(from A. Tarkovsky's Offret)

instructor:

Matt Wagers

email | web

(spam-guarded: replace symbols appropriately)

meets:

Tuesday, Thursday 11AM - 12:30PM

MMH3418

schedule notices policies readings

Course aims

In this seminar, we will seek to get our minds around some of the fundamental issues in psycholinguistics (and, by extension, cognition & perception) through a combination of seminar-style discussion and actually doing some experiments. The goal is for seminar participants to come away with both a theoretical and practical grounding in the field. The course aims are:

• A solid theoretical basis in psycholinguistics -- what are the big questions, major phenomena, and opposing view points; why do the big questions matter?
• A practical understanding of how experiments are designed, carried out, & analyzed
• The ability to read (/summarize/critique) original research papers
• The ability to effectively communicate information about psycholinguistic theory and practice

We will devote the largest portion of our time to questions about adult sentence processing, but we will also discuss lexical processing, processing in children, and the neural basis of linguistic cognition. Though the preponderance of the experimental work we consider will be behavioral or electrophysiological studies, we will look at some computational models, and do hands-on work with some Connectionist ones.

Course materials

Our readings in the course will be comprised of primary sources, review articles, and some book excerpts. The password for online readings will be distributed at the first class. This is for your convenience -- all of the material is available separately through the University library, either in McKeldin or accessible through researchport.

There is no course textbook to purchase. However, I have put the following books on reserve at McKeldin Library to serve as supplementary background information, should you desire it:

• Townsend DJ, Bever TG (2001) Sentence Comprehension. MIT Press: Cambridge, MA.
• Garman M (1990) Psycholinguistics. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK.

Requirements and policies

Evaluation and responsibilities

You have several responsibilities to this seminar, which are together the basis for your grade:

1. 15% being prepared for class and joining in on the discussion [which you can't do, if absent];
2. 25% writing periodic short-answer responses to the readings (on the basis of provided prompts) and mini-lab write-ups
3. 10% giving two in-class presentations of a paper;
4. 25% writing a take-home midterm (open book/open note);
5. 25% writing up the final lab project.

I also have a number of responsibilities, the most important of which is encouraging interest in, stimulating discussion about, and offering clear explanation of course topics. This is paired with the following other responsibilities:

1. being prepared for class;
2. grading and returning your work in a timely manner: for short assignments, this means by the next class period; and for any assignment, never longer than one week;
3. providing reasonable personal assistance outside of class, either:
   • by email (the preferred means of contact);
   • during office hours (posted below);
   • or, in case of scheduling inflexibilities, by appointment.

Office hours

If you feel yourself struggling with material or an assignment, it is important to seek assistance early, either by contacting me through email or discussing the course material with other seminar participants. You should not hesistate to do this -- it's certainly how research works, visiting and collaborating with your colleagues. Another excellent reason to stop by is, of course, further interest in a topic that you would like to pursue.

• 'Office hours' will be held by appointment. Please email me, and we'll set up a time to chat.

Late work, absences, and holidays

I will accept late work, but it will be penalized accordingly:

class sessions late	maximum credit possible
1	87.5%
2	75%
>2	50%

I understand, though, that there are extenuating circumstances, and that we all have other responsibilities competing for our time. Therefore, everyone gets two reprieves, no questions asked, each worth one class session. Therefore, you can turn in two assignments up to one class session late each; or, you can turn in one assignment up to two class sessions late. If you turn in late work, and wish to use one of your reprieves, please indicate so (and how many you are using) at the top of the document.

Late work and absences will be excused in several other cases:

• Reprieves are given for assignments due on dates of personal religious observance: but you must let me know in advance if you need one. Absences are totally fine on these dates as well. To my knowledge, though, the only major holiday that coincides with a class date is Eid al-Fitr, on 24 Oct.
• Medical emergencies or serious illness. Explanation must be tendered, though; in cases of very late work or multiple absences, proof should be supplied.

Academic integrity

I will follow the University's policies on academic honesty and penalize cheating of any kind. Please review the The Code of Academic Integrity used by this university. It defines plagiarism as "intentionally or knowingly representing the words or ideas of another as one's own in any academic exercise." This is regarded as a form of academic dishonesty and suspected cases of plagiarism will be referred to the Honor Council for subsequent action. The grade of XF is listed on the transcripts of individuals found to have plagiarized work; this grade means that the grade of F was received because of academic dishonesty.

