Professor Thomas Farmer (Instructor)
Meliora 116
540-539-3875
Office Hours: Mondays, 2-3pm; Wednesdays, 5-6pm (and by appointment)
Course Description
The goal of this course is not to provide students with a survey of the entire field of psycholinguistics, but instead to provide an advanced and more in-depth analysis of topics central to the psychology of real-time language use and comprehension. The first half of the class provides the basis for understanding psychological models of language comprehension and language production, and the second half of the course provides a "zoom-in" on current research areas that have implications for the frameworks discussed in the first half of the course. Accordingly, there are four overarching aims of this course:
To facilitate an appreciation for the experimental and theoretical complexities inherent to the study of real-time language processing, with a special focus on the degree to which findings in the field can inform not only theories of on-line language processing, but also larger debates that span the entire field of cognitive science;
To increase knowledge of various methodologies used in the field, as well as their respective strengths and weaknesses;
To foster critical evaluation of primary source material; and
To provide students interested in conducting research (for a senior thesis or otherwise) with the tools and frameworks necessary to develop an original research idea should they be interested in further work in the field of on-line language processing.
Course Requirements
Final grades will be comprised of performance on four assessment components, each of which is described in detail below:
Assessment 1: Mid-term exam 30%
Assessment 2: Presentation 20%
Assessment 3: Final Paper 30%
Assessment 4: Question submission, attendance, and classroom participation 20%
The grading scale that dictates how final grades are assigned is as follows: A 92.45% and up; A-
89.45-92.44%;
B+ 86.45-89.44%;
B 82.45 to 86.44%;
B- 79.45-82.44;
C+ 76.45 to 79.44%;
C 72.45 to 76.44%;
C- 69.45 to 72.44; and so on.
Assessment 1: Mid-term exam. The mid-term exam covers all material encountered on or before 2/23. It is a take-home exam to be handed in at the start of class on 3/2. Any exam received 10 minutes or more after the beginning of class will be considered late and will receive a 10% penalty. Any exam turned in after the end of class-time on 3/2 will not be accepted and a 0 will be assigned for the exam. The exam will consist primarily of essay and short answer questions, and must be typed and printed out before submitting. Please see the section on academic honesty for information regarding acceptable practice when writing your exams.
Assessment 2: Presentation. Each student will lead a presentation / discussion on an empirical journal article (or, in a few cases, a theoretical perspective highlighted in a book chapter). On the first day of class, we will discuss what makes a good presentation. Please refer to the slides posted on blackboard when preparing your presentation. Although I have used the term "presentation" here, the overall goal is to present a coherent overview of an empirical journal article and facilitate a discussion about its strengths and weaknesses.
Assessment 3: Final Paper. Students will complete a paper, 10-15 pages in length (APA style), that details a proposed experiment. The goals of the proposed experiment should ideally contribute to one of the debates discussed during the semester, or extend the body of knowledge about a topic in novel and interesting ways. The topic of the paper must be different than the topic on which each student presented. A good paper would present a coherent review of relevant literature (citing literature read and discussed in class in addition to external sources identified by each student during a literature review), provide a clear layout of an experimental manipulation, a strong methods section where the details of the experimental methodology are clearly presented, and a discussion of what different outcomes would mean for the topic under investigation.
Assessment 4: Question submission, attendance, and classroom participation. Due to the seminar style in which this course will be taught, doing the reading, showing up for class, and participating in the discussions are imperative to the success of the course and to the amount of learning that can possibly take place. As such, students will be required to submit three questions about the readings assigned for each day. The questions should be submitted by 5:00pm the day before the readings are to be discussed. These questions will be scored based on thoughtfulness and insight, and will serve as one tool that presenters can use to guide discussion. I know that sometimes things come up that may hinder one's ability to submit questions at some point during the semester. As such, each student can abstain from question-submission two times during the semester without any penalty. Additionally, attendance is mandatory, and thoughtful participation during discussion is highly desirable.
Academic Honesty
You are expected to uphold the highest standards of academic honesty, meaning that cheating and plagiarizing are strictly prohibited. Cases of suspected misconduct will not be evaluated directly by me, but will be referred to the College Board on Academic Honesty. If you are unsure about whether something you write constitutes plagiarism or about the course rules on working together, please ask me. The mid-term exam is a take-home exam. You may consult lecture slides, notes, and additional journal articles that were not assigned as reading for the class while writing your exams. However, it is not permitted, under any circumstance, to consult with another student (in this class or not) about any aspect of the exam. Likewise, you may consult lecture slides, journal articles, and notes while writing your final paper. It is not permissible to consult with another student (in this class or not) while writing the paper. While preparing for your presentations, you may consult with your group members, additional journal articles, and existing lecture slides from this course. Be careful, however, not to use information from slides that are posted on the internet. Your presentation should reflect your own reading, understanding, and synthesis of the material for which you are responsible. The University of Rochester's policy on academic honesty is described in detail at: http://www.rochester.edu/College/honesty/
Learning Assistance
Students who desire or require assistance on how to take notes, study for exams, or write clearly should contact Learning Assistance Services in Lattimore 107 (275-9049). More details can be found at:
http://www.rochester.edu/College/LAS/
Instructor Evaluation
I want this to be the best possible learning environment for all of you, and so I welcome you to comment at any time about how the class is going, what you would like to see more or less of, or anything else that would make it a more instructive environment for you. To this end, I will also hand out a class/instructor evaluation midway through the semester to find out how things are going and what needs to be improved.
