sound sequences, and part of language knowledge
is an understanding of the particular sounds used in a language, as well as the rules for their
combination. The study of how the sounds of a language are phys- ically enunciated is known
as articulatory phonetics and will be explored in Chapter 3. A great number of speech sounds
are available to the world’s languages. Although substantial diversity exists among the
world’s languages-numbers of consonants

Sequences of Sounds
Phonotactics Phonology is more than the repertoire of sounds in a language; it includes rules
for their lawful combination into words. Consider the predicament of a contestant on the
popular television show Wheel of Fortune who must guess a letter when the following
sequence is revealed: _TR_N_. Some guesses are more likely to be successful than others.
Many readers will suggest an S for the first slot, unconsciously mindful that no other initial
consonant would be permitted to precede T and R in English. The most common guesses for
final position are G, K, and D and E (T is also possible but has already been "guessed"). A
common strategy for the middle slot is to see what belongs in the initial and final po- sition
and to consider what vowels (note that a vowel is assumed in this case) would result in an
English word. Thus, if S is correct in the first slot and G is the right an- swer for the last slot,
then good guesses for the vowel are I, O, or U; A and E result in a permissible sequence of
sounds in English, but not a lexically meaningful solution. Note that a guess of E for the last
slot in our example leads to the same dilemma: the sequences strane, strene, strine, strone,
and strune do not mean anything in everyday English, although the phonotactics of English
do not prevent these sequences.

THE BIOLOGICAL BASIS OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR

The three main elements biology contributes to human behavior are:

1). self-preservation;
2). the reason for self-preservation, reproduction
3). a method to enhance self-preservation and reproduction, greed. I will discuss each in turn.
SPEECH PERCEPTION
is the process by which speech is interpreted. Speech perception involves three processes,
hearing, interpreting and comprehending all of the sounds produced by a speaker. The
combination of these features into an order that resembles speech of a given language is a
main function of speech perception. Speech perception includes combining not only the
phonology and phonetics of the speech to be perceived, but also the syntax of the language
and the semantics of the spoken message. Adequate speech perception requires a model
which will unite all the various components of speech and produce a comprehensive message.
Various models have been developed to help understand the methods behind perceiving
different components of speech. There are models that function on the production or
perception of speech solely, and there are other models that combine both speech production
and perception together. Some of the first models produced date back in time until about the
mid 1900’s, and models are continually being developed today.

Models of Speech Perception

TRACE Model
TRACE model for speech perception was one of the first models developed for perceiving
speech, and is one of the better known models. TRACE Model is a framework in which the
primary function is to take all of the various sources of information found in speech and
integrate them to identify single words. The TRACE model, founded by McClelland and
Elman (1986) is based on the principles of interactive activation. All components of speech
(features, phonemes, and words) have their own role in creating intelligible speech, and using
TRACE to unite them leads to a complete stream of speech, instead of individual
components. The TRACE model is broken into two distinct components. TRACE I deals
mainly with short segments of real speech, whereas TRACE II deals with identification of
phonemes and words in speech.The model as a whole, consists of a very large number of
units which are organized into three separate levels. Each level is comprised of a bank of
detectors for distinguishing the components of that level.

Motor Theory Model

This model was developed in 1967 by Liberman and colleagues. The basic principle of this
model lies with the production of speech sounds in the speaker's vocal tract. The Motor
Theory proposes that a listener specifically perceives a speaker's phonetic gestures while they
are speaking. A phonetic gesture, for this model, is a representation of the speaker's vocal
tract constriction while producing a speech sound. Each phonetic gesture is produced
uniquely in the vocal tract. The different places of producing gestures permit the speaker to
produce salient phonemes for listeners to perceive. The Motor Theory model functions by
using separate embedded models within the main model. It is the interaction of these models
that makes Motor Theory possible.

Categorical Perception

Categorical Perception is the concept that phonemes in speech can be divided categorically
once they are produced. The main categories that speech can be divided into are places of
articulation and voice onset time. Some of the vocal gestures can only occur from a single
type of articulation. Other gestures have a variety of coarticulations. This means that the same
sound can either be produced at a single place in the vocal tract, or it can be produced from a
few different places in the vocal tract[3].Being able to determine where the sound is being
produced will assist in determining which sound has been produced. Some vocal gestures
also have different places in time for the voice on-set of the gesture in speech. Different vocal
gestures produce their onset of sound at different times, depending on what the sound being
produced is. For example, /b/ has a different voice onset than /p/ yet they are produced in the
same place in the vocal tract. Knowing when the voice onset is of the sound will help when
trying to assess which sound the speaker has produced. Making the distinction between
articulation and voice onset enables gestures to be grouped and defined based on the ways
they are produced.

