Memory and language
The impact of bilingualism on thoughts and feelings
"For bilingual people, living with two languages can mean indeed living in two different emotional worlds and also travelling back and forth between those two worlds." "It can also mean living suspended between two worlds, frequently misinterpreting other people's feelings and intentions, and being misinterpreted oneself, even when on the surface communication appears to proceed smoothly." (Wierzbicka, 2004, p. 102)
Encoding and retrieval
"Retrieval is a process of recapitulating the same processes (as nearly as possible) as those carried out at the time of encoding" (Craik, 2020, p.10) "The retrieval process is erratic, highly fallible, and heavily cue dependent" (Bjork & Bjork, 1992, p.36) - Retrieval cues: Information utilised at recall - Can be internal or external; associations, semantic links, context, moods ect. - If effective retrieval cues are set up at learning, later retrieval will be better
What is working memory?
"The ensemble of components of the mind that hold a limited amount of information temporarily in a heightened state of availability for use in ongoing information processing". • WM = The system/set of abilities that achieves information storage and processing • STM = The temporary storage aspect of this system
Why are there differences in L1 and L2 emotionality? - The emotional contexts of learning theory (Harris et al., 2006)
"Using a language in emotional contexts provides it with emotional resonances because human experiences are learned and stored in a context-dependent manner." (Caldwell-Harris, 2014, p. 2) - Proposes that emotional meanings are associated with the language used at the time of emotional experiences. Greater emotionality of L2 when: - Early AoA (before 7 years of age) - Immersion in the language context (vs. classroom learning) - High frequency of use and high level of proficiency
Forgetting (Jost's law)
''Given two associations of the same strength, but of different ages, the older falls off less rapidly in a given length of time'' (Jost, 1897) • Retention is determined in part by level of initial learning - 'Half-life' of memory trace reflects success of initial learning (Nairne & Pandeirada, 2008) Eventually the newer memory will be lost more than the older memory
Forgetting is useful
'Without forgetting it is quite impossible to live at all.' Friedrich Nietzsche • 'In the practical use of our intellect, forgetting is as important as remembering....If we remembered everything we should on most occasions be as ill off as if we remembered nothing.' William James • An adaptive process that facilitates memory updating (Bjork & Bjork, 1996) and abstraction. • 'A design feature of memory' (Nairne & Pandeirada, 2008)
Availability and accessibility
(Tulving & Pearlstone, 1966) Loss of availability • Total loss of a memory, with no possibility of recall (Davis, 2008) • Very difficult to prove but likely to exist (Roediger et al., 2010) Loss of accessibility • Memory remains potentially available, but is not accessible at a given time/context • Blocking - Temporary inaccessibility of information that is stored in memory (Schachter, 2021). Presence and effectiveness of retrieval cues is critical Recognition and cued recall is easier than uncued recall (e.g. Tulving & Pearlstone, 1966)
What is the emotion word effect?
- Across many studies with monolinguals, emotional words have been found to be better recalled than neutral words (see e.g., Ferré et al., 2010). - Emotional words are also recognised faster, produce higher physiological arousal and may in certain conditions disrupt the task at hand (esp. negative words). - The brain appears to prioritise the processing of words with emotional meanings.
A multicomponent approach: central executive
- Attentional control, planning, complex reasoning, inhibition. - Based in frontal lobes. - Contributes to other tasks; loading on CE typically disrupts WM performance (e.g., Allen et al., 2006). - Particularly important for novel situations & non-automatized skills. - See also 'executive function' - Unitary yet diverse: can probably be fractionated (e.g., Miyake et al., 2000 - inhibition, switching, & updating).
Misattribution
- Attributing a memory or idea to the wrong source - A sin of 'commission' - Can manifest as source memory confusions - Potentially serious consequences, e.g., erroneous eyewitness ID (Ross et al., 1994; Thomson, 1988) • DRM paradigm (Deese, 1959; Roediger & McDermott, 1995) • Present: bed, rest, awake, tired, dream, wake, snooze, blanket, doze, slumber, snore, nap... • Test: Did you see these words earlier? blanket, swim, hill, sleep, tired, cliff, pin, doze • Over half pps claimed to remember to have seen the lure word earlier
Fractionation
- Basso et al. (1982) Impaired verbal STM, preserved VS STM (PV) - Hanley et al. (1991) Preserved verbal STM, impaired VS STM (ELD) - Poor on spatial recall ('Corsi task'), mental rotation, and mental imagery ("The pictures wouldn't come") Logie (1995) structure of visuo-spatial sketchpad similar to phonological loop: - Visual cache: Passive store for form & colour. - Inner scribe: Active spatial and movement rehearsal process,
A multicomponent approach: episodic buffer
- Binds information from different sources & LTM. - Holds objects and episodes - Initially thought to be reliant on central executive processing but evidence now suggests otherwise (e.g., Allen, Baddeley, & Hitch, 2006; Baddeley, Allen, & Hitch, 2011) - Related to consciousness. - Creation of new concepts based on recombination of existing knowledge How might we measure the 'episodic buffer': - "evaluating the development trajectory of the episodic buffer component of working memory and its relation to work recognition in children" - "intentional and incidental odour-colour binding in working memory"
Reading research at Leeds
- Ca. 25% of children in the UK leave primary school without being able to read properly. - Factors such as poverty (low SES), immigration background (English as an Additional Language; EAL) and language learning difficulties (dyslexia) impact on learning to read. Problem: - How can we assess children's potential to learn, yet take into account the impact of their background? How can we distinguish between children who have language learning deficit from those without, but who are behind their age group in reading skills?
Interactions with LTM
- Children's ability to repeat longer nonwords predicts language and vocabulary levels (Gathercole & Baddeley, 1990) Superior recall for.... - Words vs. nonwords (Hulme et al. 1991) - Meaningful & structured sequences vs. lists (e.g., Baddeley et al., 2009; Allen et al., 2018) - LTM also supports verbal & visual-spatial WM in other ways too.... e.g., Darling et al. (2017)
So how do we read?
- Common sense explanation: We fixate on the word until it is fully processed then move onto the next one. Problem with this account: - We often skip words - Readers fixate to 80% of content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives), but only 20% of function words (e.g., articles a, the; conjunctions and, or) - Readers tend not to fixate on common, short and predictable words - Saccades are too slow to explain our reading speed: It takes 85-200 ms to execute an eye-movement programme.
Criticisms of multicomponent approach
- Difficult to falsify - Popperian view of theory (Popper, 1959) - Components only broadly defined and represent cognitive black boxes? - Rejection of distinct, specialized stores (Morey, 2018; Morey et al., 2019) - Responses from Logie (2019) and Baddeley et al. (2019) - Baddeley, Hitch, & Allen (2019) - Approach intended as a framework to guide exploration, rather than a detailed explanatory and mechanistic theory. - Theories are successful if they are productive (Lakatos, 1970).
The DRC model - Critical evaluation
- Does not explain how semantic information affects word reading - Phonological information seems to play a more important role earlier on in the word reading - Developed to explain language processing in English - Does not account for bilingual language processing and differences in word reading across languages. Why might this be a problem? - As scientists we are seeking what is universal in human cognition. - To fully understand the reading process we need to know if our assumptions regarding the neural and cognitive mechanisms which underlie it can generalise from one language to another. - Share (2008) has criticised that a lot of reading research has been "Anglocentric" and not readily generalised to other languages.
What is meant by dyslexia?
- Dyslexia is a specific learning disability that is neurobiological in origin. - It is characterized by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition, spelling and decoding written text. - These difficulties typically result from a deficit in the phonological component of language that is often unexpected in relation to other cognitive abilities and the provision of effective classroom instruction. - Secondary consequences may include problems in reading comprehension and reduced reading experience that can impede growth of vocabulary and background knowledge. (Definition adopted by the International Dyslexia Association (IDA) Board of Directors in 2002; https://dyslexiaida.org/definition-of-dyslexia/)
Conclusion (bilingualism)
- Emotional words appear to have an impact on memory also in the bilinguals' L2. - However, it seems to be weaker for negative words. - Less proficient, late bilinguals may not show an emotion word effect, but this needs to be further investigated. - The Revised Hierarchical Model (Kroll & Stewart, 1994) and the Emotional Contexts of Learning Theory (Harris et al., 2006) can help to explain why bilinguals' L2 may not show as strong emotion advantages as is the case with L1. - However, more detailed theoretical models are needed that specify how emotional meaning is represented and processed in bilingual speakers.
Figurative language
- Figurative language is an important area of research in pragmatics. - This includes expressions or utterances that are not intended to be taken literally, such as: - Metaphors - Irony - Idioms
How is sentence comprehension studied?
- Given the importance of syntactic analysis (=parsing) in sentence comprehension, a considerable amount of research has been devoted to understanding how it takes place. The key debate involves the role of semantic information in parsing - Is it integrated after the initial syntactic analysis has been completed? - Does semantic information play a role right from the start?
E-Z Reader model - When and why are words skipped?
- If the next word is predictable from the context it is often skipped (or words that are common or short, e.g., a, the, and). Why? - It is not necessary to fixate to the second word as lexical access has been fully completed for both words (i.e., the currently fixated and the next one). - The completion of lexical access for both words is possible when the words are processed fast, as is the case for common, short and predictable words.
Why are there differences in L1 and L2 emotionality? - Emotional meanings of words in L2
- In L2, word meanings are often learnt thought direct instruction and rehearsal in formal environments - Often learning starts after the early childhood (> 6 years) - Involves usually learning associations between L2 and L1 words - The range of emotions expressed more limited - Less common that emotional meanings taught in language classes - E.g., swear words
The context - Bilingualism is common
- In the UK, 39% of the population is able to hold a conversation in at least one additional language (European Commission, 2012). - Across all the EU countries, this figure is 54%. - Some estimates suggest that globally up to 66% of children are brought up bilingually
Successive relearning
- Initial learning to criterion and subsequent relearning in multiple spaced sessions. - Combines different kinds of practice effect; general, distributed, and retrieval. - Successive relearning improved psychology students' exam performance and subsequent retention (Rawson et al., 2013) - Optimal schedule efficiency reflects balance between time and effort vs. measurable gains - 3x3 (1st session recall x no. of relearning episodes) schedule identified as most efficient and effective in supporting learning in students (Rawson et al., 2011)
The Embodiment of conceptual representations
- It has been suggested that sensory experience and motor actions are relevant to the processing the meanings of words, phrases (e.g., metaphors) and sentences. - The idea is based on research on the way word meanings are represented in the brain. - It has been proposed that the activation of relevant sensory and motor areas of the brain are involved (e.g., Barsalou, 2003) when meaning in language is accessed.
Why do these things help? (encoding and retrieval)
- Massing reduces attention due to familiarity (Greene, 1989). - Strengthening & multiplexing of retrieval routes (Pyc & Rawson, 2009, 2012). - Theory of Disuse (Bjork & Bjork, 1992; Bjork, 1994). • Accessibility and 'desirable difficulties', • Spacing of items decreases accessibility, so each session is an important learning opportunity. • Successful retrieval -> larger gains to storage and retrieval strength than studying. • Benefits of retrieval for an item's subsequent retrieval strength are larger the more difficult or involved the act of retrieval • Gains are higher for items with low retrieval strength. Needs to feel new; if you are studying and it doesn't feel like you are pushing yourself, its probably not all that effective - Spacing and SR reduce decay over time (RAD model of Pavlik & Anderson, 2005; Rawson et al., 2018). • The more an item is studied within a session, the more it decays. • New study instances across different sessions produce lower decay rates.
Conclusions: limitations of the garden-path model
- More recent evidence supports the idea that semantic information is used at the early stages of parsing, contradicting a key assumption of the garden-path model - The evidence has also questioned the generalisability of the principles of minimal attachment and late closure. Wider issues: - The central idea in language research that the sentence is the core unit of language interpretation has been challenged to an extent as the broader context seems to play an important role in the parsing of a sentence.
