Psycholinguistics and Neurolinguistics Commons^™

Dual Route Model Of Idiom Processing In The Bilingual Context, Tianshu Zhu

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The dual route model predicts that idiomatic phrases show a processing advantage over matched novel phrases. This model postulates that familiar phrases are processed by a faster direct route, and novel phrases are processed by an indirect route. This thesis investigated the role of familiar form and concept in direct route activation. Study 1 provided norming evidence for experimental stimuli selection. Study 2 examined whether direct route can be activated for translated Chinese idioms in Chinese-English bilinguals. Bilinguals listened to the idiom up until the last word (e.g., draw a snake and add), then saw either the idiom ending ...

Polysemy In Spatially Ambiguous Prepositions, Veronica Mckinny

Eckardt Scholars Projects

Human language strongly connects conveyed ideas to the spatial plane. Prepositions are some of the most important pieces in describing how two entities relate in spatial terms. Yet, within a preposition, there are many different variations in meaning that are conveyed. The word under, for example, might refer to a ball sitting under a table or a river flowing under a bridge, two uses which convey very different spatial and temporal information. In addition to differences in spatial senses, prepositions have metaphoric senses. Again following under as an example, a speaker could be under pressure. This experiment aims to determine ...

The Effect Of Idiomatic Language On Event Processing, Katrina Turick

Honors Scholar Theses

Mental representations of object states are necessary to keep track of changing objects in the world. When the object undergoes change and there are two representations, it creates competition between the object states. This is seen in sentences during which an object changes and is then subsequently referred to again (e.g. “The chef will chop the onion. And then, he will sniff the onion.”). When there is a larger degree of change between the states of the object, there is more competition, which is indicated by an increase in reading time when the object is referred to for the ...

Fresa Style In Mexico: Sociolinguistic Stereotypes And The Variability Of Social Meanings, Rebeca Martinez Gomez

Linguistics ETDs

This dissertation examines the flexibility in the social meanings of sociolinguistic stereotypes and how linguistic and non-linguistic information affect these meanings. The investigation consists of four empirical studies surrounding the case of fresas in Mexico –members of the upper class that are perceived as using a unique linguistic style.

Study 1 investigates the linguistic and non-linguistic characteristics associated with the fresa stereotype. Through a qualitative analysis of 64 webpages and 3 performances of the style, it is shown that fresasare perceived as the counterpart of another construct, nacos,and that their linguistic style is linked to English due to ...

Reasoning With Pseudowords: How Properties Of Novel Verbal Stimuli Influence Item Difficulty And Linguistic-Group Score Differences On Cognitive Ability Assessments, Paul Agnello

All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Pseudowords (words that are not real but resemble real words in a language) have been used increasingly as a technique to reduce contamination due to construct-irrelevant variance in assessments of verbal fluid reasoning (Gf). However, despite pseudowords being researched heavily in other psychology sub-disciplines, they have received little attention in cognitive ability testing contexts. Thus, there has been an assumption that all pseudowords work equally and work equally well for all test-takers. The current research examined three objectives with the first being whether changes to the pseudoword properties of length and wordlikeness (how much a pseudoword resembles a typical or ...

Detecting Language Impairments In Autism: A Computational Analysis Of Semi-Structured Conversations With Vector Semantics, Adam Goodkind, Michelle Lee, Gary E. Martin, Molly Losh, Klinton Bicknell

Proceedings of the Society for Computation in Linguistics

Many of the most significant impairments faced by individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) relate to pragmatic (i.e. social) language. There is also evidence that pragmatic language differences may map to ASD-related genes. Therefore, quantifying the social-linguistic features of ASD has the potential to both improve clinical treatment and help identify gene-behavior relationships in ASD. Here, we apply vector semantics to transcripts of semi-structured interactions with children with both idiopathic and syndromic ASD. We find that children with ASD are less semantically similar to a gold standard derived from typically developing participants, and are more semantically variable. We show ...

Differentiating Phrase Structure Parsing And Memory Retrieval In The Brain, Shohini Bhattasali, John Hale, Christophe Pallier, Jonathan Brennan, Wen-Ming Luh, R. Nathan Spreng

Proceedings of the Society for Computation in Linguistics

On some level, human sentence comprehension must involve both memory retrieval and structural composition. This study differentiates these two processes using neuroimaging data collected during naturalistic listening. Retrieval is formalized in terms of "multiword expressions" while structure-building is formalized in terms of bottom-up parsing. The results most strongly implicate Anterior Temporal regions for structure-building and Precuneus Cortex for memory retrieval.

