Talk:Psycholinguistics

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Expanded "theories" section

Dec. 13, 2005. With all due respect to the person or persons who put up the section on "Theories" of psycholinguistics, I have taken the liberty of expanding it greatly. I have tried to show the spilt between pro- and anti-Chomsky theories. I also deleted the small paragraph on Freud. While it was correct and helpful in other contexts, it is irrelevant to the discussion of theories of psycholinguistics. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jeffmatt (talk • contribs) 19:08, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Dec. 15, 2005. I made substantial additions to the "Methodologies" section in order to provide some concrete examples. Before reverting or deleting the "Theories" or "Methodologies" sections, it would be helpful to engage in some discussion in this space.

I added a bibliography section. User: Jeffmatt {{subst:Unsigned|— Preceding unsigned comment added by Jeffmatt (talk • contribs) 07:21, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

psycholinguistics

I cannot answer this question from my lecturer: What is meant by 'experimental paradox' in obtaining psycholinguistics evidence? What is the best way to overcome this problem? Could you help me? Thank Lisa — Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.124.21.202 (talk) 03:54, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

an attempt at an answer

First, let me say that I am newcomer to Wikipedia. It is my understanding that discussion pages such as this are meant to relate to the main article. On the other hand, I don't mind having a shot at your question. I hope I am not misusing this page. If anyone objects, please let me know. So--experimental paradox:

An experimental paradox in any discipline is an experiment that produces different—often opposite—results in a series of trials where a researcher might expect the results to be the same (since the experimental design has not changed). That is, the first trial produces a "yes" and the second trial produces a "no."

When Gallileo decided to drop lead weights from the Tower of Pisa to see if a heavy one falls faster than a light one (it doesn't!), he didn't have an awful lot of variables to worry about; essentially, he just had to be sure to drop them both at the same time. Lead weights don't get nervous about being experimented upon, nor do they get tired or depressed, nor can they sneakily conspire to play a private joke on Gallileo by deciding to vary the rate at which they fall. They have no internal mental states that might complicate the experiment.

On the other hand, with a psycholinguistic experiment, it is difficult to imagine experimental designs that are unchanging since the internal state of human subjects is in constant flux. For example, the subject might reconsider an answer between trial 1 and trial 2. This is technically not a paradox because the two trials are, in fact, different; the physical and mental events that inevitably occur change the experiment. Even the fact of making a judgement on trial 1 may change the subject mentally so that he or she is not the same before the first trial as before the second trial. Though, as I said, it's not technically a paradox, the very impossibility of setting up an unchanging experimental design might be what you are referring to.

It seems to me that all psychological experiments have this problem. The best way to overcome it? I suppose you might increase the number of trials such that all of these many, many variables find a common level, so to speak, and even out. If I can think of anything else, Ill put it here somewhere.

Does that help? User: Jeffmatt — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jeffmatt (talk • contribs) 04:46, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

One of the most easiest ways I understood experimental paradox is by the definition that it produces unnatural results amongst subjects in experiments so it is ultimately impossible to make a perfect experiment without any biases and error. The Oxford Dictionary of Pragmatics

An interesting point that was made is that the relationship between the reliability and accuracy of experiments are inversely proportional to the rhetoricity of the report. This isn't a common point that is naturally thought of. People usually think that the more rhetoric, the better the explanation. On the rhetoricity of psycholinguistic experiments

Akapoor1 (talk) 03:52, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

the section on "issues"

19 Dec 05. I expanded the section that was called "Issues". I also changed the name of that section to "Issues and Areas of Research." Jeffmatt — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jeffmatt (talk • contribs) 06:36, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. I think some parts here can be expanded. Some can be made concise. I will look through my books to see if there are any more relevant issues. Matlee 11:18, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

What syntactic structure does not exist?

I do not get this part of the article: ..."the fact that a particular, conceivable syntactic structure does not exist in any of the world's finite repertoire of languages is an interesting observation"...

But syntactic structure does exist in the language of humans! I it should be rephrased to: ..."the fact that a finite observable group of non-human animals doesn't express a particular, conceivable syntactic structure is an interesting observation"... Do you agree? Sandman2007 09:51, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

I am responsible for that sentence. I apologize if it is unclear. Also, I'm sorry it has been so long since I looked at this article. They key words are "...particular, conceivable..., by which I meant to point out that those who champion "innate" grammar will point out, for example, that no human language asks a question by reversing the word order of a declarative sentence. That would be an example of a "particular, conceivable syntactic structure [that] does not exist." Thus, they might claim, our brains are not "wired" to do that. The counter-argument is that that fact doesn't prove anything. It is interesting, but not proof that the sructure could NOT exist. After all, there are only a finite number of langauges, so if some structures don't exist in any of them, all that means is that they don't exist. Hmmmmm, I hope I haven't made it even more confusing. Jeffmatt (talk) 05:59, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Substantial Rewrite

