Language PSY 321

• Phonology


  How we assemble basic sounds into words
• Phonemes


  Smallest meaningful unit of sound
• Home


  • /h/, /o/, /m/
• Changing any of these sounds will change the meaning
• Change /h/ to /r/

  • roam
• Vowels


  • Airflow is continuous
• Consonants


  • Airflow is disrupted in some way
• Language Differences


  • Number of phonemes
  • Constants: ranges from 6 to 95 in different languages
  • Vowels: 3 to 46
  • English: 24 constants, 20 vowels
  • Only 9 used in about half of our words
• Combinations of Phonemes


  English: maxim
• We are insensitive to some phoneme differences in other languages
• Spanish speakers have trouble distinguishing /s/ from /z/
• There are many phoneme distinctions in other languages that english speakers are unable to detect
• Infants need to be exposed to the language early (During first year) in order to perceive phoneme differences in a language
• Child directed speech

  Exaggerated pitch changes, slow pace
• Infants prefer child directed speech
• Seen in many cultures
• Nlaka'pamuctsin (Thompson Language)

  • Infant speech discrimination
• 8 month old can distinguish change in sounds, 1 year old can not
• Eye movement in reading

  • Eyes do not drift along the line of text
  • Instead they jump: Saccades (quick jumps) 8-12 letters long, 20-40 ms to execute
  • Saccadic suppression
  • Fixations: Eye hold steady for -250 msec
• Eye movements in good versus poor readers

  • Good readers make larger saccades
  • Good readers make fewer regressions (Where the eyes move back to previously viewed word)
  • Good readers have shorter fixations (200ms vs 500ms)
• Point of gaze rarely lands in the space between words
• Gaze usually jumps over short words, function words (ie., the), highly predictable words
• Perceptual span

  How much information do we take in per fixation?
• Moving window technique (rayner)

  1. Participants reads text on a computer screen

  2. Eye movements are tracked

  3. The text can be changed contingent on the readers eye movements

  4. E.g. During saccade, change the letters in the words

  5. Does this disrupt reading?
• If reading slows down then the replaced letters were being processed (and were in the perceptual span)
• If the reading speed is unaffected then the changed letters were outside the perceptual span
• Change made during 3rd saccade: within perceptual span
• Perceptual span

  • Usually, for reading english, the perceptual span includes 4 letters to left of fixation, 15 letters to the right of fixation
  • This asymmetry makes sense given how we read from left to right
  • Curiously, our visual system cannot recognize all the letters in the perceptual span
  • Typically we can recognize only 8-10 letters per fixation
  • The other letters probably give us other useful information (e.g. length of upcoming words)
• Reading

  • What limits how fast we read?
  • Mental processing of text?
  • Motor processes?
  • Planning where to move the eyes next
  • Making eye movements
• For people with visual impairments, or when reading small, faint, or difficult text, reading is limited by word recognition process
• For normally-sighted fluent readers, with normal size print and easy text, reading speed seems to be limited by eye movements
• RSVP: rapid serial visual representation

  • Word displays one at a time in the same location on the screen
  • Removes need for eye movements
• Dual-route model

  • Phonological route (Non-lexical): Printed word→ sound out → attach meaning
  • Direct route (lexical): Printed word→ recognize visually→ attach meaning
• Surface dyslexia

  • Disruption of the direct route
  • Rely on direct
  • Trouble with irregular words (Yacht, foreign)
  • Trouble with homophones (beat & beet)
  • OK with regular words
  • OK with non words
• Phonological dyslexia

  • Disruption of the phonological route
  • Rely on direct/ lexical route
  • Trouble with unfamiliar words
  • Trouble with non words
  • OK with known words
• Each of the 47 characters in Japanese corresponds to a syllable, and they are combined to make words. They can be read entirely using the phonological route.
• Kanji in Japanese has more than 8,000 characters, each corresponding to a word, concept or name. They cannot be sounded out.
• Surface vs Deep dyslexia in Japanese

  • Some people can read Hiragana and Katana, but not kanji (i.e. surface dyslexia)
  • Some can read Kanji but struggle with Hiragana (i.e phonological dyslexia)
• Comprehension

  Understanding what you read or hear
• Negative statements are more difficult to understand than positive statements.