Explicit Discourse Connectives / Implicit Discourse Relations, Bonnie Webber, Hannah Rohde, Anna Dickinson, Annie Louis, Nathan Schneider

Proceedings of the Society for Computation in Linguistics

While explicit discourse connectives can signal coherence relations, a common assumption is that only their absence or ambiguity necessitates relation inference. Using a crowdsourced conjunction completion task to collect 40K+ judgments on 50 discourse adverbials, we find this common assumption to be false. Instead, naive subjects systematically infer an implicit connective alongside an explicit discourse adverbial. But sometimes different subsets of subjects may each endorse different connectives. The size of these subsets means that such differences cannot be written off as error. Rather, they demonstrate how the coherence associated with explicit adverbials relates to coherence inferred between the clauses themselves.

Listener's Perceptions Of Stuttering, Katie Lauren Smith

Linguistics Senior Research Projects

Stuttering is a neurodevelopmental disorder that causes disruptions in the normal flow of speech. Often, the disorder is accompanied by anxiety, stress, and discomfort in communication. Due to prominence of the disorder, stuttering can cause discomfort for both the listener and speaker. While some factors, such as level of fluency, familiarity with the disorder, and openness about the disorder can influence listener perceptions, the risk of negative stereotyping is high. In the following study, listener perceptions of stuttering are measured in a Christian, college-aged environment. 31 participants were asked to fill out a questionnaire about stuttering. Of the 31, 6 ...

The Way You Make Me Feel: Semantic Response Behavior Following A Status Prime In The Context Of Romantic Relationships, Robert James Konefal

Senior Projects Spring 2018

Intimate Partner Violence is a potential result of an imbalance within a romantic relationship that comes with grave consequences. Often, abusers find that their higher status position assists them in their ability to harm someone with a lower status position, which thereby leading to higher likelihood of aggression. It is currently unknown whether or not people who verbalize this status imbalance through semantic choice will have a higher likelihood of aggressing. The power of suggestion is a strong phenomenon. Not only can semantics be used in priming to affect various types of behavior such as emotional responses (Hansen & Shantz, 1995 ...

Metaphor To Memory: Effects Of Spatiotemporal Metaphors On The Emotional Valence Of Autobiographical Memories, Jayne B. Williamson-Lee

Undergraduate Honors Theses

English speakers conceptualize the passing of time in one of two ways: as events in time moving toward them (the time-moving perspective) or as themselves moving through time (the ego-moving perspective). Previous studies suggest that these construals of time have corresponding emotional valences (positive and negative, respectively), which influence perceptions of emotional experiences. This study investigates whether spatiotemporal metaphors evoke valence-specific memories – specifically whether the ego-moving perspective evokes positive memories and the time-moving perspective negative memories. Participants read statements depicting events in motion and wrote about autobiographical memories. Memories recalled were evaluated as positive or negative by the researcher. Results ...

The Modulatory Effect Of Expectations On Memory Retrieval During Sentence Comprehension, Luca Campanelli, Julie A. Van Dyke, Klara Marton

Publications and Research

Memory retrieval and probabilistic expectations are recognized factors in sentence comprehension that capture two different critical aspects of processing difficulty: the cost of retrieving and integrating previously processed elements with the new input words and the cost of incorrect predictions about upcoming words or structures in a sentence. Although these two factors have independently received substantial support from the extant literature, how they interact remains poorly understood. The present study investigated memory retrieval and expectation in a single experiment, pitting these factors against each other. Results showed a significant interference effect in both response time to the comprehension questions and ...

Linguistic Self-Awareness And Poetry Preference, Brice J. Montgomery

Channels: Where Disciplines Meet

This paper examines the relationship between linguistic self-awareness and poetry preference in college students who don’t regularly read poetry. It addresses whether or not there are consistent phonological and semantic features that influence preference, and it observes whether or not students recognize linguistic factors as part of their preference. It also touches on syntactic play and the degree to which amateur readers understand that professional poets deliberately subvert linguistic tendencies.