Writing support

There is a fair amount of expository and persuasive writing in this course. And one of the course goals is cultivating skills for reporting psycholinguistic ideas. However, if you feel you need general assistance with writing, please consult the University Writing Center.

Announcements

[skip to schedule]

1 September, 2006

The first homework is available for download from the schedule. It's due 7 September.

30 August, 2006

I've posted some supplementary readings to help you brush up your on your LING200/240 skills, and a syntax tutorial for those who want it.

Schedule

Readings and assignments should be completed by the class day they are listed with.
Any lecture notes will generally be available to download before after class.

theme	week	date	topics	readings	assignment
getting started	1	31 Aug	(Psycho)linguistics & Cognitive Science	none	none
	2	5 Sep	Architecture: Process, Control, Memory	Marslen-Wilson 1973, 1975	fill out online survey (asap)
lexical representation and process		7 Sep	Introduction to Lexical Access	Altmann 1997, ch 6, (pp 65-83)	Short answer responses no. 1
	3	12 Sep	-- Lexical representation: decomposition Andrea's presentation	Longtin, Segui & Hallé 2003; optional: Hankamer 1989	Andrea presents Word lists due
		14 Sep	-- Context (In)sensitivity Claude's presentation	Love & Swinney 1996	Claude presents
introducing the sentence	4	19 Sep	What a sentence is (and is not)	Townsend & Bever 2001, ch 2 (pp 11-44)
		21 Sep	Parsing All notes for week 4	(finish T&B, ch 2, if not already)
information and control	5	26 Sep	Information flow Paul's presentation	McElree & Griffith 1995	Paul presents
		28 Sep	Incremental interpretation Introduction to hypothesis testing Notes		Ahmand presents Lexical access minilab due ... deferred Data summaries due by 5PM
	6	3 Oct	Incremental interpretation	Sedivy et al. 1999	Ahmand presents
		5 Oct	Making (and revising) commitments: structures and frequencies Incrementality & Ambiguity notes, including Hana's presentation	Pickering, Traxler & Crocker (2000)	Hana presents
	7	10 Oct	--: reanalysis and its fallout Reanalysis notes, including Roshni's presentation	Ferreira, Christianson & Hollingworth (2001)	Roshni presents
active comprehension		12 Oct	Forming unbounded dependencies Andrea's presentation on Stowe	Stowe 1986	Andrea presents Lexical access lab write-up due by 12 midnight
	8	17 Oct	More evidence for active dependency completion Accuracy and Islands Notes, including Claude's presentation	Phillips 2006	Take-home midterm distributed: due 23 Oct Midterm (distributed 15 Oct)
		19 Oct			Claude presents
	9	24 Oct	Memory architecture and dependencies -- a brief introduction Provisional notes	McElree, Foraker & Dyer 2003	(MW presents)
		26 Oct	Active comprehension and head-final languages	Kamide & Mitchell 1999	Becky presents
memory and representation	10	31 Oct	Memory and processing explanations	Gibson 1998	(MW presents)
		2 Nov	NO CLASS
	11	7 Nov	Interference and decay	van Dyke & Lewis 2003	Jessica presents
		9 Nov	Persistent linguistic representation	Potter & Lombardi 1992; Jarvella 1971	Hana presents Potter
processing in language learners	12	14 Nov	Parsing and Acquisition	Clahsen & Felser 2006 (excerpts)	(MW presents)
		16 Nov	How adult-like are childrens' representations?	Thothathiri & Snedeker 2006	Jessica presents
intermission	13	21 Nov	Project meeting
		23 Nov	THANKSGIVING
brain/language linking problems	14	28 Nov	The Brain/Language Problem; the Standard Model and its Discontents	Poeppel & Embick 2005	Paul presents
		30 Nov	Broca's Area Debates continued	Caplan, Alpert & Waters 1998	Roshni presents
	15	5 Dec	Hemispheric asymmetries	Kutas & Federmeier 2000	Becky presents
		7 Dec	Combinatorial encoding	Jackendoff 2002, §3.5	(MW presents)
end game	16	12 Dec	Seminar/project wrap-up