This is a courtesy message to anyone watching this article. Over the coming weeks I'll be conducting a substantial rewrite and expansion with a view to having the article assigned GA status. I've no doubt that, as a relatively inexperienced Wikipedian, I'll make lots of mistakes along the way. I therefore request your patience, though at the same time request that you quickly correct me on anything that's patently incorrect or specious and indicate where my sources may be inappropriate or improperly applied. Thanks in advance! --Mcr hxc (talk) 15:14, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

• Here we go! Removing the small section on machine translation - this falls under the domain of Computational Linguistics and does not belong here. --Mcr hxc (talk) 15:21, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Critique

Psycholinguistics is an incredibly interesting study and this page has helped me understand and research the topic. The page describes what Psycholinguistics is and the origins with non-bias references and sources that only lead the reader to more information and ideas this page describes. I have read it and enjoyed reading this back each time, thank you all for your research and time to make this page for the world. The page describes the methods and the origins of Psycholinguistics and what it has become in the field of study and psychology. The topics of language acquisition, language comprehension and language production I feel may be overrepresented on this page for Psycholinguistics. Maybe there should be more sections about the neurobiological factors and psychological factors of psycholinguistics on the page. The neurobiological factors may be under represented on this page. I say that for two reasons. 1) it is in the definition of psycholinguistics and it may be helpful to add more sections about these factors 2) there is a slight over representation of the origin and philosophy of language it lead me away from the topic somewhat. With growing technology the topic of neuroimaging is massive in the literature and research that I think there could be updated sources for this page as well. There are not many recent (past 5 years) sources for this page and it could use updated references that either show the progress of Psycholinguistics or how ideas have changed or evolved. Maybe there could be more sections on neuroimaging and current ideas and facts that support a neutral and professional description of psycholinguistics. Most of the references, all relevant and supportive to the page and contain no bias, are from 25 years ago. Thank you all for your hard work and opportunity to contribute to the page!

Truecamus1225 (talk) 02:45, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

Truecamus1225 (talk) 05:02, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

The article that I will be editing is Psycholinguistics. All of the claims that are made in the Psycholinguistics article are backed up with references. All of the information seems to be relevant to the article. If there was a history section that explained more about the background of Psycholinguistics that would also be relevant to the article. The article sounds completely neutral. It is stating scientific facts and the information is coming from journal articles. I feel as if the theories and methodologies are covered a good amount and nothing is more emphasized than the other. The links to the citations work as well. The information does not seem out of date because the most recent link seems to be 2013 and there is only so much that theories can change. Akapoor1 (talk) 03:45, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

New Expansion

Hi everyone! I found a very interesting article that I think would greatly benefit this article. It discusses the general onset age for language development in infants and toddlers, and how modern influences can affect this, such as screen media. It talks about the importance of repetition and repeated exposure as well. This is the citation:

       Linebarger, D. L., & Vaala, S. E. (2010). Screen media and language development in infants and toddlers: An ecological perspective. Developmental Review, 30(2), 176-202. 

This is my draft of the proposed expansion of this article (feel free to peer review):

The first 3 years of life are the most important for growing the ability to understand and use language. People have often been critical of how technology and screen media have affected psycho-linguistics over the last few decades. Research has shown that toddlers and infants are capable of learning from this information based on 3 different factors: 1) The attributes of the child, such as their environment and/or experiences 2) The characteristics of the media they are exposed to 3)The environmental context surrounding their usage (co-viewing with parent) The effects depend on how much of what they learn resembles their real life and their familiarity with their routines and objects. Repeated exposure helps them learn content and lesson the effects of negative content. Having an interactive adult/parent assists language learning in infants and toddlers. Children aged 2 and younger who are exposed to educational television can learn vocabulary, and in turn can help the child achieve generalized language and school readiness. Researchers have suggested that television would replace parent-child interactions, which children need for developing language and other things. However, language development can be both biological and environmental. Although parent-child interactions are crucial, those who do not have this as much will still develop language from their environment. Between the ages of 6-12 months, babies begin to develop their native language. Infant-directed media is often times rapidly-paced, and those targeted to children of less than 6 months of age had less language-promoting strategies. Babies of 18 months and older have shown the greatest benefits of language development from screen media, and any child under 6 months of age it has proven to be ineffective. Infants under 6 months of age actually respond the most to bright colors, music, and movements. Toddlers react more to content and dialogue when it comes to language development. Children aged 18-30 months learn language well often from overhearing other adults converse. Screen media that more closely resembles real-life situations are often more effective than other types of media in supporting language development. Contrary to public suspicion, existing research has found that early exposure to screen media may actually resemble early linguistic input.

