Group items tagged

lively analysis of the role of pronouns in English--this writer gives you a glimpse of what it's like to be setting up experiments in psycholinguistics

"There are elements of truth in this, but also some things which scientists studying the psychology of language (psycholinguists) know to be incorrect. I'm going to break down the meme, one line at a time to illustrate these points, pointing out what I think is the relevant research on the role of letter order on reading."

scholarly but short

Recent advances in our understanding of the genetic basis of human cognition (thinking) have enabled scientists at the Max Planck Institutes for Psycholinguistics, Evolutionary Anthropology, and Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences. to better understand 3 areas of language: 1. Language processing: The human genome directs the organization of the human brain and some peripheral organs that are prerequisites for the language system, and is probably responsible for the significant differences in language skills between individuals. At the extremes are people with extraordinary gifts for learning many languages and undertaking simultaneous interpretation, and people with severe congenital speech disorders. 2. Language and populations: Genetic methods have revolutionized research into many aspects of languages, including the tracing of their origins. 3. Structural differences: While languages are not inborn, certain genetic predispositions in a genetically similar population may favour the emergence of languages with particular structural characteristics - an example thereof is the distinction between languages that are tonal (such as Chinese) and non-tonal (such as German).

This article examines Nadine Gaab's 2014 study which established a connection - in both children and adults - between learning to play an instrument and improved executive functioning, like problem-solving, switching between tasks and focus. The article also cites the research of neuropsychologist Ani Patel, who advances the OPERA theory of music's benefits for learning. Patel notes "music is not an island in the brain cut off from other things, that there's overlap, that's the 'O' of OPERA, between the networks that process music and the networks that are involved in other day-to-day cognitive functions such as language, memory, attention and so forth," he says. "The 'P' in OPERA is precision. Think about how sensitive we are to the tuning of an instrument, whether the pitch is in key or not, and it can be painful if it's just slightly out of tune." That level of precision in processing music, Patel says, is much higher than the level of precision used in processing speech. This means, he says, that developing our brains' musical networks may very well enhance our ability to process speech. "And the last three components of OPERA, the 'E-R-A,' are emotion, repetition and attention," he says. "These are factors that are known to promote what's called brain plasticity, the changing of the brain's structure as a function of experience."

"In recent decades, the study of language acquisition and instruction has increasingly focused on "chunking": how children learn language not so much on a word-by-word basis but in larger "lexical chunks" or meaningful strings of words that are committed to memory ... A native speaker picks up thousands of chunks like "heavy rain" or "make yourself at home" in childhood, and psycholinguistic research suggests that these phrases are stored and processed in the brain as individual units."

Good find, Ryan! I also took the video link and embedded it into our moodle page.

very thorough study answering some of the questions we had in class today after reading the short Pennebaker article

scholarly journal article describes research in more depth about why writing about a recent break-up helps you get over it faster

links to Pennebaker's research, such as how using pronouns flexibly is linked to mental and physical health!?

Blog devoted to analyzing language of public figures

Good summary of general trends in language use by people with different states of mind, gender, class

This is very useful for the suicide note we tried to figure out in medium

From this source it shows a lot about language and its evolution. Although there are psycholinguistic characteristics that all humans share, language learning and teaching is always embedded in cultural and social structures. Languages die out, their uses in a speech community shift over time, and new languages emerge. An individual may lose or gain fluency in a language, or several languages, over their lifetime.

This article discusses the linguistics of schizophrenia. Schizophrenia diagnoses are typically made on one or more of the following 3 symptoms: hallucinations, delusions, and disorganized speech. Traditionally, none of these symptoms are associated with language, but the article suggests linguistic dimensions to each. Another aspect of schizophrenia manifests as Formal Thought Disorder, which is clearly linked to language and speech production. The article goes on to provide a language profile for schizophrenia and discuss the linguistics of psychosis. As someone who has OCD, I've noticed many instances where an obsession or compulsion has strong linguistic elements. I found it interesting that this linguistic influence can be found in schizophrenia and it strongly suggests that what we believe about language's effects on cognition are true!

Swearing is used in many parts of everyday speech, but still has some great mysteries. What are the grammatical categories of different swear words? Why do we swear? Why is society so affected by swear words? Why are swear words bleeped out on television?

Psycholinguist Steven Pinker examines the emotional impact of swearing and the evolution of words considered taboo, also reflects on several issues surrounding the issue of what language is offensive and about guidelines that might inform our personal and institutional judgments about when to discourage, tolerate, and even welcome profanity?