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PSY 369: Psycholinguistics
Cognitive Psychology
What is “psycholinguistics”?
The study of language from a psychological perspective.
Psycho
Linguistics
Mental Processes
Linguistic Theory
-
-
Short Term Memory
Long Term Memory
Encoding
Retrieval
Mental
Representations
- Phonology
- Morphology
- Syntax
- Semantics
- Rules
Cognitive Psychology

It is the body of psychological experimentation that deals
with issues of human memory, language use, problem
solving, decision making, and reasoning.
“Cognitive Psychology refers to all processes by which the sensory
input is transformed, reduced, elaborated, stored, recovered, and
used.” Ulric Neisser (1967)
Mind as computer analogy
Symbol manipulators
Mind as computer analogy
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Limitations of the analogy
Computers
Minds (Brains??)
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fast
serial (mostly)
digital
few connections
(relatively)
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slow
parallel
analog
trillions of
connections
Other analogies out there:
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Mind as a brain (Connectionism)
Mind as a body (Embodied Cognition)
The ‘standard model’
The Multistore Model
Information ‘flows’ from one memory buffer to the next
The sensory store
George Sperling (1960)
Full Report:
I'm going to show you a bunch of letters, then
I'll cue you to recall as many of letters as you
can.
RECALL
Partial Report
I'm going to show you a bunch of letters, then I'll
cue you (with a blue arrow) as to which row of
letters I'd like you to recall. Immediately
following the cue, write down as many letters as
you can from that row.
RECALL
The sensory store
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Typically the result of this experiment is:
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Full report: can report about 4.5 letters on
average
Partial report: can typically report 4 letters
(that's100%)
The partial report results suggest that all of the
information is there, the 4.5 average seen in the
full report condition reflects the extremely rapid
decay of the Sensory Store.
The sensory store
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Further support of this
comes from a delay
manipulation.
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In this case you
manipulate how much
time passes between the
stimuli and the recall cue.
If you delay by about 1/4
to 1/2 a second, the
average reported drops to
about 4.5, the same rate
as in the Full report task.
The sensory store
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Properties
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sensory specific - one for vision, one for
audition, etc.
high capacity
extremely fast decay
The ‘standard model’
The Multistore Model
Short term memory
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I’ll read a list of words and ask you to recall them
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Okay, now recall as many of the items as you can
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Here is the list:
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CAT, SHACK, BOAT, CAR, PICTURE, ELEPHANT, MAP,
SWING, TACK, BEAR, BOX, DOOR, CHURCH, TREE, DOG,
DENTIST, TRAIN, SNOW, SMOKE, RADIO
Short term memory
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The typical results
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items at the beginning of a list
is remembered well (primacy)
items at the end of the list are
remembered well (recency)
Short term memory
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Typical account:
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A variant of the task:
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Recency items recalled from STM
Primacy items recalled from LTM
Count backwards by threes before recall
Here is the list:
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MOUSE, BARN, SHIP, TRUCK, PHOTOGRAPH, GIRAFFE, SIGN,
SLIDE, PIN, DEER, BOTTLE, WINDOW, GARAGE, BUSH, FISH,
DOCTOR, AIRPLANE, RAIN, FIRE, TELEVISION
Short term memory
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The typical result is that
the longer you have to
count backwards, the
worse your memory for
the letters.
The theory is that the
counting backwards
prevents the rehearsal of
information in STM, so
it decays away.
Short term memory
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Increasing your STM span
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Chunking
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Grouping information together into larger units
Dog cat mouse shoe sock toe couch pillow blanket
Down flowers the by with chased yellow several girls a river
boy.
A boy chased several girls with yellow flowers down by the
river.
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Notice that the previous two are the same words, but the syntax
allows for grouping into meaningful ‘chunks’
Short Term Memory
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Properties
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rapid access (about 35 milliseconds per item)
limited capacity (7+/- 2 chunks; George Miller, 1956)
fast decay, about 12 seconds (longer if rehearsed or
elaborated)
Working Memory
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Working memory instead of STM
Working Memory
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Working memory instead of STM
Phonological rehearsal mechanism
Phonological store
Very limited capacity
 Rehearsal maintains information
in the store
Working Memory
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Working memory instead of STM
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Store and manipulate visual and spatial
information
 Directly from perception
 Indirectly from imagery
Working Memory
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Working memory instead of STM
Allocate attentional resources to the
subcomponents
 Directs elaboration/manipulation of
information
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The ‘standard model’
The Multistore Model
Long term memory
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Properties
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Capacity: Unlimited?
Duration: Decay/interference, retrieval difficulty
Organization
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Multiple subsystems for type of memory
Associative networks (more on these next week)
Long term memory: Capacity
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How much can we remember?
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Lots, no known limits to how much memory storage we
have.
More important issue concerns questions about
encoding and retrieval
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Encoding - getting memories into LTM what gets in?
Retrieval - getting memories out of LTM what gets out? exact
memories or reconstructed memories?
Long term memory: Duration
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How long do our memories last?
Ebbinghaus (1885/1913)
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He memorized non-sense
syllables.
Memorize them until perfect
performance,
Test to relearn the lists
perfectly.
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This was called the
"savings."
Long term memory: Duration
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How long do our memories last?
Bahrick (1984)
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He has done a number of
studies asking people about
memories for things (e.g.,
Spanish, faces of classmates,
etc.) that they learned over 50
years past. He has found
evidence that at least some
memories stick around a really
long time.
Long term memory: Organization
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This theory suggests that there
are different memory
components, each storing
different kinds of information.
Declarative
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The Multiple Memory
Stores Theory
Declarative
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episodic
episodic - memories about
events
semantic - knowledge of facts
Procedural - memories about
how to do things (e.g., the thing
that makes you improve at
riding a bike with practice.
Procedural

semantic
Long term memory
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How is semantic memory structured?
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Networks (more next week)
Attention
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Major tool of the central executive
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Limited capacity resource
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Filtering capabilities
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Integration function
Automaticity
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Controlled processes
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Require resources
Under some volitional direction
Slow, effortful
Automatic processes
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Require little attention
Obligatory
Fast
Stages of skill acquisition
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Stages of skill acquisition
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Cognitive stage
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Associative stage
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Establish declarative encoding of an action
Strengthen the connections between elements of the skill
Autonomous stage
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Skills can be performed without interference form other
activities
Bottom-up & Top-down
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Terms come from computer science
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Bottom up (data driven) relies upon evidence that is
physically present, building larger units based on
smaller ones
Top down (knowledge driven), using higher-level
information to support lower-level processes
Bottom-up & Top-down
Selfridge’s Pandemonium system, 1959
Bottom-up & Top-down
C
T
Bottom-up & Top-down
T E
Bottom-up & Top-down
T E
C T
Bottom-up & Top-down
FROG
Bottom-up & Top-down
FROG
Bottom-up & Top-down
Half the class close your eyes
Title: Doing laundry
Bottom-up & Top-down
Half the class close your eyes
Read story
Rate how comprehensible the story is
1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5
hard to
understand
easy to
understand
Summing up
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Psycholinguistic view
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Language and cognition are inextricably linked
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Notice that almost all of the experiment demonstrations
involved language elements as stimuli