Mzk5557 (talk) 23:54, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

Hi Megan -- this is a great draft. One thing that would make it better is to add citation (or links to other Wikipedia articles) for some of the background assumptions you make, like "The first 3 years of life are the most important..." and "people have been critical...". You should also double check that you're using a Neutral Point of View (NPOV) when possible. You're not here to advance an argument, so if you're summarizing or presenting Linebarger's argument, make sure that is clear. Great work! yEvb0 (talk) 15:53, 24 June 2016 (UTC)

References

Evaluation/Questions

After reviewing this page I don't see any issues regarding credibility; all information was properly cited from credible sources like psychology journals. The page is divided into several subcategories which helps disperse the amount of information presented in this article. The article is comprehensive and organized well in my opinion. Regarding the subfields of psycholinguistics, I question why first language acquisition is only prevalent in infants. In addition, do infants grasp one language easier than others during this sensitive period? I would be interested to learn more about why this ability is so time sensitive, and what hinders adults from taking in new language with the relative 'ease' of an infant. Kcoscia (talk) 21:47, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

After reading through this article, I believe that it does have very credible references and no bias as far as I could tell. However, there are some inconsistencies when it comes to how spread out the references are. For example, the whole section of "Areas of study" has only one citation at the very end of it, while something as short as the "Eye movements" section under Methodologies has two citations. There are many more areas which have an abundance of information, but barely any references, which honestly threw me off. Also, I feel as though many random phrases and words are linked to their own articles throughout this article, and some are so random that it just confuses which part of the sentence is most important. Other than this, the article is very well-constructed and educational. Malrey (talk) 17:17, 7 November 2017 (UTC)Malrey

Reworking Origin of Term/ Creating History of Psycholinguistics subsection & Revising Parts of the Lead

New contributor and student of psycholinguistics, on that point I'd appreciate any suggestions or advice.

I will be reworking the section on the Origin of the Term Psycholinguistics, reorganizing the initial writing that exists there, and planning on expanding on it a bit. My overall plan here will be to reorganize this section under a bigger subsection being The History of Psycholinguistics, which is sorely missing from this article for the most part. My goal is to introduce the first inklings of the study that are alluded to in the Origin of Term section, and working through the formalization of the science and the Chomskyan and post Chomskyan era of the science. Part of my including the history of the subject will be based on the initial arguments between Inateness and Acquired (in terms of language acquisiton) , some of this might be fed by the information that's provided in the subsection Language Acquisition, in that sense I believe that perhaps Language Acquisition needs to be moved out of Theories and be placed its own subsection.

In addition to this I am planning on reducing the redundancy that seems to be present in the lead section. There are also claims made in the article's lead that lack proper references, for example the portion of the last paragraph, "Psycholinguistics has roots in education and philosophy", I have a few ideas for pieces that could substantiate this claim. In working on this paragraph specifically, I am thinking of transplanting this paragraph to be the first, again to reduce redundancy, but increase amount of information provided in immediacy.

Regards,

AVCharles1138 (talk) 18:43, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Evaluation

The article and material seem to have gone through some major updates from the initial post. The article is concise and well organized. Will there be any type of media or any images added relevant to the topic?Momovuwi (talk) 23:52, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

Article Evaluation

The article is very informative as a whole and well-sourced, and there is no apparent bias in how the information is presented. However, the 'History' section is terribly short compared other sections in the article, and what information there is mostly focuses on the origin of the term 'psycholinguistics'. It may help balance the article better to elaborate more on the history of how the subject developed into what it is today. --CMLeeLewis (talk) 07:54, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Human Cognition SP23

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 20 January 2023 and 15 May 2023. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Jeo.xo (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Emily1Sandoval (talk) 20:25, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

Ambiguous sentence

@Dhtwiki: Hi, this sentence:

Fischler found that related word pairs were responded to faster, compared to unrelated word pairs, which suggests that semantic relatedness can facilitate word encoding.

has some ambiguity for the word "to", so I suggest this version:

Fischler found that they respond to related word pairs (v.s. unrelated word pairs) faster, which suggests that semantic relatedness can facilitate word encoding.

Thanks, Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 14:01, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

@Hooman Mallahzadeh: I don't see how "to" is ambiguous, as it is the preposition in both sentences that fits the verb "respond", which in the first sentence is passive, in the second active, but with the indistinct subject "they", which must refer to the study participants of the paragraph, but somewhat vaguely so. Your thinking that "too" was an improvement was what I reverted. I think that the original sentence works and your suggestion isn't much of an improvement. Also note that "v.s." is not the abbreviation for "versus", which must be what you meant. Versus is abbreviated as "vs." or even "vs", but never with two periods. Dhtwiki (talk) 13:56, 16 May 2023 (UTC)