Surface dyslexia
- Most frequently observed in the context of semantic dementia, a progressive degenerative condition characterized by a gradual loss of knowledge in the absence of deficits in motor, perceptual, and, in some instances, executive function. - Surface dyslexics have difficulties with linking the surface information - the visual form of a word - directly to meaning (Coslett & Turkeltaub, 2016) Typical symptoms: ◦ Problems with reading irregular words (regularised pronunciation, e.g. "quay" as "kway") ◦ Often confuse homophones - words that are pronounced the same as another word but differ in meaning (e.g. when asked to define "mown" they may say "to complain") ◦ Spelling errors that are phonologically correct (e.g. write "whisk" as "wisque") - They seem to read by applying grapheme-to-phoneme conversion rules (GPC rules)
Measuring WM
- Multiple measures increase reliability and capture different aspects of WM. - Domain/modality (e.g., verbal vs. visuospatial) - Complexity (simple vs. complex)
Phonological dyslexia
- No problems reading previously learned words, regardless of whether they are regular or irregular. - Problems with reading unfamiliar words and nonwords. - These individuals can extract meaning directly from the visual form, but can't use knowledge about GPC rules.
The word naming task -Rationale
- Participant presented single words, one at a time - They are asked to simply read the word aloud as quickly and accurately as possible - Voice recognition is used to establish the point at which the participant started speaking to allow measurement of RTs - Specialist software is also used to analyse whether the word was pronounced accurately or not - Different conditions are compared (e.g., short vs. long words)
The Stroop task- Rationale
- Participants are presented colour words (e.g., red, green, blue, yellow) one at a time. - The words are printed either in congruent or incongruent colours. - Congruent: RED, GREEN, BLUE - Incongruent: RED, BLUE, GREEN - Participants are asked to IGNORE the meaning of the word - Their task is to name (identify) the print colour as quickly and accurately as possible. - The reaction times (RTs) are compared for the congruent and incongruent conditions. Results: - RTs are slower in the incongruent than congruent condition. Implications: - The Stroop effect suggests that word meaning is extracted even when people try not to process it -> word-reading is an automatic process
Why is it important to study reading
- Skilled reading has important value in contemporary society - The lack of good reading skills is a disadvantage - Reading is a complex cognitive skill which involves not only language processes but other cognitive processes as well (i.e. perception, attention, memory)
When AM goes wrong
- Sometimes dramatic memories (e.g. abuse) are repressed and forgotten and need an intervention from a therapist to be retrieved. - However, we are also susceptible to formation of false memories where we are induced into believing that things that never happened have happened. PTSD - Intrusive, distressing, and unintentional memories of the traumatic event are a hallmark symptom of PTSD (American Psychiatric Association, 1994, 2013) . - There is evidence that intentional recall of non-trauma autobiographical memories is disturbed in PTSD. - Over general autobiographical memory (OGM) is an inability to retrieve specific memories from one's AM. Instead, general memories are recalled, such as repeated events or events occurring over broad periods. - Laboratory studies typically find an OGM bias in PTSD similar to that observed in depression . - Commonly, patients with PTSD describe that they have completely changed as a person since the traumatic event and have difficulty remembering what they used to be like (e.g., Ehlers, Maercker, & Boos, 2000) Problems with unintentionally retrieving trauma related AMs: • Kleim, Graham, Bryant, and Ehlers (2013) used electronic diaries to compare unintentional trauma memories in people with and without PTSD. • They found that for the PTSD group intrusive trauma memories appeared to happen in the here and now, and lead to stronger negative emotions such as fear or shame.
Can debates be resolved (WM)
- Still no theoretical consensus about what working memory is, how it functions, and what role it plays in cognition and development (Byrnes & Miller-Cotto, 2023). - Inevitable because working memory is complex (Barrouillet & Camos, 2021) - Differences between models is often one of emphasis & levels of explanation (Logie et al., 2021). - Gray et al. (2017) - "a zeitgeist in which working memory models are coming together on common ground". - Hitch, Allen, & Baddeley (2020) - episodic buffer = focus of attention?
A multicomponent approach
- Temporary record of auditory-verbal input. Capacity of a few seconds. - Auditory info automatically stored; visual must be verbally recoded. - Articulatory rehearsal can prevent decay and keep representations active. - Articulatory suppression can disrupt recoding and rehearsal. Classic evidence: - Word length effect (Baddeley et al., 1975, 1984; Ellis & Hennelly, 1980) - Phonological similarity effect (Baddeley, 1966)
A multicomponent approach: visuo-spatial sketchpad
- Temporary storage of visual, spatial, and movement information. - Links to many abilities including imagery & imagination, mathematics, mental rotation, creativity, spatial awareness, & navigation.
How much information can we take in during a fixation?
- The amount of useful information that can be extracted during fixation has been assessed with the "moving window" technique (Rayner et al., 2012). - Experimenter manipulates the amount of text clearly visible to the reader around their fixation point, the rest of the text is obscured. - In English, the perceptual span is around 3-4 letters left from fixation and up to 15 letters to the right of fixation. - Findings have shown that the perceptual span (=effective field of view) varies depending on the language (English, Hebrew, Chinese), text difficulty and print size.
The heart of intelligent behaviour
- The heart of intelligent behaviour (Nȩcka, 1992) - Interacts with perception, attention, and LTM, and feeds through into action - WM and attentional control predict many different abilities and real-world outcomes Increased WM capacity may underlie evolution of advanced human creativity (Balter, 2010)
What is the prevalence of dyslexia in the UK?
- The number of individuals with dyslexia in the UK is around 10% (British Dyslexia Association; https://www.bdadyslexia.org.uk/) - Some estimations are even higher (ca. 16% of the population) Dyslexia is not rare!
The study of ambiguous sentences
- The research examining the way people parse sentences often focuses on sentences that are ambiguous in some way. Why? - This allows us to see what factors in a sentence slow people down, or stop them from understanding the meaning of the sentence.
Pragmatics - definition
- The study of how language is used and understood in the real world. - Differentiates between literal meaning (semantics; how words are defined) and intended meaning of an utterance. - Considers the contextual information when the language is being used, such as: - The speaker's tone - The speaker's relevant behaviour - The environment where there interlocutors are
Emotion words and emotional words
- The terms 'emotion' words, 'emotion-laden' words or 'emotional' words often used interchangeably Can be distinguished: - Emotion words: words that refer to an emotion or emotional state (anger, fear; happy, sad) - Emotion-laden/ emotional words: any word that is associated with an emotional connotation (war, exam, failure; freedom, holiday, success)
The Context - Implicit assumption of monolingualism
- The vast majority of psychological research has examined participants who were monolinguals, or were assumed to be monolinguals. - Language background of participants have often not been checked nor reported. Is this really a problem? - In some areas of psychology participants' linguistic background may not affect the findings, BUT - in many areas it has the potential to undermine the reliability of the results. - This is certainly the case for the cognitive psychological research on memory and language.
Anooshian & Hertel (1994): conclusions & Implication to theory
- They suggested that L1 is experienced as more emotionally engaging and having the capacity to trigger strong emotional responses. - But L2 is associated with a degree of emotional detachment and lack of emotional force. - Such lack of emotional force could be taken to explain why no emotion word effect was observed L1.
How can we improve/support WM
- Training? Not usefully (e.g., Melby-Lervag & Hulme, 2013) - Focus your attention (e.g., Hitch et al., 2020) - Active maintenance (rehearsal and refreshing) - Cognitive offloading/environmental support - Use of strategies - Link to stored knowledge in LTM
Studying eye movements in reading
- When reading, the eyes travel in jumps called saccades of about 20 to 30 ms. - They are followed by fixations of around 200 to 250 ms when the eye is still. - Information is taken in during fixations. - Study of regressive eye movements (where the eye moves back to earlier material) provides information about how we disambiguate ambiguous material. - Ca. 10% of eye-movements during reading are regressions.
Types of dyslexia
1. Acquired dyslexia - Disorders of reading consequent upon brain injury 2. Developmental dyslexia - Disorder manifested by difficulty in learning to read despite conventional instruction, adequate intelligence, and sociocultural opportunity (World Federation of Neurology, Critchley, 1975)
Two key theoretical perspectives
1. Amodal representations perspective - Proposes that knowledge is represented in abstract codes, which are distinct from the sensory modalities through which the knowledge was acquired (e.g., Fodor, 1975; Pylyshyn, 2007). - Word meanings involve symbols that allow categorisation of different entities and events. 2. Modal, embodied-cognition perspective (theories of grounded cognition) - Reject the notion of amodal representations. - Proposes that knowledge is represented in modal systems derived from perception, and that cognition depends on perceptual simulations (e.g., Barsalou, 2008). - Accessing word meanings involves activating and combining sensorimotor experiences. Image attached: - The modal-amodal continuum comprising different forms of representations, ranging from image-like representations (on the left) to frames and propositions (on the right) Source: Figure 3 from Kaup et al. (2023) Example: Meaning of the word 'screwdriver' If you were to hold a screwdriver in your hand, how would it feel? - E.g., consider it's weight, texture, temperature If you were to use the screwdriver, what kind of motor action(s) would be required? - E.g., which parts of you body would be involved, what would be the nature of the movement?
How do we get to understand meaning in language?
1. Lexical representation - Information about the word - Incl. spelling (orthography), pronunciation (phonology), grammatical class (e.g., noun, adjective, verb) 2. Semantic (conceptual) representation - Representations the word is associated with, the meaning of the word - E.g., features that most dogs have in common, sensory characteristics, motor actions
Limitations of the garden-path model
1. Meanings of words do appear to influence the processing of sentences (e.g., Trueswell et al., 1994) 2. Several factors can prevent readers from adhering to the principles of minimal attachment and late closure - Misleading prosody (Pauker et al., 2012) - Prior context (Spivey et al., 2002) 3. The model does not take into account other languages - E.g., in several languages examined a preference for early rather than late closure has been found, incl. Spanish, Dutch and French (Harley, 2013)
Anooshian & Hertel (1994): limitations of the stimulus selection
1. No normative ratings of emotionality and concreteness were available for Spanish words - It is possible that they were higher or lower in emotionality and concreteness - BUT this does not explain the findings as both Spanish-English and English-Spanish bilinguals were studied 2 .Both positive and negative words analysed together as "emotional words" - More positive (n = 13) than negative (n = 5) words were used
E-Z Reader model - The three main assumptions
1. Readers can attend to two words during a single fixation (currently fixated one and the next one), although at any given time only one word is processed - this is a serial processing model. 2. Next eye movement is programmed after only partial processing of the currently fixated word. - We do not process the first word fully before the planning of the eye-movement is initiated. 3. Lexical access is achieved through two stages of processing. - Lexical access = accessing detailed information about a word from the lexicon (memory store for word-related representations)
Anooshian & Hertel (1994): Strengths of the participant selection
1. Recruited both native Spanish fluent in English AND native English fluent in Spanish - The effect of L1 not specific to the language, but generalised across two L1s (Spanish and English) - The lack of effect in L2, similarly, was not limited to one language 2. Assessed the participants' fluency in the two languages - Self-reported fluency during a telephone interview prior to the study - Two fluency tests at the start of the experiment
Terminology
1. Syntax - The set of rules concerning word order within sentences in a particular language. 2. Grammar - The set of rules concerning sentences that are acceptable in a particular language. - Broader as a concept than syntax. - Involves word order, but also other factors such as punctuation and contextual factors, e.g., which part of the speech the sentences occur in. 3. Parsing - The analysis of the syntactic or grammatical structure of sentences. - Applies both to written text (reading) and spoken language (speech comprehension). - Involves identifying the constituents of the sentence and their relationship with each other.