Cohort Model
Proposed in the 1980’s by Marslen-Wilson, the Cohort-Model is a representation for lexical
retrieval. An individual’s lexicon is his or her mental dictionary or vocabulary of all the
words he or she is familiar with. According to a study, the average individual has a lexicon of
about 45,000 to 60,000 words[5]. The premise of the Cohort Model is that a listener maps
novel auditory information onto words that already exist in his or her lexicon to interpret the
new word. Each part of an auditory utterance can be broken down into segments. The listener
pays attention to the individual segments and maps these onto pre-existing words in their
lexicon. As more and more segments of the utterance are perceived by the listener, he or she
can omit words from their lexicon that do not follow the same pattern.

Exemplar Theory

The main premise of the Exemplar theory is very similar to the Cohort Model. Exemplar
theory based on the connection between memory and previous experience with words. The
Exemplar theory aims to account for the way in which a listener can remember acoustic
episodes. An acoustic episode is an experience with spoken words. There has been evidence
produced that demonstrates that details relating to specific audible episodes are remembered
by the listeners, if the episodes are familiar to the llistener. It is believed that listeners may be
better at recognizing previously heard words if they are repeated by the same speaker, using
the same speaking rate, meaning that the episode is familiar. With the Exemplar theory, it is
believed that every word leaves a unique imprint on the listener’s memory, and that this
imprint is what aids a listener with remembering words. When new words enter the memory,
the imprint of the new words are matched to previous ones to determine any similarities . The
Exemplar Theory states that as more experience is gained with lexical improvements, new
words being learned or heard, the stability of the memory increases. With this lexical
plasticity, the Ganong Effect comes into play. The Ganong Effect states that real-world
memory traces are able to perceive much more readily than nonsense word memory

Neurocomputational Model
Kroger and colleagues (2009) worked on a speech perception model which is based on the
neurophysiological and neuropsychological facts about speech. The model they developed
simulates what the neural pathways in various areas of the brain are involved in when speech
is being produced and perceived. Using this model, brain areas in speech knowledge are
obtained by training neural networks to detect speech in the cortical and sub-cortical regions
of the brain. Through their research, Kroger and colleagues determined that the
neurocomputational model has the capability of embedding in these brain areas important
features of speech production and perception to achieve comprehension of speech

This model differs from previously discussed models on the basis of its role in speech
perception. The authors developed their model to demonstrate that speech perception not only
involves the perception of spoken language, it also heavily relies on the production of
language too. This model greatly reflects the findings of Liberman and associates in their
work on the Motor Theory of speech production. Both of these models demonstrate that
speech perception is a product of both production of speech and recieving of speech. With the
work conducted by Huang and associates, it can be shown that very similar areas in the brain
are activated for production along with perception of language. This neurocomputational
model is one of the few that adequately map the pathways of both speech functions in the
brain.

Dual Stream Model

The Dual Stream Model, proposed by Hickok and Poeppel (2007) demonstrates the presence
of two functionally distinct neural networks that process speech and language
information[13]. One of the neural networks deals primarily with the sensory and
phonological information pertaining to conceptual and semantics. The other network operates
with sensory and phonological information pertaining to motor and articulatory systems. In
this sense, the Dual Stream Model encompasses the key aspects of speech, production and
perception. Despite previous assumptions about the lateralization of the human brain, the
Dual Stream Model reverses the conceptions. As previously thought, the left hemisphere of
the human brain dealt with only fast temporal information, but as Hickok & Poeppel (2007)
demonstrate, this might not necessarily by the case. With the development of the Dual Stream
Model, it has been shown that the left hemisphere of the brain is also capable of representing
acoustic information as readily as the right hemisphere. Along with changing the way it was
thought that the brain dealt with incoming information, the basic concept of the Dual Stream
Model is that acoustic information must interfere with conceptual and motor information for
the entire message to be perceived . This combining of roles is what makes the Dual Stream
Model unique and plausible as a model for speech perception.

Conclusion

Psycholinguistics is an area of study which drows from Linguistics and Psychology and
focuses upon the comprehension and production of language. Psycholinguistics is the
discipline that investigates and describes the psychological processes that make it possible for
humans to master and use language. Psycholinguists conduct research on speech development
and language development and how individuals of all ages comprehend and produce
language.
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Models_of_Speech_Perception#:~:text=Speech%20perception%20is%20the
%20process,main%20function%20of%20speech%20perception.