Psy 369: Psycholinguistics

Lanuage and thought

• Can two people who speak different languages communicate?
• Two approaches
• Translation is possible
• linguistic realism
• Translation is essentially impossible
• linguistic determinism
• linguistic relativism
• Sometimes called “Whorfian hypothesis” or “Sapir-Whorf hypothesis”

Does language affect thought?

• Linguistic form

• Whorf’s famous example
• “Empty gasoline drums”

• Linguistic meanings

• Mental interpretations

• Nonlinguistic observables

• empty

• Container no longer contains intended contents

• drum no longer contains gasoline

• gasoline drum without gasoline

• null and void, negative, inert

• drum is no longer dangerous; okay to smoke cigarettes

• worker smokes cigarettes

Logogen model (Morton 1969)

• Logogens specify word’s attributes
• e.g., semantic, orthographic, phonological
• Activated in two ways
• By sensory input
• By contextual information
• Access (recognition) when reach threshold
• Different thresholds depending on different factors
• e.g., frequency
• Access makes information associated with word available

• cat

• dog

• cap

• The lexical entry for each word comes with a logogen

Logogen model (Morton 1969)

• Auditory stimuli

• Visual stimuli

• Auditory
• analysis

• Visual
• analysis

• Logogen
• system

• Output
• buffer

• Context
• system

• Responses

• Available Responses

• Semantic
• Attributes

• cat

• dog

• cap

• Think of a logogen as being like a ‘strength-o-meter’ at a fairground

• When the bell rings, the logogen has ‘fired’

• ‘cat’
• [kæt]

• What makes the logogen fire?
• seeing/hearing the word

• What happens once the logogen has fired?
• access to lexical entry!

• High frequency words have a lower threshold for firing
• e.g., cat vs. cot

• ‘cat’
• [kæt]

• So how does this help us to explain the frequency effect?

• ‘cot’
• [kot]

• Low freq takes longer

• Spreading activation from doctor lowers the threshold for nurse to fire

• So nurse take less time to fire

• ‘nurse’
• [nə:s]

• ‘doctor’
• [doktə]

• nurse

• doctor

• Spreading activation network

• doctor

• nurse