230228 Empirical research on online language comprehension, WS 2009/2010


date and location

Monday, 10:15-11:45, U0-101


office hours

Monday, 12-13, Building Q, Room Q2-150


schedule

Date                Lecture                                                                                                          

12.10.2009          1. Introductory meeting     

19.10.2009          2. Lexical processing

26.10.2009          3. Syntactic  parsing I

02.11.2009          4. Syntactic parsing II

09.11.2009          5. Semantic interpretation I

16.11.2009          6. Semantic interpretation II

23.11.2009          7. Discourse comprehension I

30.11.2009          8. Discourse comprehension II

07.12.2009          9. Non-lingustic influences I

14.12.2009          10. Non-lingustic influences II 

21.12.2010          11. Non-linguistic influences III

11.01.2010          Mock exam

18.01.2010          12. Non-linguistic influences IV

25.01.2010          Course review

01.02.2010          Exam


grading

Final written exam - 90 mins


course description

This course deals with psycholinguistics and specifically online language comprehension. We will discuss empirical research on online language comprehension in the context of existing theories and models. Topics will include (amongst others) lexical processing, syntactic parsing, semantic interpretation, discourse processing, and situated and embodied language comprehension. The course will feature lectures on the individual topics, combined with in-class discussions. Lectures will be offered in English.

Attention: slides and readings are now available from ekv

Lecture 1  slides

Lecture 2  slides

Lecture 3  slides

Lecture 4

Lecture 5

Lecture 6

Lecture 7

Lecture 8

Lecture 9

Lecture 10

Lecture 11

Lecture 12


Readings for individual lectures

  1. -Lecture 2

  2. -pp. 1-11 in Frauenfelder, U. & Tyler, L.K. (1987). The process of spoken word recognition: an introduction. Cognition, 25, 1-20. #

  3. -Tanenhaus, M., Spivey-Knowlton, M., Eberhard & Sedivy, J. (1996). Using eye movements to study spoken language comprehension: evidence for visually mediated incremental interpretation. In T. Inui & J. McClelland (Eds.), Attention & Performance XVI: Integration in perception and communication (pp. 457-478). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. #

  4. -Lecture 3

  5. -Coltheart, M. (1999). Coltheart, M. (1999). Modularity and Cognition. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 3:3, 115-120. #

  6. -Edward Gibson and Neal Perlmutter. Constraints on Sentence Comprehension. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, Vol. 2, Num. 7, 1988. (for download see “General background literature”)

  7. -Lecture 4

  8. -Branigan, H. (2007). Syntactic priming. Language and Linguistics Compass, 1, 1-16. #

  9. -Hagoort, P., Brown, C.M., & Groothusen, J. (1993). The syntactic positive shift (SPS) as an ERP measure of syntactic processing, LCP, 8, pp. 439–483.

  10. -van Herten, M., Kolk, H., & Chwilla, D.J. (2005). An ERP study of P600 effects elicited by semantic anomalies. Cognitive Brain Research, 22, 241-255.

  11. -Lecture 5

  12. -Kutas, M., & Hillyard, S. A. (1980). Reading senseless sentences: brain potentials reflect semantic incongruity. Science, 207, 203-205.

  13. -Kutas, M. and Hillyard, S.A. (1984). Brain potentials during reading reflect word expectancy and semantic association. Nature 307, 161–163.

  14. -Lecture 6

  15. -Sedivy, J. C., Tanenhaus, M. K., Chambers, C. G., & Carlson, G. N. (1999). Achieving incremental semantic interpretation through contextual representation. Cognition, 71, 109–148.

  16. -Lecture 7

  17. -Järvikivi, J. van Gompel, R.P.G.,Hyönä, J. and Bertram, R (2004). Ambiguous Pronoun Resolution: Contrasting the First-Mention and Subject-Preference Accounts. Psychological Science, 260-264.#

  18. -Lecture 8

  19. -Zwaan, R.A. (1999). Situation models: the mental leap into imagined worlds. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 8, 15-18.

  20. -Radvansky, G.A., Zwaan, R.A., Franklin, N., & Federico, T. (1998). Retrieval from temporally organized situation models. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 24, 1224-1237.

  21. -Lecture 9

  22. -Tanenhaus, M.K., Spivey-Knowlton, M.J., Eberhard, K.M. & Sedivy, J.E. (1995). "Integration of Visual and Linguistic Information in Spoken Language Comprehension". Science, 268, 1632-1634. #

  23. -Knoeferle, P., Habets, B., Crocker, M. W., & Muente, T. F. (2008). Visual scenes trigger immediate syntactic reanalysis: evidence from ERPs during situated spoken comprehension. Cerebral Cortex, 18(4), 789–795. #

  24. -Lecture 10

  25. -Glenberg, A., & Kaschak, M. P. (2002). Grounding language in action. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 9(3), 558–565. #

  26. -Tettamanti, M., Buccino, G., Saccuman, M. C., Gallese, V., Danna, M., Scifo, P., et al. (2005). Listening to action-related sentences activates fronto-parietal motor circuits. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 17, 273–281. #

  27. -Lecture 11

  28. -Havas, D.A., & Glenberg, A. (2007). Emotion simulation during language comprehension. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review. 436-441.#

  29. -Holt DJ, Lynn SK, Kuperberg GR. Neurophysiological correlates of comprehending emotional meaning in context. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. 2009; 21(11): 2245-2262. #

  30. -Lecture 12

  31. -Wu, Y.C., & Coulson, S. (2007). How iconic gestures enhance communication. An ERP study. Brain and Language, 101, 234-245.#


General background literature:

  1. -Crocker, M. (1999). Mechanisms for Sentence Processing. In: Garrod & Pickering (eds), Language Processing, Psychology Press, London. #

  2. -Altmann, G.T.M. (2006). History of Psycholinguistics. in K. Brown (ed). The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (2nd edition). Elsevier. #

  3. -Altmann, G.T.M. (2001). The mechanics of language: Psycholinguistics in review. The British Journal of Psychology. 92, 129–170. #

  4. -Edward Gibson and Neal Perlmutter. Constraints on Sentence Comprehension. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, Vol. 2, Num. 7, 1988. #

  5. -Ken McRae, Michael Spivey-Knowlton, and Michael Tanenhaus. Modeling the Influence of Thematic Fit (and Other Constraints) in On-line Sentence Comprehension. Journal of Memory and Language, 38, 283-312, 1998. #

  6. -Daniel Richardson and Michael Spivey. Eye-tracking.In: G. Wnek & G. Bowlin (eds), Encyclopedia of biomaterials and biomedical engineering. in press. #

  7. -Kaan, E. (2007). Event-related potentials and language processing: a brief overview. Language and Linguistics Compass, 1, 571-591. #