Theories of parsing
1. The garden-path model of parsing (Frazier & Rayner, 1982) 2. The constraint-based model of parsing (MacDonald et al., 1994)
Two general principles used to parse a sentence
1. The principle of minimal attachment - Reader will select the grammatical structure that produces fewest nodes. - Nodes: major parts of the sentence, such as noun phrase and verb-phrase. Example: 'Our dog walked on thin ice.' - Two nodes: - Noun phrase: noun + modifiers (e.g., 'dog' + 'our' = 'our dog') - Verb phrase: verb + dependents (e.g., 'walked' + 'on thin ice' = 'walked on thin ice') 2. The principle of late closure - New words encountered in a sentence are attached to the current phrase (or clause), if grammatically permissible. E.g., 'Our dog walked on thin ice.' E.g., 'Our dog walked on thin ice last winter.'
Research methods used to study reading processes
1. The speed (RTs) at which words are recognised or read out loud, and errors that may occur while carrying out these tasks 2. Recall/ recognition of the material participants have read (retention, comprehension) 3. Eye-movements during reading (=eye-tracking) 4. Language-specific deficits (dyslexia) 5. Effects of brain damage on language-specific processes 6. Brain signals associated with reading (event-related potentials, ERPs; fMRI)
Declarative memory
1. encoding - first senses e.g. tasting a strawberry 2. consolidation - encoded information linked to existing memories 3. storage - information retained and less important information edited out 4. retrieval - repeat other stages over and over - the most retrieved are the most resilient memories
Emphasis in language comprehension research on the analysis of sentences - why?
A central idea in language research is that the sentence is the core unit of language interpretation. - Why not individual words? - This is based on the assumption that the sentence is the domain of syntactic analysis.
the constraint-based model of parsing (MacDonald et al., 1994)
A one-stage, parallel processing account - Suggests that the interpretation of a sentence depends on multiple sources of information, incl. syntactic, semantic, general world knowledge (i.e., past experiences) - These sources of knowledge are called 'constraints' as they limit the number of interpretations that are made about a sentence. - All of these sources of information are assumed to be available to the reader at once. Alternative syntactic structures are activated and they compete with each other - The one which gets most support from the different sources of information becomes highly activated. Evidence from ERP studies - Researchers have examining event-related potentials (ERPs) to understand the timing of sentence processing. - Allows millisecond-level analysis of neural correlates of sentence processing. - N400 component is known the modulated by semantic meaning (Kutas & Hillyard, 1980).
Autobiographical memory
AM is memory for the events of one's own life It stretches across lifespan for both specific events and for self-related information.
Multiple trace theory/ transformation hypotheses
Accepts gradual development of schematic and non-contextual memory in neocortex But... contextual memory features are hippocampus-dependent forever Recollection/re-experiencing leads to re-encoding in new memory traces across the hippocampus Different representations can interact, change, and be used in different contexts
The importance of early reading experiences Kalb & van Ours' (2014) study
Aim: - To study the impact of the frequency at which parents read to their children has on the children's reading and other cognitive skills Method: - A longitudinal cohort study of Australian children - Over 4000 children were followed up from the age of 4-5 years to 10-11 years - The children were tested using a range of scales to establish their reading and other cognitive skills, incl. numeracy
Binding/source memory
Association of what, where, and when is critical part of episodic memory Binding of Item and Context (BIC) model - HC involved in creating and retaining associations/bindings between elements - underlies recollective experience Episodic recollection involves contextual detail William james (1980); thought or fact M can activate neural representation N, but for recollection we need activation of prior context - Amnesic Jon impaired in word recognition task based on gender of presentation voice (Brandt et al., 2008) - HC involved in source judgements (Ranganath et al., 2003) - Impaired in healthy ageing, schizophrenia, PTSD, and depression (Mitchell & Johnson, 2009) - Deficits linked to MTL, plus other areas (e.g. PFC, parietal areas)
Psychological therapies may be less effective in L2 - But bilingualism can be also used as a tool in therapy
Bailey, D. S. (2007, February). Therapy is twice as effective in clients' native language. Monitor on Psychology, 38(2). http://www.apa.org/monitor/feb07/therapy Diakonova-Curtis, D. (2016). Bilingualism as a tool in psychotherapy. Psychotherapy Bulletin, 51(4), 38-42. https://societyforpsychotherapy.org/bilingualism-as-a-tool-in-psychotherapy/
Who are bilinguals?
Bilingual - Anyone who speaks more than one language (incl. multilinguals) - Does not require native-like proficiency in both/ all of the languages - Does not require acquisition of both/ all languages from birth Age of acquisition (AoA) - The age at which the speaker started learning each of their languages - L1 = language acquired first (from birth) - L2 = language acquired second (or concurrently with L1) - Early bilingual = AoA of both L1 and L2 before puberty - Late bilingual = AoA of L2 typically from puberty onwards (but sometimes after the early childhood)
Retrograde amnesia
Can be selective deficient in episodic or semantic memory E.g. Tulvings (2002) patient KC - ABI from motorcycle accident; damage to multiple areas incl MTL/HC - Sever anterograde loss for episodic and semantic information - Sever episodic retrograde loss alongside relatively spared semantic memory - Westmacott et al. (2001) asked KC to identify people in family photographs and provide detail about temporal-spatial context - He could remember facts about his life but not events (could name people but could not remember the event)
Reading research across languages
Caravolas et al. (2013) - Alphabetic orthographies differ in the consistency of the relationship between letters and phonemes. - English appears to be the least consistent language with many more irregular words compared to other languages (e.g. Spanish) - Longitudinal study of reading development in three languages: English, Spanish and Czech. Children tested at 6 months intervals for 3 years (from the reception year till the end of 2nd Grade)
Learning to read in English takes more time
Caravolas et al. (2013) - The growth of reading skills is slower and follows a different trajectory in English than in Spanish and Czech. - However, phoneme awareness, letter-sound knowledge, and rapid automatized naming measured at the onset of literacy instruction did not differ in importance as predictors of variations in reading development. - Although children may learn to read more rapidly in more consistent than in less consistent orthographies, there may nevertheless be universal cognitive prerequisites for learning to read.
Its on the tip of my tongue
Commonly experienced forms of blocking Can be subjectively reported and objectively measured • e.g., Jersakova, Souchay, & Allen (2015)
Ferré et al. (2010): No differences between L1 and L2 in the emotion word effect
Conclusions: - Across the three groups of participants, a consistently better recall of positive words was found. - The analyses did not show any disadvantage for L2 in any group, including the late bilingual (Spanish-English) group. - The lack of significant difference between neutral and negative words is some of the conditions suggests that this effect may be weaker. - Larger sample sizes may help to detect such smaller effects.
Emotion word effect in bilinguals - Ferré et al. (2010)
Conducted three experiments in order to test the extent to which the following factors influence the emotion word effect: 1. Language dominance 2. Context of learning (natural, formal) 3. Age of L2 acquisition (early, late) 4. Similarity between L1 and L2 (Spanish vs. Catalan; Spanish vs. English) - They also addressed several of the limitations in the previous studies 1. Analysing positive and negative words separately 2. Matching the stimuli across several critical factors
Pay attention and be curious
Craik et al. (1996) - Attention important during encoding and retrieval - But attention seems to be more important during encoding - Retrieval can be automatic if cues are available - If attention is split during encoding, memory is worse Greene et al. (2021) - DA at encoding disrupted item and context memory; DA at retrieval did not Castella et al. (2020) - Increased WM load at encoding disrupts explicit episodic memory (more than implicit memory) Kang et al. (2009) - Memory if superior when we are curious about learning
The impact of bilingualism on thinking - Empirical evidence
Decision making (e.g., Costa et al., 2014) - When using their L2, bilinguals showed a reduction of heuristic biases (heuristic biases = mental shortcuts) Moral judgements (e.g., Geipel et al., 2015) - Bilinguals tend to make more utilitarian decisions in their L2 than L1 - Utilitarian approach to decision-making: assesses an action in terms of its consequences. It strives to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number while creating the least amount of harm or preventing the greatest amount of suffering.
Speech errors
Dell (1986) - "The inner workings of a highly complex system are often revealed by the way in which the system breaks down." • Semantic substitution (correct word is replaced by a word with similar meaning - i.e. "Where is my tennis bat?") • Word-exchange error ("I must let the house out of the cat") - they shed light on speech planning. • Morpheme-exchange errors ("I randomed some samply") - inflections are attached to the wrong words. Implication: positioning of inflections is dealt with by a separate process from positioning of word stems.
How can we study AM?
Diary method: - Participants keep a diary over a period of weeks or months (sometimes even years), during which they record the details of everyday events that they judge to be memorable. - These true autobiographical memories are then presented to the participants at a later date in a recognition test, often in comparison to falsified diary entries or 'foils'. - Problems: sampling bias, act of recording may change memory, takes a lot of perseverance from the participants. The memory probe method: - Method originally devised by Galton (1879) and then "revived" by Crovitz & Shiffman (1974). - Uses a list of words as cues to bring to mind AMs, which the participant then tries to describe in as much detail as possible. - Recent studies have used non-verbal cues for memory, such as visual images or odours. Chu and Downes (2002) found evidence that odour cues are particularly good at cueing AMs.
The dimensional approach
E.g., Wundt (1905), Russell (1983) Two key dimensions of emotion: Emotional valence - Pleasure, displeasure - Positive, negative Emotional arousal - Activation, deactivation - Intensity
Re-evaluating the distinction
EM and SM closely intertwined and both contribute to recollection Semantic acquisition slower and somewhat impaired in HC amnesia HC and EM contribute to semantic memory - semantic memory reflects accumulation of episodes, disconnected from initial context; and EM-SM shift? No qualitative distinction - a continuum
Practice makes perfect
Ebbinghaus's work on practice and 'savings' (1885/1964) - The more you repeat something, the less time it takes to relearn after 24 hours But...little evidence of transfer; memory is not a 'muscle' (James, 1890; Reed, 1917; Sleight, 1911) • London taxi drivers better at map/navigation tasks but not at other VS tasks (Woollet & Maguire, 2010) • Memorisers of the Qur'an ("Hafiz") no better at verbal or visual learning tasks (Black et al., 2020).