Reading List
(The readings listed for each day are to be completed for discussion on the day under which they are listed. Questions are to be submitted by 5:00pm the day before. Articles with a "+" next to them are articles eligible for presentation/discussion.)
1/19
**Note: Both of these are very important. Please be sure to read them closely.
Mitchell, D. C. (2004). On-line methods in language processing: Introduction and historical review. In M.
Carreiras & C. Clifton (Eds.), The on-line study of sentence comprehension: Eyetracking, ERP and beyond (pp. 15-32). New York: Psychology Press.
Tanenhaus, M. K. (2004). On-line sentence processing: Past, present, and future. In M. Carreiras & C.
Clifton (Eds.), The on-line study of sentence comprehension: Eye-tracking, ERP and beyond (pp. 371-392). New York: Psychology Press.
1/24
**Note: We can start off with some nice easy reading. Many of you may have read these before, but they do serve the purpose of framing issues surrounding syntactic ambiguity processing.
Altmann, G. T. M. (1997). The ascent of Babel. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Chapter 7, pp. 84-101)
Pinker, S. (1994). The language instinct: The new science of language and mind. Penguin Books. (Chapter
7, pp. 192-230)
1/26
**Note: Unlike the most of the readings for the rest of the class, these are theoretical papers. I will assist in the presentations of these articles.
+Frazier, L. (1987). Sentence processing: A tutorial review. In M. Coltheart (Ed.), Attention and
Performance XII. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
+Tanenhaus, M. K., & Trueswell, J. C. (1995). Sentence comprehension. In J. L. Miller & P. D. Eimas (Eds.),
Speech, language, and communication. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
1/31
**Note: The ERP analyses in van Berkum et al. may be unfamiliar to you. Read them, but don't spend a lot of time trying to get all of the details.
+Tanenhaus, M. K., Spivey-Knowlton, M., Eberhard, K., & Sedivy, J. (1995). Integration of visual and
linguistic information in spoken language comprehension. Science, 268, 1632-1634.
+Van Berkum, J. J. A., Brown, C. M., Hagoort, P., & Zwitserlood, P. (2003). Event-related brain potentials
reflect discourse-referential ambiguity in spoken-language comprehension. Psychophysiology, 40, 235-248.
+Desmet, T., de Baecke, C., & Brysbaert, M. (2002). The influence of referential discourse context on
modifier attachment in Dutch. Memory & Cognition, 30, 150-157.
2/2
**Note: The Pickering et al. chapter should help bring together the three accounts discussed in this section in a way that makes sense.
+Farmer, T. A., Cargill, S. A., Hindy, N. C., Dale, R., Spivey, M. J. (2007). Tracking the continuity of language
comprehension: Computer mouse-trajectories suggest parallel syntactic processing. Cognitive Science, 31, 889-909.
Pickering, M. J., Clifton, C., & Crocker, M. W. (2000). Architectures and mechanisms in sentence
comprehension. In M. J. Pickering, C. Clifton, & M. W. Crocker (Eds.), Architectures and mechanisms for language processing (pp. 1-28), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
2/7
Farmer, T. A., Misyak, J. B., & Christiansen, M. H. (in press). Individual differences in sentence processing.
In M. J. Spivey, K. McRae, & M. Joanisse (Eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Psycholinguistics.
2/9
Griffin, Z. M., & Ferreira, V. S. (2006). Properties of spoken language production. In M. J. Traxler & M. A.
Gernsbacher (Eds.), Handbook of Psycholinguistics (2nd ed., pp. 21-59). London, England: Elsevier.
Griffin, Z. M., & Bock, K. (2000). What the eyes say about speaking. Psychological Science, 11, 274- 279.
2/14
+Ferreira, V. S., & Dell, G. S. (2000). The effect of ambiguity and lexical availability on syntactic and lexical
production. Cognitive Psychology, 40, 296-340.
+Haywood, S.L., Pickering, M.J., & Branigan, H.P. (2005). Do speakers avoid ambiguities during dialogue?
Psychological Science, 16, 362-366.
2/16
+Bock, J. K., & Griffin, Z. M. (2000) The persistent of structural priming: Transient activation or implicit
learning? Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 129, 177–92.
+Branigan, H. P., Pickering, M. J., & Cleland, A. A. (2000). Syntactic coordination in dialogue. Cognition, 75,
B13– B25.
