Some Different Kinds of Things You Know as English Speakers

What’s wrong with each of the following?

!ort

sfort

bort

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimbel in the wabe.

The cats won’t bake the meat loaf.

The cats won’t eating the meat loaf.

Some ERP Components Related to Language

N400 = ERP component related to meaning - Bigger when word’s meaning doesn’t fit context - Bigger for unfamiliar words - May reflect amount of work required to integrate with context

Can evoke both at once - But not always as nice as here! - Depending on size of each component & timing of P600, can partially or completely cancel each other out

P600 = ERP component related to form - Bigger when word property other than meaning wrong or hard to process - May be a type of P300 - Sometimes called Syntactic Positive Shift (SPS)

Priming in Word Comprehension

A word preceded by something related to it is recognized & understood faster & more easily

tree tree

blanket blanket

job job

doctor sports

nurse Faster nurse Slower

pencil pencil

window window

… …

Coulson, Federmeier, Van Petten, & Kutas (2005)

How do priming effects of lexical & sentence-level context compare, & do they add or interact?

Stimulus Materials:Congruous sentence plus highly associated word:They were truly stuck, since she didn’t have a spare TIRE.

Congruous sentence but no associated word:During the test, Ellen leaned over and borrowed my spare PENCIL.

Incongruous sentence plus highly associated word:During the test, Ellen leaned over and borrowed my spare TIRE.

Incongruous sentence but no associated word:They were truly stuck, since she didn’t have a spare PENCIL.

Word pairs only__ spare tire… spare pencil

Word-in-sentence fx__ …stuck… spare tire …test… spare pencil… …stuck … spare pencil …test … spare tire

Sentence context fx__ …stuck… tire …test… pencil--- …stuck… pencil …test… tire

N400

N400

Conclusions

When a word is at the end of a sentence it fits into well, it doesn’t matter much whether the word right before it is an associate

But out of sentence context, does matter

So, by the end of a sentence, sentence context trumps individual word associations Word associations (& word familiarity) have more

influence for words near the beginnings of sentences

“A University student charged with threatening to kill the President via email was arrested Thursday, following issuance of a complaint and warrant, officials said.”

- Daily Illini, 2/27/94

Relationships Among Words in Sentences

Being Led “Down the Garden Path”

emailemail“A University student charged with threatening to kill the President via XY

A Slightly More Subtle Example

“Marge Schott, managing partner of the Cincinnati Reds, at first did not want to apologize for her remark that Hitler‘was good at the beginning but he just went too far’. Under pressure, she finally said that she regretted her remarks ‘offended many people’.”

- NY Times, 7/21/96, Tannen, I’m sorry, I won’t apologize

What did she regret? Not her remarks, only their consequences

But her choice of wording gives the appearance of expressing regret for what she said

Including an optional that would have made it clearer

"Under pressure, she finally said that she regretted her remarks 'offended many people'."

that

^

The referees warned the spectators would probably get too rowdy.against heckling the other team.

Ambiguity arises because that optional (in English)

that

^

Temporary ambiguity about relationship between the Verb

Is the nounA Direct Object (DO) , orSubject of an Embedded Clause?

Temporary Structural Ambiguity

& the Noun after it

Verb Bias

Verbs differ in how often they're used in particular sentence structures

Compare The referees warned the spectators ...with The bus driver worried the passengers ...

warned = Direct-Object Biased Verb worried = Clause-Biased Verb

In English, verb's most likely use guides choices about initial interpretation of words following it

Plausibility of Nounas Direct Object

Plausibility of particular Verb + Noun combinations varies

Compare The referees warned the spectators ... with The referees warned the game ...

In English, plausibility of a particular Verb + Noun combination sometimes guides initial interpretation

Example Sentences

DO-Bias Verbs: (e.g., warned, discovered, heard ...) The referees warned the spectators

Clause-Bias Verbs: (e.g., worried, realized, suspected ...) The bus driver worried the passengers

EQ-bias Verbs: (e.g., regretted, predicted, knew, ...) The senior senator regretted the decision

The referees warned the game would probably go into overtime.

The bus driver worried the tires were starting to go flat.

The senior senator regretted the reporter had ever seen the report.

would probably get too rowdy.

were starting to get annoyed.

had ever been made public.

Results of Reading Time Studies

DO-Bias Verbs: The referees warned the spectators would probably get too rowdy.

The referees warned the game would probably go into overtime.

Clause-Bias Verbs: The bus driver worried the passengers were starting to get annoyed.

The bus driver worried the tires were starting to go flat.

The senior senator regretted the reporter had ever seen the report.

EQ-Bias Verbs: The senior senator regretted the decision had ever been made public.

read slowly

read slowly

Verb Bias Rules (in English)!