Variations of the stroop task
Emotional Stroop task: - Negative words: WAR, FAILURE - Positive words: JOY, MOTHER - Neutral words: COLUMN, PAPER Taboo Stroop task: swear words, words typically considered as offensive or which people tend to avoid using (e.g., terms referring to sex, genitalia and death) Stroop tasks with substance-abuse related words: CIGARETTE, ASHTRAY, COCAINE -> Negative, taboo and addiction-related words typically lead to slower RTs and higher error-rates than neutral words
Encoding specificity and transfer appropriate processing
Encoding specificity - Events at encoding and retrieval are encoded as patterns of features - Retrieval cue effectiveness = match/overlap with memory trace (Tulving & Osler, 1968; Tulving & Thomson, 1973) - Effect locus is at interaction between encoding and retrieval Encoding specificity: the concept that when we encode events, when we retrieve them, what we're dealing with here are patterns of features. What makes a retrieval particularly effective is when there's a big degree of overlap or a big match between those features at encoding and retrieval. Transfer appropriate processing - Overlap between processing at encoding and retrieval (e.g. Blaxton, 1989; Morris et al. 1977) - Very similar concept; all about what you are actively doing during encoding. When there's a greater match between encoding and retrieval, forms will be better. - E.g. if you tried to learn to ride a bike by reading about it you won't be as good as if you tried to learn by doing
Tulving (1972)
Episodic memory - to access and re-experience specific events located in space (where) and time (when) - he said it allows us to "mentally travel back" Semantic knowledge - generalised knowledge of ourselves and the world, abstracted from specific experience Episodic memory requires autonoetic consciousness Semantic memory is noetic Procedural is anoetic
Ferré et al. (2010): Evaluation
Evaluation: - Task used involved pleasantness ratings - This directs the participants to process the emotional meaning at a deeper level - Using alternative encoding tasks would enable to establish whether the effect can be observed when the task involves more shallow processing
Metaphors (2)
Evidence on the processing of metaphors - Overall, the evidence does not support the prediction that metaphors are processed slowly. - Metaphors are often understood as quickly as literal meanings, and sometimes even faster (Gibbs, 2013). The embodiment of metaphors - evidence from an fMRI study Lacey, Stilla & Sathian (2012) Methods: - Created 54 sentences (27 pairs) 1. Conventional texture metaphors ('She had a rough day') 2. Control sentences containing an equivalent literal meaning ('She had a bad day') - They were recorded in a neutral tone with minimum inflection. - 7 native speakers of English took part in the study (2 males, 5 females; Mage = 20.7 years). - They were placed in a fMRI scanner and instructed to listen to the sentences through headphones and press a response button with the left index finger as soon as they understood the sentence. - A contrast of the metaphorical and literal conditions showed that the textural metaphors activated somatosensory cortex in the parietal operculum, in bilateral OP1 and left OP3. - These were previously shown to be texture-selective during haptic perception in a different group of subjects (Stilla & Sathian, 2008). - The findings provide the first clear evidence for activity in functionally localized, domain-specific sensory cortical areas during processing of metaphors. - These findings are consistent with the modal view of cognition. Further supporting evidence: - Behavioural studies examining the impact of haptic information on subsequent judgements (Ackerman et al., 2010) - Review of neuroimaging and lesion studies (Desai, 2021) concluded that the weight of the evidence is in favour of the view that metaphors are grounded in sensory-motor systems
Syntactic ambiguity can occur at two levels: Global and local
Example of a locally ambiguous sentence: "The complex houses married and single soldiers and their families." Lexical ambiguity: - the presence of two or more possible meanings within a single word Syntactic ambiguity: - the presence of two or more possible meaning within a single sentence or sequence of words
Recollection and Familiarity
Familiarity: sense of knowing without being able to remember context - fast and automatic Recollection: remembering contextual details - slower, more effortful, attention-demanding - may require a 'retrieval mode'; a cognitive set geared for episodic recollection - spontaneous recollection often through retrieval cues HC contributes to recollection but not familiarity Yonelinas (2002): Dual-Process model Familiarity: quantitative memory strength information Recollection: qualitative information about an event is retrieved
Where do we agree? (WM)
Five broad principles to WM that models agree on (Byrnes & Miller-Cotto, 2023): - Limited capacity - Combines processing and storage - Attention plays a crucial role - Unattended information is rapidly forgotten - Facilitation and interference arises from long-term memory. Given its predictive value, working memory continues to be an important construct to study
What role AM plays in our life?
Four functions of AM: 1. Directive (Williams, Conway & Cohen, 2008) - Directive function of AM uses past experiences as a reference for solving current problems and as a guide for our actions in the present and the future. - Memories of personal experiences can be used to create successful models, or schemas, of behaviour. - E.g. How to study for an exam, how to cook dinner, how to change a plug 2. Social (Williams, Conway & Cohen, 2008) - AM helps development and maintenance of social bonds by providing material for people to converse about. - Sharing personal memories with others is a way to facilitate social interaction. - Disclosing personal experiences can increase the intimacy level between people and reminiscing of shared past events strengthens pre-existing bonds. - In individuals with impaired AM social relationships suffer greatly as a result. 3. Self-representative (Williams, Conway & Cohen, 2008) - Personal memories are used to create and maintain a coherent self-identity over time. - A stable self-identity allows for evaluation of past experiences, known as life reflection, which leads to self-insight and often self-growth 4. Adaptive - Recalling (Williams, Conway & Cohen, 2008) positive personal experiences can be used to maintain positive moods or alter negative moods. - This internal regulation of mood through AM recall can be used to cope with negative situation and impart an emotional resilience. - Depression can alter the nature of AM recall by making it harder to recollect positive experiences (mood-congruent memory)
The foveal zone is crucial in reading
Foveal zone - The fovea is the central area of retina responsible for sharp central vision necessary for reading
What have the lexical decision and word naming experiments taught us about word reading?
Frequency - High frequency words like RENT are processed faster than low frequency words like RANT (e.g., Dahan et al., 2001) Length - Short words (FOX) are usually processed faster than long words (HIPPOPOTAMUS). Regularity - Words with regular spelling-to-sound correspondences (e.g., TABLE) are processed faster than words with irregular spelling (e.g., YACHT).
Prosody and sex differences
Gender stereotypes hold that women are more sensitive than men to the feelings of others. But is there any scientific data to support this? • Behavioural research reviewed by Hall in the late 1970s suggested that on average, women were found to be more accurate than men in recognizing emotions from faces, gestures and voices. • More recent work further suggests sex differences in the neurophysiological correlates of vocal emotional processing. Women, but not men, show an N400 effect and activity in the left IFG to words with incongruous as compared with congruous emotional prosody when only one of the two types of information is task-relevant. - However, if the task is to judge the congruence between emotional prosody and word meaning, processing in men and women is comparable. - These findings indicate that men and women differ in how automatically they access and integrate emotional-prosodic information into language processing.
Evaluation of WEAVER model
Good points: - WEAVER makes detailed predictions about the speed with which words are produced in various situations. - Speech production is normally relatively error-free, and so the fact that Levelt et al. (1999a) focused on error-free speech makes sense. Weak points: - WEAVER model cannot account readily for the finding that information about the sounds of words also influence which words speakers produce or that semantic word substitutions involve words that are more phonologically similar than is expected by chance.
Evaluation of spreading activation theory
Good points: - The four levels assumed to be involved in speech production are consistent with the empirical evidence. - The theory makes precise predictions about the kinds of errors occurring most often in speech production. - The theory predicts the nature and number of errors produced in speech. Weak points: - Spreading-activation theory focuses on individual words rather than broader issues relating to message construction. - The model is focused on errors and can't say much about the time taken to produce spoken words. - The theory predicts too many errors when irrelevant words are activated at the same time as relevant ones.
Persistence
HSAM (hyperthymesia?) •Parker et al. (2006) case study of AJ • Vividly remembers and relives details of her life, since her teens • Remembering feels "automatic" and not under conscious control • Cannot forget unpleasant memories • Constant reminders can be distracting and troubling • LePort et al. (2016) Differences in memory consolidation and retrieval, not encoding. • Some evidence for increased OCD
ERP evidence for the use of general knowledge in parsing
Hagoort et al. (2004): An ERP study in the Netherlands - Presented participants sentences where a single word was changed. - The target word either did or did not fit the participants' general knowledge about the world. - Example (target word in bold) 1. The Dutch trains are yellow and very crowded. 2. The Dutch trains are white and very crowded. 3. The Dutch trains are sour and very crowded. Hagoort et al. (2004): Conclusions - Findings supported the hypothesis as a larger N400 was found for sentences where the word in a sentence did not match the individual's real-world knowledge. - This demonstrated that participant's general knowledge is integrated into the sentence comprehension very early on. Further evidence: - Since then, they have also demonstrated that the discourse context and co-speech gestures have a similar effect on sentence comprehension (Hagoort & van Berkum, 2007). Implications: - This evidence supports MacDonald et al.'s (1994) constraint-based model, which suggests that many sources of information are used early on in the sentence comprehension.
The DRC model - Two main routes
I. The indirect non-lexical route (R1) operates serially from left to right and converts letters into sounds one at the time ◦ Grapheme-phoneme conversion (GPC) II. The direct lexical route operates in parallel ◦ It is divided into two sub-routes: one involves both orthographic lexicon and semantic system (R2) and the other involves only the orthographic lexicon (R3)
WM across populations
Improves through childhood (e.g., Gathercole et al., 2004) Declines through later adulthood (e.g., Park et al., 2002) - Intact in individuals with HC amnesia. - Deficits can be seen in: • ADHD, ASD, Developmental Co-ordination Disorder, Down's Syndrome, William's Syndrome, Dyslexia, Low WM. • Depression, Anxiety, PTSD, Schizophrenia, Dysexecutive Syndrome, Aphasia. • Mild Cognitive Impairment, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease.
The Context - Western bias in psychology
Is psychological research 'WEIRD'? - Most of the psychological research has been conducted in the Western countries (esp. North America and Europe) - Participants predominantly from Western, educated backgrounds, and from industrialized, rich, and democratic countries (WEIRD) (e.g., Arnett (2008); Henrich et al., 2010)
Bilingualism has an impact on a range of psychological phenomena
It has been proposed that bilingualism does not only involve the ability to use two or more different languages as tools for communicating information, but that bilinguals' different languages entail different ways of thinking and feeling (Wierzbicka, 2004).
The DRC model
It is a cascaded model: - Activation on one level is passed on to the next level before processing at the first level is complete We use both routes when reading aloud - Often, especially when dealing with familiar, short words reading aloud will be driven more by the direct route because it is faster
Implicit memory/ Non-declarative memory
It is not a single, coherent memory system but a "principle of improvement from experience" Consciousness 'a poor criterion' for differentiation in memory Different systems/brain regions instead reflect variation in processing modes - Hippocampal amnesic patients typically show intact conditioning, priming, and procedural learning
Evidence for the Garden-Path Model
Key assumption of the model: Meaning is not involved in the selection of the initial syntactic structure. Breedin & Saffran (1999): - Studied patient DM, who had semantic dementia. - Involved loss of knowledge of word meanings. - Performed at normal level on tasks involving the detection of grammatical violations or selecting the subject and object in sentences. - Garrard et al. (2004): - A patient with semantic dementia showed intact performance on a task involving grammaticality judgements.
The importance of early reading experiences Kalb & van Ours' (2014) findings
Key findings: - The frequency of reading to children at a young age has a direct causal effect on their schooling outcomes. - This effect is present regardless of their family background and home environment. - Reading to children at age 4-5 every day has a significant positive effect on their reading and cognitive skills (i.e., language and literacy, numeracy and cognition) later in life. - Reading to children 3-5 days per week (compared to 2 or less) has the same effect on the child's reading skills at age 4-5 as being six months older. - Reading to them 6-7 days per week has the same effect as being almost 12 months older.
Definition of emotion
Klaus Scherer (1982): Emotion = - A response to a significant event (internal or external) - Based on the evaluation (appraisal) of the event - E.g., personal relevance - Can be conscious or unconscious
How do we interpret language?