2/21
+Vigliocco, G., Antonini, T., Garrett, M. F. (1997). Grammatical gender is on the tip of Italian tongues.
Psychological Science , 8, 314-317.
2/23
Frank, A. F., & Jaeger, T. F. (2008). Speaking rationally: Uniform information density as an optimal
strategy for language production. In Proceedings of the 30th annual meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 933-938).
Levy, R., Bicknell, K., Slattery, T., & Rayner, K. (2009). Eye movement evidence that readers maintain and
act on uncertainty about past linguistic input. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106, 21086-21090.
3/14
Wilson, M. (2002). Six views of embodied cognition. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 9, 625-636.
Zwaan, R. A. (2004). The immersed experiencer: Toward an embodied theory of language
comprehension. In B. H. Ross (Ed.), The psychology of learning and motivation (vol. 44, pp. 35–62). New York: Academic Press.
3/16
+Glenberg, A. M., Kaschak, M. (2002). Grounding language in action. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 9,
558-565.
+Scorolli, C. Borghi, A. M., Glenberg, A. M. (2009). Language-induced motor activity in bi-manual object
lifting. Experimental Brain Research, 193, 43-53.
+Glenberg, A. M., Goldberg, A., Zhu, X. (2011). Improving early reading comprehension using embodied
CAI. Instructional Science, 39, 27- 39.
3/21
+Zwaan, R. A. & Taylor, L. J. (2006). Seeing, acting, understanding: motor resonance in language
comprehension. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 135, 1-11.
+Fischer, M. H. & Zwaan, R. A. (2008). Embodied language: a review of the role of the motor system in
language comprehension. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 61, 825-850
+Zwaan, R. A., Taylor, L. J., & de Boer, M. (2010). Motor resonance as a function of narrative time: further
tests of the linguistic focus hypothesis. Brain and Language, 112, 143-149.
3/28
**Note: The analyses in the Hauk et al. paper are not readily important for the purpose of our discussion. Give them a quick read through but don't spend a lot of time agonizing over them.
+Hauk, O., Johnsrude, I., Pulvemuller, F. (2004). Somatotopic representation of action words in human
motor and premotor cortex. Neuron, 41, 301-307.
+Mahon, B. Z., & Caramazza, A. (2008). A critical look at the embodied cognition hypothesis and a new
proposal for grounding conceptual context. Journal of Physiology—Paris, 102, 59-70.
4/4
Goldin-Meadow, S., McNeill, D., & Singleton, J. (1996). Silence is liberating: Removing the handcuffs on
grammatical expression in the manual modality. Psychological Review, 103, 34-55.
4/6
+Ozyurek, A. (2002). Do speakers design their cospeech gestures for their addressees? The effects of
addressee location on representational gestures. Journal of Memory and Language, 46, 688-704.
+Bavelas, J., Gerwing, J., Sutton, C., & Prevost, D. (2008). Gesturing on the telephone: Independent effects
of dialogue and visibility. Journal of Memory and Language, 58, 495-520.
4/11
+Wagner-Cook, S., & Tanenhaus, M. K. (2009). Embodied Communication: Speakers' gestures affect
listeners' actions. Cognition, 113, 98-104.
+Beilock, S. L., & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2010). Gesture changes thought by grounding it in action.
Psychological Science, 21, 1605-1610.
4/13
+Wagner-Cook, S., Mitchell, Z., & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2008). Gesturing makes learning last. Cognition, 106,
1047-1058.
4/18
+Barr, D. J., & Keysar, B. (2006). Perspective taking and the coordination of meaning and use. In M. J.
Traxler & M. A. Gernsbacher (Eds.), Handbook of Psycholinguistics (2nd ed., pp. 21-59). London, England: Elsevier.
+Hanna, J. E., & Tanenhaus, M. K. (2004). Pragmatic effects on reference resolution in a collaborative task:
Evidence from eye movements. Cognitive Science, 28, 105-115.
+Brown-Schmidt, S., Gunlogsin, C., & Tanenhaus, M. K. (2008). Addressees distinguish shared from
private information when interpreting questions during interactive conversation. Cognition, 107, 1122-1134.
4/20
+Wu, S., & Keysar, B. (2007). The effect of information overlap on communication effectiveness. Cognitive
Science, 31, 169-181.
+Heller, D., Skovbroten, K. S., & Tanenhaus, M. K. (in press). To name or to describe: Shared knowledge
affects referential form. Topics in Cognitive Science.
4/25
+Bailey, K. G. D., & Ferreira, F. (2003). Disfluencies affect the parsing of garden-path sentences. Journal of
Memory and Language, 49, 183–200.
+Arnold, J.E., Hudson Kam, C.L., & Tanenhaus, M.K. (2007). If you say thee uh – you're describing
something hard: The on-line attri- bution of disfluency during reference comprehension. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 33, 914–930.