No effect of the Plausibility of the Verb + Noun combination when the Verb had a strong bias

But Plausibility did have an effect when

the Verb had no bias

So, the two factors interact, with Verb Bias dominating the interaction

Limitation of Eyetracking Study

Verb Bias & Plausibility both have the same kind of effect on reading time

People slow down when expectations based on either kind of information are violated

Are there other measures that would better distinguish the two kinds of information?

Yes, Event-Related brain Potentials (ERPs)

Stimulus Presentationin ERP Study

READY 1Therefereeswarnedthegamewouldprobablygointoovertime.Were the referees expecting a long game?QUESTION

Waveforms Starting at Temporarily Ambiguous Noun

Plausible Noun:The referees warned the spectators ...

DO-Bias Verbs (warned)

6

3

0

-3

-6

6

3

0

-3

-6

Msec

Pz

0 650 1300 1950 2600

spectators

Finalword

Question

Waveforms Starting at Temporarily Ambiguous Noun

Plausible Noun:The referees warned the spectators ...

DO-Bias Verbs (warned)

I mplausible NounThe referees warned the game ...

Pz N400

6

3

0

-3

-6

6

3

0

-3

-6

Msec0 650 1300 1950 2600

spectators/game

Waveforms Starting at Temporarily Ambiguous Noun

Pz N400

spectators/game

passengers/tires

Plausible Noun:The bus driver worried the passengers ...

Clause-Bias Verbs (worried)

I mplausible Noun:The bus driver worried the tires ...

Plausible Noun:The referees warned the spectators ...

DO-Bias Verbs (warned)

I mplausible NounThe referees warned the game ...

6

3

0

-3

-6

6

3

0

-3

-6

Msec0 650 1300 1950 2600

6

3

0

-3

-6

6

3

0

-3

-6

Msec0 650 1300 1950 2600

Waveforms Starting at Temporarily Ambiguous Noun

Pz N400

spectators/game

passengers/tires

Plausible Noun:The bus driver worried the passengers ...

Clause-Bias Verbs (worried)

I mplausible Noun:The bus driver worried the tires ...

Plausible Noun:The referees warned the spectators ...

DO-Bias Verbs (warned)

I mplausible NounThe referees warned the game ...

P600

6

3

0

-3

-6

6

3

0

-3

-6

Msec0 650 1300 1950 2600

6

3

0

-3

-6

6

3

0

-3

-6

Msec0 650 1300 1950 2600

Summary

In both reading time & ERP studies, Verbs rule

Difficulty at an Implausible Noun only after a Verb that strongly predicts a Direct Object

Difficulty at the disambiguating region only after a Verb that strongly predicts a Direct Object

Why do verbs rule?

Principled reasons: They provide the most useful information

Information about them may be simply retrieved, while plausibility requires combining information from multiple words

More accidental reasons: They precede the critical nouns in these

sentences [ but, see Trueswell (1996) ]

They generally appear early in English sentences, leading English speakers to rely on them

Individual DifferencesOsterhout (1997)

Another harder kind of Garden Path sentence

The boat floated down the river sank. (The evidence examined by the lawyer turned out to be unreliable.)

Stimulus Sentences The boat floated down the river and sank. The boat floated down the river and ate. The boat floated down the river sank.

that was

^

Results Across All Subjects

N400

P600

N400

Results across just “P600 Subjects”

P600

Results across just “N400 Subjects”

N400

Individual Differences

So, different people produce different ERP components in response to exactly the same stimuli !

What does that mean both about How people respond to Garden Path sentences? & The nature of the different ERP components?

Kim & Osterhout (2005)

Experiment 1 Stimulus Sentences

The hearty meal was devoured …

The hungry boys were devouring …

The hearty meal was devouring …

N400 or P600 at devouring???

Experiment 1 Results

P600 P600

Experiment 2

Stimulus Sentences

The hearty meal was devoured … The dusty tabletops were devouring … The hearty meal was devouring …

N400 or P600 at devouring after dusty tabletops???

Experiment 2 Results

P600

N400?

McGurk Effect

Acoustic stimulus = /ba/ Visual stimulus = face /ga/ Hear /da/ = fused audiovisual stimulus

Mismatch Negativity (MMN)(Naatanen & many colleagues)

Deviant sound occurring infrequently in train of frequent sounds Evokes a frontal negativity around 200 msec =

MMN

Initially thought to be purely auditory change detection

Source localization points to auditory cortex e.g., polarity reversal between Fz & Mastoids

Colin et al. (2002, 2005)Auditory-only conditions show MMN

MMNMMN

Visual-only conditions show no MMN(as expected)

McGurk conditions do show MMN

MMNMMN

/gi/Dev = hear /bi/, see /gi/ /bi/Dev = hear /gi/, see /bi/

Conclusions

MMN tracks perception rather than simple acoustics If generated in auditory cortex, Shows that visual info influences early sound

processing, probably in auditory cortex itself