Language interpretation is expected to take place in two steps: Step 1: The context-free meaning of a sentence is computed by combining fixed word meanings in ways specified by the syntax. Step 2: The sentence meaning is integrated with information from: a. Prior discourse b. World knowledge c. Information about the speaker d. Semantic information from extra-linguistic domains (e.g., visual information, co-speech gestures)
Ferré et al. (2013): Evaluation
Larger sample sizes across the experiments improved the statistical power - Experiment 1: N = 89 - Experiment 2: N = 71 - Analysis including their 2010 data from affective ratings (total sample N = 235) - Exemplary stimulus selection and participant recruitment - Future studies should examine participants with different combinations of languages and those with lower level of proficiency in L2 & later AoA
Distributed practice
Last minute cramming reduces time for forgetting, but leads to short-lived memories (Kornell, 2008) Ebbinghaus either repeated 68 times in 1 day, or 38 times across several days.... "...with any considerable number of repetitions, a suitable distribution of them over a space of time is decidedly more advantageous than the massing of them at a single time" (1885/1913, p.89) Disperal rather than amassing is the best way to remember - Spaced learning trials > massed learning trials (e.g., Bloom & Schuell, 1981; Kornell, 2009) • But learners often claim to prefer massed learning and think it is more effective - Massing makes learning seem easier and faster (Baddeley & Longman, 1978) - Learners often test themselves during learning; seems more difficult for spaced items. • But short-term performance doesn't always equal long-term learning (Bjork, 1994, 1999) - Spacing can reduce performance during learning but enhance long-term learning (Kornell, 2009). - Spacing can improve vocabulary learning and retention years later (Bahrick et al., 1993) - Optimal spacing increases with retention interval; initial study session, gap, restudy of same materials, retention interval (RI), final test on material (Cepeda et al., 2008) - Spacing/ interleaving of material within learning sessions also helps (e.g., Kornell & Bjork, 2008)
Levels (Craik & Lockhart, 1972)
Levels of processing - the deeper the level of processing, the more you are able to remember it - Category judgements > rhyme or case judgements (Craik & Tulving, 1975) - Type 1 and Type 2 / maintenance and elaborative processing - Memory; set of dynamic processes rather than structures (though distinguishes between 'primary memory' and LTM) - Can be extended to visual information (Baddeley & Hitch, 2017)
WEAVER Model
Levelt, Roelofs, and Meyer (1999) • WEAVER++ model (Word-form Encoding by Activation and VERification) • Speech production is a serial process. It involves activation proceeding in a feed-forward manner through a network. Each processing stage must be completed before the next one starts. • Highest level of the network - semantic level: nodes represent lexical concepts • The second level - lemma level: nodes represent lemmas or abstract words from the mental lexicon or dictionary • The lowest level - lexeme level: nodes represent word forms in terms of morphemes (basic units of meaning) and their phonemic (sound-based) segments.
Autobiographical knowledge
Lifetime periods - Represent general knowledge of significant others, common locations, actions, activities, plans, and goals, characteristic of a period. Lifetime periods also name distinct periods of time with identifiable beginnings and endings. - e.g. when I was 4 General events - More specific and more heterogeneous than lifetime periods. Barsalou (1988) found that general events encompassed both repeated events (e.g., evening hikes to meadows) and single events (e.g., my trip to Paris). - e.g. seaside holiday with my mother Event specific knowledge (ESK) - Defining feature of memory vividness. It can become disorganised in PTSD and lost is some cases of retrograde amnesia. - e.g. playing with a donkey
Speech perception cues
Mattys et al.'s (2005) Hierarchical Approach to Segmentation
What is a metaphor?
Metaphor is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of another to suggest a likeness or analogy between them. - Examples: "raining cats and dogs", "drowning in money" How are metaphors processed? The standard pragmatic model (e.g., Grice, 1975) suggests there are three stages involved in processing metaphorical (and other figurative) statements: 1. The literal meaning is accessed. 2. The reader or listener decides whether the literal meaning makes sense in the current context. 3. If the literal meaning is inadequate, there is a search for a suitable non-literal meaning. - Predicts that it should take longer to access the meaning of a metaphor (or other figurative meanings) than literal meanings.
Theoretical frameworks in WM
Multicomponent approach (e.g., Baddeley, Hitch, Logie) - A multicomponent system that holds information temporarily and mediates its use in ongoing mental activities. TBRS (e.g., Barrouillet & Camos) - A combination of temporary storage and the processing that acts upon it, with a limited capacity for the sum of these activities. - Emphasised 'cognitive load' and switching between storage and processing. WM span partly reflects processing time/total time ratio during maintenance (Barrouillet et al., 2004) - Rehearsal & refreshing (Camos, Lagner, & Barrouillet, 2009) - Assumes a multicomponent structure to WM Embedded processes (e.g., Cowan et al., 2021, 2023) - WM reflects activated LTM. - Limited by what can be held in focus of attention and the resources available to control this. - FoA capacity of around 3-4 chunks - Assumes multiple, unlimited domains of information Attentional control (e.g., Engle) - "The domain-general ability to maintain focus on task-relevant information while preventing attentional capture by task-irrelevant thoughts and events" (Burgoyne et al., 2020, p.2). - Attn control is key aspect relating to Gf (e.g. Burgoyne et al., 2020; Draheim et al., 2022; Mashburn et al., 2021)
What is N400 component?
N400 is a negative-going potential with an onset at ca. 250 ms and a peak around 400 ms after the stimulus presentation. - The amplitude is increased when the semantics of the eliciting word does not match with the semantics of the sentence context. Example (target word in bold): - "He spread his warm bread with butter." [match in semantics] - "He spread his warm bread with socks." [mismatch in semantics] Illustration of N400 Sentence context: "He caught the pass and scored another touchdown. There was nothing he enjoyed more than a good game of [target word]." - Target word: football, baseball, monopoly The ERP response is linked to the onset of the target word in the sentence. - 0 ms = word appears on the screen - 400 ms = the peak negative-going wave when the semantic match/ mismatch is processed
Mechanisms of forgetting: interference
New information causing problems for old information
Anterograde amnesia
Nielsen (1958) - amnesic patients struggle more with experience/fact dissociation Spiers et al. (2001) - profound anterograde deficits in EM vs. less consistent deficits in SM EM-SM distinction clearer with Hippocampal (HC)-selective damage Vargha-Khadem et al.'s (1997, 2002) patient Jon - EM impairment since brith/early childhood Verfaellie et al. (2000) - Patient PS (HC-selective; EM impaired, SM relatively intact) - Patient SS (wider Medial Temporal Lobe damage; impaired EM and SM)
Long-term memory
No known limit or duration "Secondary memory is the knowledge of an event, or fact, with the additional consciousness that we have experienced it before" You can divide memory into declarative memory and non-declarative Remembering is a mental activity, not just a stored record
Evaluation of metaphors?
Not all researchers agree that modal approaches are able to explain how meanings are represented in the brain. - E.g., Kaup et al. (2023) argue that a hybrid approach that combines amodal and modal representations may be a more comprehensive account. - They propose a dimensional approach where conceptual representations vary to the degree to which they involve modality-specific simulations and more abstract, symbolic representations > both types of representations (modal and amodal) may be involved at the same time.
Proactive interference
Older memory causing memories for newer memories Older memories interfere with retrieval of more recent information • Number of previous learning experiences (e.g., lists) determines rate of forgetting at long delays • Especially if learning experiences are similar (e.g., share a cue) • Response competition/cue overload (Watkins, 1978)
Knowledge is power
Organisation of memory is boosted by what we already know - memory is better when it latches onto things we are familiar with E.g. Chase & Simon (1973) on chess experts - STM capacity normal, but experts can chunk using LTM knowledge - Also, taxi drivers (Kalakoski & Saariluoma, 2001); they can remember normal routes very well but when jumbled up they have trouble - Knowledge effects can emerge in LTM tasks too, e.g., Rawson & van Overschelde (2008) Increased organisation and distinctiveness of material - Fits with Bartlett's (1932) classic work on schemas - SLIMM (Schema-linked interactions between medial prefrontal and medial temporal lobes) framework (van Kesteren et al., 2012). Information that is.... • Congruent with a schema encoded via rapid links between mPFC and neocortex • Stands out as being schema-incongruent triggers MTL/HC system • Unrelated to a schema is remembered less well Information that fits with a schema is encoded very rapidly and we remember it well later Prior knowledge enables offloading from WM to LTM (Ericsson & Kintsch, 1995)
Anooshian & Hertel (1994): Limitations of the sample used
Participants were late bilinguals - It is possible that early bilinguals will show an emotionality effect also in their L2 - Sample size was quite small -lack of statistical power to detect the emotionality effect in L2?
The Emotion word effect in bilinguals - Anooshian & Hertel (1994): Method
Participants: - 18 Spanish-English late bilinguals (AoA M = 16.3 years) - 18 English-Spanish late bilinguals (AoA M = 18.4 years) Stimuli: 18 emotional words (5 negative, 13 positive), 18 neutral words (6 per rating task) - 18 presented in English and 18 in Spanish Encoding tasks: - Ratings of the words on: 1. ease of pronunciation 2. degree of activity inherent in the word 3. emotional intensity
Emotion word effect in bilinguals - Ferré et al. (2010, Experiments 2 and 3)
Participants: - 42 Catalan-Spanish early bilinguals (Catalan dominant, Spanish AoA: M = 2.83 years) - 33 Spanish-Catalan early bilinguals (Spanish dominant, Catalan AoA M = 2.21 years) - Immersed in both languages, but dominant in either Catalan or Spanish - 35 Spanish-English late bilinguals (English AoA M = 8.66 years) - Acquired English in a classroom setting - All were proficient speakers of L1 and L2 Stimuli: 36 emotional words (12 negative, 12 positive, 12 neutral words) in Catalan, Spanish and English (18 presented per language) Encoding tasks: Pleasantness ratings (1 = very unpleasant, 5 = very pleasant)
Follow-up study with two different encoding tasks - Ferré, Sánchez-Casas & Fraga (2013): Method
Participants: - Catalan-Spanish early bilinguals (total N = 134 across Exp 1 and 2 & Ferré et al., 2010) - Spanish-Catalan early bilinguals (total N = 101 across Exp 1 and 2 & Ferré et al., 2010) - Immersed in both languages, but dominant in either Catalan or Spanish Stimuli: the same as in Ferré et al. (2010) Encoding tasks: - Experiment 1: Concreteness ratings (requires semantic access) - Experiment 2: Counting the number of vowels (does not require semantic access) Included the data from Ferré et al. (2010) in the final analysis - Materials and the procedure were identical, with only difference being the encoding task across the experiments
Classic neuropsychological evidence
Patient PV - (Vallar & Baddeley, 1984) - Intact LTM, language, & visual memory - Severe auditory-verbal STM deficit. Digit span = 2 - Deficit to phonological store, but not rehearsal - Damage: left temporo-parietal (Vallar et al, 1997)
Decay and interference
Pattern separation: the ability to distinguish between memory representations Pattern completion: the ability to hold onto associations where information is connected Hardt et al. (2013) • Hippocampus is resistant to interference as it is good at pattern separation • Representations within other brain areas not good at 'pattern separation' so more vulnerable to interference • Recollection (HC-based) resistant to interference but vulnerable to decay • Familiarity (extrahippocampal areas) more vulnerable to interference? • Of 8 interference studies; 7 show greater impact on Familiarity • Of 20 delay studies, 18 show greater impact on Recollection - for recollections, its not interference but delay; how long we have to hold onto memory for Sadeh et al. (2014; 2016)
Illustration of an ambiguous sentence
Please read the sentence below and consider: - Were you able to interpret the meaning of this sentence after reading it just once? If not, why do you think that was the case? -What might be the reason why the sentence is ambiguous? "Kids make nutritious snacks." Why was this sentence difficult to parse? - To interpret the meaning, we need to segment the sentence into smaller units (e.g., noun phrases and verb phrases) - In spoken language, pauses often give us clues about which parts belong together - In written text, this is often achieved by punctuation -but it's not always there!
Bilinguals are diverse
Proficiency - The speaker's competence across the four different domains of language use: speaking, listening, reading and writing - Influenced by the contexts of learning and use (natural, formal) Language dominance - For a bilingual, the dominant language is the one they are able to use with greatest competence across different situations - Often L1, but not always the case (e.g., due to language attrition)
Prosody
Prosody refers to the patterns of stress and intonation in a language. It can be used to communicate emotional state. - Our voice can betray our feelings because vocal production is affected by the physiological parameters that change depending on our emotional state.