Language Experience With A Native-Language Phoneme Sequence Modulates The Effects Of Attention On Cortical Sensory Processing, Valerie L. Shafer, Monica Wagner, Jungmee Lee, Francesca Mingino, Colleen O'Brien, Adam Constantine, Mitchell Steinschneider

Publications and Research

Auditory evoked potentials (AEP) reflect spectro-temporal feature changes within the spoken word and are sufficiently reliable to probe deficits in auditory processing. The current research assessed whether attentional modulation would alter the morphology of these AEPs and whether native-language experience with phoneme sequences would influence the effects of attention. Native-English and native-Polish adults listened to nonsense word pairs that contained the phoneme sequence onsets /st/, /sət/, /pət/ that occur in both the Polish and English languages and the phoneme sequence onset /pt/ that occurs in the Polish language, but not the English language. Participants listened to word pairs within two ...

Second-Language Acquisition And Motivation: A Literature Review, Pat Goodridge

Pursuit - The Journal of Undergraduate Research at the University of Tennessee

This literature review traces the development of motivation in second-language acquisition, a field that has evolved from basic associations between affective factors and second-language performance to nuanced approaches of how motivation is shaped by a learner’s subjective cognition. With this review, we see that motivation’s role has always been central to language learning, and the development of our understanding of this role has mirrored the development of our understanding of second-language acquisition’s psychological and cognitive aspects. Such understanding contributes to many areas of second-language pedagogy, developmental psychology, and applied linguistics, all of which are relevant to our ...

The Power Of Prayer, Victoria Dawn Thompson

Capstone Collection

If words are arbitrary, how does prayer have power?” is the question of inquiry in this paper. An unobtrusive Content Analysis inquiry methodology was used to answer this question. The answer lies in the finding that words and thoughts are not the same thing, and our thoughts expand beyond the audible and visible. The implication for professional practice these findings present is that a deeper awareness of “Self” is needed to understand people’s miraculous way of resolving conflict via prayer.

Faculty Response To Deselection In Academic Libraries: A Psycholinguistic Analysis, Ann Agee

Faculty and Staff Publications

Deselection is a necessary but politically sensitive part of an academic librarian's responsibilities. To provide an overview of the emotional dynamics involved in weeding an academic collection, this article analyzes editorials, articles, and book chapters chronicling faculty response to weeding from a psycholinguistic viewpoint. Using computer-based text analysis, these accounts are examined for the amount and type of emotional content they contain. These findings provide a template for what librarians can expect when beginning a deselection process and point to best practices for working effectively with faculty to create a robust and healthy collection.

Revealing Subtle Cognitive-Linguistic Differences In Adults With Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Through Discourse Analysis, Amanda L. Weichselbaum, Sarah E. Key-Delyria

Student Research Symposium

Discourse abilities of individuals with traumatic brain injury presented at the Portland State University Student Research Symposium.

The findings of this study support the idea that discourse analysis may be a useful tool for determining subtle, cognitive-communication deficits in the TBI population that common neuropsychological tests may not detect. Such information may be important clinically for validating persisting cognitive symptoms and guiding effective therapy goals. Linguistic disruptions may reveal cognitive impairments due to diffuse damage of the brain.

Literacy Revolution: How The New Tools Of Communication Change The Stories We Tell, Molly Gamble

Master's Theses and Capstone Projects

The transmission of culture depends upon every generation reconsidering what it means to be literate. The way we consider ourselves to be a literate species is changing, which puts us at a unique turning point in human history. Verbal literacy, or the ability to read and write, is slowly being replaced by visual literacy as a primary tool for human communication. As a culture, we tend to underestimate the creative ferment of our increasingly visual world. The linear, structured pathways of traditional literacy are shifting towards a creative and participatory pursuit of unstructured information that emphasize dimensional thinking. The acceleration ...

Say It Again: A Case Study On Improving Communication In An Autistic Adolescent, Olivia P. Seymour

Linguistics Senior Research Projects

Diagnoses of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have increased significantly in recent years, necessitating a deeper understanding of its symptoms and how to improve on the resulting deficits in communication and social skills. This study examined the possibility of improving the communication of a thirteen-year-old boy with ASD. Within eight sessions, several methods of improving communication were tested, including using a computer to type messages, using pictures to guide conversations, and using simple, open-ended questions. Despite predictions that his communication would improve with the help of focused efforts to communicate and the implementation of these strategies, the participant’s communication skills ...