Living in History Brown, Lee, Krslak, Conrad, Hansen, Havelka & Reddon, 2010, Psychological Science
Question: Memories of historical events are critical to the construction and maintenance of group identity and to the persistence of group conflict but to what extent do they play a role in AM? - Lifetime periods are often bounded by landmark events which can be positive (e.g., a wedding) or negative (e.g., a divorce); predictable (e.g., retirement) or unpredictable (e.g., job loss). - What these events have in common is that they signal or cause numerous life changes, they indicate important transitions in the fabric of daily life—in what people do, where they do it, and with whom. - We found evidence for the existence of historically defined autobiographical periods (H-DAPs) and their formation is related to the intensity, duration, and novelty of the public events and to their proximity to a given population. Method: - Data was collected in 10 cities located in 8 countries. - Standard memory probe method was used. - In phase 1 participants recalled AMs - In phase 2 participants were presented with their AMs from Phase 1 and asked to estimate each event's date. During this procedure, participants were required to verbalize their thoughts as they were thinking them Conclusion: - It is personal significance, not historical importance, that determines whether public events play a role in organizing autobiographical memory. - Only public events that produce dramatic, enduring changes in the fabric of daily life will affect how we remember our lives. - This effect will disappear as the life of the group in questions goes back to normal.
Ferré et al. (2013): findings from the final analysis
Results for L1: - Across the two groups of bilinguals, L1 positive words were better recalled than negative and neutral words - L1 negative words were also found to differ from neutral words Results for L2: - Positive words were better recalled than neutral and negative words. - Negative words did not differ from neutral words. Across L1 and L2: Pleasantness ratings > Concreteness ratings (semantic processing) > vowel counting (shallow processing) - Encoding task did not change the emotion word effect Experiment 1: Positive words recalled better than neutral words in both L1 and L2. Negative words did differ from neutral words. Experiment 2: Positive words recalled better than neutral words in both L1 and L2. Negative words did not differ from neutral words.
The Revised Hierarchical Model of Bilingual Memory (Kroll & Stewart, 1994)
S: semantic store (concepts) L1: lexical representations for L1 words L2: lexical representations for L2 words - Solid lines indicates stronger, more reliable connection between the different parts of the system
'Sins' of memory
Schacter (1999, 2021) The seven sins of memory Sins of 'omission' • Transience (forgetting over time) • Absent-mindedness (not paying attention) • Blocking (not abel to retrieve something at a particular moment of time) Sins of 'commission' • Misattribution • Suggestibility • Bias • Persistence
Semantic memory loss
Semantic dementia (Snowden et al., 1989) - progressive loss of conceptual knowledge - patient EL; atrophy in left anterior temporal region, HC rel' spared - 'Hello my name is ___, I've lost my brain' - semantic memory loss - Episodic recollection rel' intact; can recollect memories from different points in life - similar photo task to KC; naming impaired but recognition and episodic detail intact
The trouble with levels
Shallow processing can lead to better memory using when test conditions match (Morris et al., 1977) - Transfer appropriate processing (e.g. Roediger et al., 1989) - Good remembering required both good encoding, and good encoding-retrieval match (Craik, 2020) - Does not explain how deeper processing = better memories - 'Depth' is vague; cannot be observed or objectively measured; a circular argument? (Baddeley, 1978; Craik, 2002) - LoP theory describes rather than explains (Eysenck, 1990) - But the empirical evidence is strong - Craik and Lockhart (1972) stressed the view as a framework to guide memory research and practice
Measuring reading processing using RTs, error rates, and eye tracking
Single word processing: - The Stroop task - The lexical decision task - The word naming task Sentence-level processing: - eye-tracking during sentence reading
Strategies for fluent speech
Smith (2000) - strategies we use to reduce processing demand while planning what to say: • Preformulation - producing phrases used before, accounts for almost 70% of our speech. Typical in professions who need to speak rapidly (i.e. sports commentators). • Underspecification - Using simplified expressions. ("Wash 6 cooking apples. Put them in the oven."). • Repetition. Dialogs are even more repetitive as we use each other words as prompts, and share ideas.
Sentence context
Sometimes we use our knowledge about the context of the conversation or the sentence context as a segmentation cue: • Lovers are meant to adore each other. • The hallway leads to a door at the end.
Explanation of speech errors
Speech errors occur when an incorrect item is more activated than a correct item. • Errors typically belong to the same level of processing. • Parallel activation will lead to anticipation errors (i.e. word exchange errors and spoonerisms) • Exchange errors are constrained to units relatively close together.
Anatomy of speech
Speech production is the process by which spoken words are selected to be produced, have their phonetics formulated and then finally are articulated by the motor system in the vocal apparatus. Speech production is not the same as language production since language can also be produced manually by signs.
Spoonerisms
Spoonerism is a phoneme exchange error - initial letters of two words are switched. This type of speech errors is named after Rev. William Archibald Spooner (1844-1930) . He was a famous Oxford don who worked at New College in Oxford for over 60 years. He was known for his tendency to get words and sounds crossed up. This could happen at any time, but especially when he was agitated. He reprimanded one student for "fighting a liar in the quadrangle" and another who "hissed my mystery lecture." To the latter he added in disgust, "You have tasted two worms."
The assumptions of the Garden-Path Model
Stage 1: 1. The initial attempt to parse a sentence involves using syntactic information only; meaning is not involved in the selection of the initial syntactic structure. 2. Only one syntactic structure is initially considered for any sentence. 3. The simplest syntactic structure is chosen, using two general principles: 1. The principle of minimal attachment 2. The principle of late closure Stage 2: - The syntactic structure is revised, if the initial syntactic structure is incompatible with additional information, such as the meaning of the sentence.
Anooshian & Hertel (1994): Strengths of the stimulus selection
Strengths of the stimulus selection 1. English emotional and neutral words were matched for - Concreteness - Frequency - Word length (number of letters) 2. Used a normative database to establish emotionality - English emotional words had higher emotionality ratings than neutral words
Retrieval practice
Successfully testing yourself strengthens memories more than restudying items - things are impressed between by active than be passive repetition learning - simply studying material doesn't really give much benefit vs not studying at all, recall is significantly better when we are tested on it E.g. - Karpicke & Roediger (2008) Swahili-English pairs, e.g., mashua - boat - Baddeley et al. (2019) Memory for crimes and doors
Consolidation
Synaptic consolidation (structural changes in synaptic connections) Systemic consolidation (gradual independence from hippocampus) - over time connections are formed and consolidation occurs, and no longer reliant on hippocampus
What is meant by syntactic analysis?
Syntactic analysis: the analysis based on a set of rules about the correct word order within sentences in a particular language. - Syntactic analysis, together with the analysis of the parts of the sentence (words and morphemes) allows the semantic interpretation of a sentence. Meaning of an utterance = the meaning of the parts that form a sentence + the syntactic rules by which the parts are combined (Hagoort & van Berkum, 2007)
The DRC model - How do we read single words (aloud)?
The DRC model aims to explain how we read text and turn it into speech 1. The reading of text starts with the identification of visual features, letters and the order of the letters in single words = orthographic analysis 2. The information is then passed on via two main routes 1. The indirect, non-lexical route (R1) 2. The direct lexical route (two sub-routes: R2 & R3) 3. Spoken output is produced using the phoneme system Orthography = a word's written form Phonology = the way a word is pronounced Grapheme = a small unit of written language corresponding to a phoneme Phoneme = the basic unit of sound; words consist of one or more phonemes
Why are there differences in L1 and L2 emotionality? - Emotional meanings of words in L1
The Emotional Contexts of Learning theory (Harris et al., 2006) - The meanings of words are acquired through associative learning in emotional contexts. - In L1, word meanings are acquired in the early childhood in the interactions with primary caregivers (typically the members of family) in informal (naturalistic) settings. - Emotional meanings are learnt through associating certain emotional experiences to the words used in those situations. - E.g., swear words
The X-Bar Theory - Analysis of a sentence
The X-bar theory is a component of linguistic theory about the internal structure of syntactic constituents.
Anooshian & Hertel (1994): findings
The emotion word effect was found in L1 only: - L1: emotional > neutral - L2: emotional = neutral The effect of the encoding task was found in L1 only: - L1: ease of pronunciation < activity and emotionality ratings - L2: ease of pronunciation = activity and emotionality ratings
Context-dependent memory: environment
The famous diving study by Godden & Baddeley (1975) - divers were given material to remember underwater, they remembered them better when they were underwater again - Cf. Murre (2021) failed to replicate this study but this was flawed in multiple of way as it wasn't a straight replication Smith et al. (1978) - different context (presentation methods, rooms on campus, time of day) - found that memory was better when contexts were the same State and mood dependency - match btw learner's internal environment (i.e. physiological state) at encoding and retrieval (Eich, 1980; Eich & Metcalfe, 1989) - Effects more reliable in recall than in recognition Either context-dependency or context independence can be capitalized on
E-Z Reader model - Two stages of lexical access
The first stage of lexical access: - Readers check the familiarity of the word first (=frequency checking). - Completion of the frequency checking is the signal to initiate an eye-movement programme. The second stage of lexical access: - Accessing the current word's semantic and phonological forms (=meaning and pronunciation). - Completion of the second stage is the signal to move covert attention to the next word.
Conclusions: Strengths of the garden-path model
The garden-path model has helped to understand how people may interpret language at the sentence level by suggesting the principles of minimal attachment and late closure. - Can explain many instances of parsing in English - Enables testing of alternative hypotheses
E-Z Reader model - Evaluation
The main assumptions of the model have received support from empirical evidence 1. Evidence from an ERP study showed that word frequency influences brain activity during reading as early as 110 ms after the word onset (Reichle et al., 2011) - Support for the word frequency check (stage 1 of lexical access) 2. Evidence from a study that manipulated how faintly the word was presented showed that word presently faintly disrupted the frequency checking (stage 1 of lexical access), but not the detailed word processing (stage 2 of lexical access) (Reingold, 2013) - It is possible to distinguish between the two stages of lexical access The model seems to generalise to languages other than English as similar eye-movement patterns and reading rates were found in Chinese as previously observed in English readers (Rayner et al., 2007; Reilly & Radach, 2012) Some of the limitations of the model: - It assumes serial processing, yet there is some evidence of parallel processing in word reading (e.g., Harley, 2013) - People also do not always read the words in correct order, yet are able to extract the meaning of the text -this is not explained by the model
The Garden-path model of parsing (Frazier & Rayner, 1982)
The model gets it name from the expression of being "led up the garden path", i.e., being deceived by someone. - This is because ambiguous sentences can mislead the reader or listener to making incorrect inferences about the meaning of the sentence. - Two-stage, serial processing model.
The lexical decision task - rationale
The participant is presented with strings of letters one at a time - Some are real words (in English): - MOTHER, COLUMN, FAILURE - Some are nonwords (but may resemble real words in English) - MURTNER, CAULMN, FONMURE - The participant is asked to decide whether the string of letters is a real word or not as quickly and accurately as possible, using one of two keys on a keyboard (or a response box) - A large number of stimuli are presented (typically 40 per condition, but could be more) - Some characteristic of the words is manipulated - Frequency, length, regularity, concreteness, neighbourhood density, word meaning (e.g., emotion-related vs. neutral) - RTs and error rates are compared across the different conditions (e.g., shorter vs. longer words)
Integration of vocal and verbal information
The processing of spoken utterances in social interactions relies crucially on the integration of vocal and verbal information. The importance of this integration can be illustrated by utterances such or 'Great job!' which can be interpreted as praise or sarcasm depending on the tone of voice. An estimate of when in time emotional prosody modulates semantic processing can be obtained from ERP measures. Specifically, the N400 - a negativity peaking around 400 ms following word onset - reflects semantic processing effort. This negativity is larger when prosody is incongruous than congruous.
Working self (AM)
The working self is similar to working memory: it acts as a central control process, controlling access to the autobiographical knowledge base. The relationship between the working self and the autobiographical knowledge base is reciprocal. • the working self can control the accessibility of autobiographical knowledge, • the autobiographical knowledge base constrains the goals and self-images of the working self
The impact of bilingualism on emotions - Empirical evidence
Therapeutic context (e.g., Gonzalez-Reigosa, 1976) - Language switching from L1 to L2 Self-reports (e.g., Dewaele, 2004) - L1 often perceived as more emotional than L2 Experimental studies (e.g., Eilola & Havelka, 2011) - Higher physiological arousal in L1 speakers -when compared to L2 speakers -in response to negative and taboo English words
Context - Phonemic Restoration Effect
This is an example of how our "world knowledge" will influence what we hear Warren and Warren (1970) • it was found that the *eel was on the axle • it was found that the *eel was on the shoe • it was found that the *eel was on the table • it was found that the *eel was on the orange. • Beginning of each sentence was identical but first phoneme of "*eel* word was replaced by a cough. The perception of the crucial element in the sentence (i.e. *eel) was influenced by sentence context (wheel, heel, meal, peel). • Interpretation: Sentence context has an indirect effect involving guessing the identity of the missing phoneme after basic speech processing has occurred.
AM across lifespan
Three distinct time periods: Childhood amnesia - Adults generally show impoverished recall of early memories, and this discontinuity is not accountable entirely by normal forgetting with age. Freud - repression • Development of cognitive self structured around the distinction between "I" and "Me" during the period of 2 to 3 years of age (Howe and Courage, 1997). • Development of language. Morrison & Conway (2010): Participants recalled their earliest specific memory associated with each cue word and dated their age at the time of the remembered event. Age of earliest memory was systematically later, by several months, than the age of acquisition of the word to which it was associated. • Neurological changes and brain maturation Reminiscence bump - From the perspective of their 50s and 60s people tend to remember events from their 20s and early 30s as most significant. -Those are the years when they made the friends they would keep for the rest of their lives, met the people they would marry, chose the careers they would stick with. The reminiscence bump is very robust phenomena spanning teenage years and young adulthood. • Rubin et al. (1998) emphasizes the novelty of experiences during this period ("first times") • It relates to a period when a stable self system finally forms as the individual passes from adolescence into adulthood - development of identity. • During this period, the individual establishes personal goals that may endure for many years, even across the life span, that constitute the central components of an integral self. There were no cross-cultural differences in the life-span memory retrieval curve. There were cross-cultural differences in memory content: • Individuals with an independent self (Caucasian Americans) had detailed memories with the individual cast as the central character, indicating a self-focused autobiographical history. • Individuals with an interdependent self (Chinese) had general memories with a strong group orientation, showing a relation-centred autobiographical history Recency
Cohort Model of speech perception
Three stages of speech perception: 1. Access stage: perceptual representation is used to activate & generate a candidate set of items (a cohort). 2. Selection stage: 1 item is chosen from this set. 3. Integration stage: semantic & syntactic properties of the chosen word are used to integrate it into a sentence.
How we establish common ground (Bard et al, 2007)
Two strategies speakers can take: • Shared responsibility: the speaker expects the listener to say something if there is a problem with common ground. • Cognitive overload: the speaker tries to keep track both of their own knowledge as well as the knowledge of the listener. This requires excessive cognitive processing. • The results of the experiment shows that speakers typically rely on the "shared responsibility strategy".
Key terms (speech perception)
Uniqueness point: where the word's initial sequence is common to that word and no other. Isolation point: point in a word where a proportion of listeners identify the word correctly but may not be confident about it. Typically, earlier than uniqueness point but biased by the context. Lexical access: point at which all information about a word—phonological, semantic, syntactic, pragmatic—becomes available following recognition. Integration: start of the comprehension process proper, semantic & syntactic properties are integrated into the higher-level sentence representation.
Consolidation and reconsolidating
Video game during consolidation reduced intrusive memory experience (Holmes et al., 2008) Reactivating declarative memory representation increased vulnerability to loss/misinformation during subsequent relearning - reactivation could be some time after encoding (tested up to 48hrs) - but relearning effects had critical time window (effective over minutes but not 48hrs)
The dual-route cascaded model (DRC model; Coltheart et al., 2001)
What good reading aloud model needs to explain? - Reading regular words - Reading irregular words - Reading new, unfamiliar words and nonwords - Dyslexia - All of the factors that make word recognition easier or harder DRC model accounts for all types of stimuli
AM in bicultural individuals
When remembering past events, Americans (and individuals from other western cultures) frequently refer to themselves and their own behaviours and feelings while Asians (e.g., Chinese) often describe group activities and social interactions (e.g., Wang & Conway, 2004). Wang (2008) primed cultural identities of bicultural Asian Americans: - When their American identity is primed they recall more memories focused on themselves - When their Asian identity is primed they recall more memories focused on social interaction Marian and Kaushanskaya (2004) tested a group of young Russian - English bilinguals who immigrated to the United States in their teens. - Each interview consisted of two parts, one for each language. - Standard memory probe method was used. Key findings: • Bilinguals produced more self-oriented narratives when the language at retrieval was English regardless of the language that was used at encoding. • Conclusion: language may influence cognitive styles in bilinguals. • Emotional intensity of the AM was highest when the language of encoding and the language of retrieval were matched regardless of whether they were performing in L1 or L2. Schrauf and Rubin (2000) tested older Spanish-English bilingual immigrants (ages 61-69) who had spent more than half of their life in the United States, were highly fluent and integrated in American culture. - Memories were more likely to be recalled in the language in which they were first experienced. - Memories retrieved in Spanish referred to events that occurred much earlier in life than memories retrieved in English. - Language of encoding had a strong effect over the language of retrieval.
Impact of global events (AM)
While there has been much research on the impact of dramatic public events on flash bulb memories, their impact on our AMs has been less studied. In part it is because, when we date events from our own life, we do that with reference to personal timeline rather than public or political. However, when we are faced with times of great chance to the fabric of our daily lives we start to "live in history"
Is AM a separate kind of memory
Yes: The role it plays in our life differs in important ways from other types and functions of memory. No: It depends on the episodic and semantic memory systems.
Remember/know
Yonelinas et al. (2002): HC amnesic patients impaired on R rather than K in word recognition Harand et al. (2012): HC involved in EM over the long-term, but not for memories that become 'semanticised'
Active encoding
Zinchenko's (1962) theory of activity-related memory benefits - memory is better when there is an active effort to engage with and make sense of material, and link to current goals - memory and remembering are creative, constructive processes Examples of activity based memory benefits: - Subjective-performed task effect (e.g. lift the pen, crack the egg, fold the napkin ect. Cohen, 1981; Engelkamp & Zimmer, 1997) - Memory is better if the participant carries out each of these actions during encoding - Observable in WM too (Allen & Waterman, 2015) - Generation effect (e.g. rapid-f vs. rapid-fast. Slamecka & Graf, 1978) - Having the participant actively generate the other half of these work pairs improves their memory (the more you engage, the better you will do later)
Stuttering (stammering)
• A speech disorder in which the flow of speech is disrupted by: • involuntary repetitions and prolongations of sounds, syllables, words or phrases • involuntary silent pauses or blocks in which the person who stutters is unable to produce sounds • The impact of stuttering on a person's functioning and emotional state can be severe: • Fear of having to enunciate specific vowels or consonants • Fear of being caught stuttering in social situations • Self-imposed isolation, anxiety, stress, shame • Being a possible target of bullying (especially in children) • Having to use word substitution and rearrange words in a sentence to hide stuttering • Feeling of "loss of control" during speech • Stuttering can be variable (bad days and good days). • We still don't know the exact causes but there are speech therapy techniques that can increase speech fluency.
A fragile power
• Ability to project into the future • To think flexibly and shift between general and specific • Utilize & manipulate existing knowledge for new situations • Better retention of higher-level meaning and goal-relevant information (persistence x transience) which aids decision-making (Blake & Frankland, 2017) • Costs to this in terms of memory fallibility Memory has a 'fragile power' (Schacter, 1999)
TRACE Model
• Bottom-up and top-down processing interact during speech perception Bottom-up activation • proceeds upwards from the acoustic feature level to the phoneme level and on to the word level Top-down activation • proceeds in the opposite direction from the word level to the phoneme level and on to the feature level. • Units on different levels that are mutually consistent have excitatory connections. • All connections between levels are bidirectional. • There are inhibitory connections between units within each level, once a unit is activated, it tends to inhibit its competitors. Prof James McClelland
Phonological influence on lexical (mis)selection (Ferreira & Griffin, 2003)
• Can separate sources of semantic and phonological similarity converge to affect the outcome of lexical selection? To explore this possibility, Ferreira & Griffin used homophones — words, such as nun and none, that are semantically and syntactically distinct but phonologically identical.
Listening in communication
• Common ground - mutual knowledge and beliefs shared by a speaker and listener. • Being clear about what the conversation is about • Egocentric heuristic - Listeners interpret what they hear based on their own knowledge rather than the knowledge they share with the speaker (used a lot in comedies). • We make more use of common ground when listening to people we are familiar with than when listening to strangers.
Levelt's model of speech production (WEAVER)
• Conceptual level - semantic knowledge. Words related in meaning are connected and tend to be close together. • Lemma level - grammatical properties and semantic specifications of words. • Lexeme level - spoken word forms.
Communication: More than words
• Discourse makers - words and phrases that don't directly contribute to the content of what is being said but still serve useful functions like clarifying speakers intentions (examples: well, anyway, oh). • Prosodic cues - rhythm, stress, intonation. • Common ground - the mutual knowledge and beliefs shared by a speaker and listener.
Spreading-activation Theory
• First proposed in Dell (1986) and Dell and O'Seaghdha (1991). Speech planning occurs at the same time at all four levels • semantic level - the meaning of what is to be said; • syntactic level - the grammatical structure of the words in the planned utterance • morphological level - the morphemes (basic units of meaning or word forms) in the planned sentence • phonological level - the phonemes or basic units of sound within the sentence.
Mechanisms of forgetting: Decay
• Forgetting caused by "wasting effects of time" (sarcastically)(McGeoch, 1932)? • Gradual weakening of memories • May be particularly important in WM (e.g., Broadbent, 1958) •E.g., Time-Based Resource-Sharing (Barrouillet et al., 2004) • Difficult to isolate decay from interference McGeoch (1932) attacked decay theory... • Improper as a scientific theory - no mechanism • Items not recalled can be recalled later • Forgetting often determined by number or density of events during retention • Higher forgetting after wakefulness than sleep (Jenkins & Dallenbach, 1924) McGeoch didn't really believe in decay Forgetting seems to be greater when we do more things during maintenance
Freudian slips
• Freud believed that most speech errors are not simple confusions of sounds but the product of unconscious or repressed thoughts - the Freudian slip. Limitations: • Although some examples of slips cited by Freud may make at least some sense in terms of repressed thoughts, desires, and so on, others clearly do not • Whereas Freud stressed the intrusion of thoughts from outside the language system in the creation of errors, research suggests that most errors reflect the inner workings of the language system (e.g., Garrett, 1988)
Context effects: Lexical identification shift
• Ganong (1980): varied an ambiguous phoneme along the appropriate continuum (e.g., /k/ to /g/), inserted this in front of a context provided by a word ending (e.g., "—iss"). • Found that context affected the perceptual changeover point. • Lexical identification shift: Ambiguous initial phonemes were more likely to be assigned to a given phoneme category when doing so produces a word.
How we plan speech in communication
• Horton and Keysar (1996) distinguished between two positions that speaker may take: The initial design model • the speaker's initial plan for an utterance takes full account of the common ground with the listener The monitoring and adjustment model • speakers plan their utterances initially on the basis of information available to them without considering the listener's perspective • they then monitor and correct their plans to take account of the common ground. • Most of the time we tend to use the monitoring and adjustment model.
Who Am I? Autobiographical retrieval improves access to self-concepts Charlesworth, Allen, Havelka, Moulin, Memory, 2015
• I am... • Two experimental groups: - AM group: 4 minutes to write about past event that has personal meaning and makes them nostalgic. - Control group: 4 minutes to write about solar system • I am fluency task: - Spend 1 minute writing as many statements as you can that begin with phrase "I am..." • Nostalgia group produced more "I am" statements. • This effect was driven by the increase in psychological statements. Conclusions: - Self-concept and episodic AM knowledge are interactive - We can use AM to increase accessibility of self-concepts - AM retrieval is most closely associated with psychological selves
Memory is constructive
• Imaging and patient studies - overlapping brain regions involved in producing both past & future events (e.g., Schacter, Addis, & Bucknor, 2008) • EM 'fundamentally constructive rather than reproductive' (Schacter & Addis, 2007, p.773; Bartlett, 1932) Constructive episodic simulation hypothesis (Schacter & Addis, 2007) - EM enables retrieval and recombination of past experiences into novel representations of events that might occur in the future. - Adaptive process but also leads to memory failures. - Can involve both semantic AM and episodic detail.
Forgetting rates
• Initial level of learning does not affect rate of forgetting in LTM (Slamecka & McElree, 1983). • Number of study trials affected the intercepts but not the slopes of the forgetting curves. • For older memories, secondary details forgotten & generalised recollection retained (Hardt et al., 2013; Sekeres et al., 2016; Sadeh & Pertzov, 2020) • Trace Transformation Theory (Sekeres et al., 2018; Moscovitch & Gilboa, 2021); memory trace is likely to transform over time and become gist based • Forgetting is adaptive What we are more likely to remember over time is the memory of gist (general, core memory)
Retroactive interference
• Introducing related 2nd list of items impairs recall of 1st list • Especially if the two lists share cues • More training on 2nd list results in more 1st list impairment • Disruption of consolidation (Muller & Pilzecker, 1900; Dewar et al., 2007) • Response competition (McGeoch, 1942)
Blocking
• Jersakova et al. (2015) - ToT rate of 18%, FoK rate of 24% • Both associated with increased experience of frustration (esp. ToT). • Partial information sometimes also accessed • Items producing ToT or FoKs better id'd in recognition task • Insufficient/ inaccurate activation of phonological representations from semantic memory (Burke et al., 1991) • If an individual can resolve a ToT, or are provided with orthographic cues, future ToT becomes less likely (D'Angelo & Humphries, 2015)
What causes errors in speech?
• Languages consist of general rules for combining units at phonological, morphemic, and syntactic levels. • Slips may be viewed as misapplications of rules for combining one type of unit or another - e.g., rules for combining phonemes, for combining words... • If a slip is caused by misapplication of a rule within a given level, it seems plausible that similar units will be exchanged, substituted, etc. - e.g., one noun for another noun: • "writing a mother to my letter" (noun for noun) • "leading list" (phoneme [l] for phoneme [r]) • Another thing to note about speech errors is that they demonstrate that an utterance is planned before it is spoken. • During the planning phase many different linguistic units may be available (and "competing") for production. • Support for this idea comes from anticipation errors: a particular unit (e.g., a phoneme) is activated as the utterance is being planned, but is produced too early • "leading list" - the phoneme "l" is produced earlier than intended (and competes with and ultimately replaces the "r")
Lemma
• Lemma is an abstract conceptual form of a word that has been mentally selected for utterance in the early stages of speech production. A lemma represents a specific meaning but does not have any specific sounds are attached to it. • Lemma selection: stage of specifying in a pre-phonological, abstract way the word that we are about to say. • Lexeme/ phonological form selection: stage of specifying actual concrete phonological form of the word.
Evidence for top-down processing
• Lexical identification shift (Ganong, 1980): there is a bias in perceiving ambiguous sound as a sound that would form a word (kiss/giss). • Word superiority effect: phonemes are detected faster when presented in the context of word than in nonwords. • Effect of context: Phonemic Restoration Effect (the *eel is on the shoe vs. the *eel is on the table. •Frequency effect (Dahan, Magnuson, & Tanenhaus, 2001): Examined eye movements while participants looked at pictures on a computer screen. They were listening to spoken instructions about which object they need to click on next. - Participants tended to look at objects with the higher frequency name first (before recognizing word "bench" participants will look at picture of bed (HF) rather than bench or bell (LF)
Problems faced by listeners
• Listeners are confronted by several problems when trying to understand speech, for example: Speed: Normally over 10 phonemes per second on the average. We can cope with up to 50-60 Invariance problem (the same phoneme can sound different depending on the context in which it occurs) • McGurk effect • Assimilation: phonemes take on acoustic properties of neighbouring phonemes. B in "bill", "bull" and "bell" are slightly different and tell us about what is coming next. • Co-articulation (the way in which a phoneme is produced is influenced by the preceding and following phonemes) Variability in the production of the same speech when spoken by different speakers. To cope with hearing different voices by using additional attentional resources. Degraded speech • E.g. Environmental noise Speech segmentation • Perceiving where each word within a spoken sentence begins and ends. • Auditory (i.e., sound energy) breaks that we hear in speech often do not correspond well to breaks produced by the spaces within written sentences.
Suggestibility
• Memory is liable to distortion and error as a result of suggestion. • E.g., Loftus & Pickrell (1995), 'lost in the mall' • Shaw & Porter (2015) - visualisation and social pressure induced university students to develop false memory of committing a crime as an adolescent • But, false beliefs rather than false memories (Wade et al., 2018)? • Meta-analysis - minority of subjects developed full or robust false memories (Scoboria et al., 2017). • Brewin & Andrews (2017) false memories are real phenomena, but rates inflated. • Blizard & M. Shaw (2019) criticised the original 'lost in the mall' research by Loftus.
Speech perception is fast and accurate
• Native speakers can shadow (i.e. repeat aloud) heard sentences with minimal delays between perception and production. • Detection tasks show rapid word identification in sentences with participants responding within 300ms of the start of a target word - substantially before all of the relevant speech has been heard.
Common ground (Horton & Keysar, 1996)
• Pairs of participants took part in the experiment. One of them ("the director") instructed the other ("the builder") how to construct a model with Lego bricks. • In one experimental condition they could interact, in the other they had no interaction. • In 39% of no interaction trials there were errors in the construction of the model. When they could interact number of errors fell to 5%.
How do we divide speech stream?
• Possible-word constraint: we use our knowledge of words to segment what we hear to match words we know, and which make sense to us. • hearing word "apple" in fapple vs. wuffapple • In English, a stretch of speech without a vowel couldn't be a word • Co-articulation can help predict what is coming next. There is more co-articulation within a word than between. SEGMENTATION • Stress based segmentation: listeners segment speech by identifying stressed syllables. Typical for English language • English (e.g. "lettuce" vs. "let us") • Syllable-based segmentation: detecting syllables, used in languages that have very clear & unambiguous syllables such as French and Dutch. • French speakers are faster in finding BA in BALANCE and BAL in BALCON. • Segmentation strategy in bilingual speakers seems to be determined by their dominant language.
Ferreira & Griffin, 2003 - Results & Conclusion
• Primed sentence completions that were semantically related to the pictures (e.g., nun for priest) were substituted for picture names more often than unrelated completions. • Primed sentence completions that were homophones of semantic competitors (e.g., none for priest) also substituted for picture names more often than unrelated completions. • These results show that semantic and phonological information can jointly influence lexical selection (results support interactive theories of word production).
PI in working memory
• Reducing Proactive Interference in a WM span task led to better span scores (May et al., 1999) • Individuals with poor WM showed more PI (Kane & Engle, 2002)
RI in working memory
• Retroactive Interference as alternative to TBRS claims - (Lewandowsky et al., 2009) • Each new item likely to knock out earlier items • from the focus of attention • (Allen et al., 2014; Hitch et al., 2020)
Bias
• Schemas - LT knowledge about the world (Bartlett, 1932) • Can influence, benefit, & distort episodic memory • Rationalization errors develop with longer delays •Consistency bias (e.g., Ross & Wilson, 1999) - past rewritten to fit with current views • Frenda et al. (2013) induced false memories of fabricated news events. Specific rates influenced by consistency biases • A positivity bias (Waldfogel, 1948) - the 'Pollyanna Principle'. • Increases with age (Charles et al., 2003). • Diminished in anxiety and depression (Dalgleish & Werner-Seidler, 2014).
Cohort Model - Experimental tests
• Shadowing task: participants listen to continuous speech containing distortions & repeat it back as quickly as possible. • Fluent restorations: 50% of the time participants repeat back as it should be, without the distortion (e.g., travedy - tragedy). Most frequent when distortion was slight, on final syllable and word predictable from context. • Listening for mispronunciations task: participants listen to speech where a sound is distorted & detect changes. • Participants are more sensitive to changes to the beginning of the words (e.g., poot - boot).
Tongue-twisters
• Sounds that require similar vocal tract movements, such as 'Sss' and 'Shh', are especially tricky as their representations in the brain overlap. • Tongue-twisters are likely tricky because they require a rapid sequence of overlapping neural patterns that simply overwhelms the brain.
Talking ain't easy
• Speaking is not easy. Sometimes things go wrong and we make speech errors. • Dell (1986) - "The inner workings of a highly complex system are often revealed by the way in which the system breaks down."
Speech disfluencies
• Speech disfluencies are various breaks and irregularities that occur within the flow of otherwise fluent speech. Some examples: • False starts: words and sentences that are cut off mid-utterance, • phrases that are restarted or repeated and repeated syllables, • Fillers: i.e. grunts or non-lexical utterances such as "uh", "erm" and "well", • Repaired utterances, i.e. instances of speakers correcting their own slips of the tongue or mispronunciations.
Classification of speech errors
• Speech errors are not a random intermixing of sounds • They can be categorized in terms of types (substitutions, exchanges, additions, etc) and in terms of the specific linguistic units involved (e.g., words, morphemes, phonemes) • Each category of error may occur in relation to each linguistic unit: e.g., word substitution error, word exchange error, word anticipation error....
Categorical Perception
• Speech perception differs from other kinds of auditory perception. • Speech stimuli intermediate between two phonemes are typically categorised as one or the other, with an abrupt boundary • The Japanese language doesn't distinguish between /l/ and /r/ they belong to the same category for Japanese speakers while they belong to two distinct categories to English speakers (Massaro, 1994).
Speech production
• Speech production is a process that starts with speaker formulating the message in their mind and then transmits it to the listener via speech. • Speech is a special form of communication medium; it conveys not only the meaning, but it also expresses the emotion of the speaker and individual information about the speaker.
Deja Vu
• Strong sense that the situation feels familiar, with realization that it is not. • Might reflect activation of familiarity response in absence of retrieval (Gloor, 1990). • Déjà vu more likely with structural similarity between current stimulus and previous experience (Cleary et al., 2012). People with epilepsy say before they have a seizure they have strong deja vu
Evidence of WEAVER model
• The "tip-of-the-tongue" (TOT) state - we have idea in mind but struggle to find a right word to describe it. Interpretation: lemma has been activated but the word form (lexeme) cannot be accessed.
Speech Perception
• Understanding words we hear. • Another language ability most of us take for granted, as something that is "simply there". • But it is a complex skill for many reasons.
Marslen-Wilson and Tyler's (1980) Cohort Model
• Word initial cohort: Words conforming to early parts of sound sequence become active • Items in the cohort are eliminated on basis of further information and context • Processing continues until only one of the words remains • The uniqueness point is the point only one word is consistent with the acoustic signal • Parallel, interactive processing • Various sources of information (e.g., lexical, syntactic, and semantic) are processed in parallel, allowing for their interaction
Forgetting
•Ebbinghaus (1885) curve applies to wide range of tasks and settings - short burst of initial forgetting and then much slower forgetting over time • Forgetting of a foreign language asymptotes after about 2 years - Bahrick (1984) • Memories not transferred into 'permastore' are vulnerable to forgetting - greater forgetting is not associated with how good you are at learning a foreign language
