Psychology 309: The Psychology of Language
Spring 2003
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Class meeting time: T-Th 10:50 - 12:05 Sewall 303 Instructor: Dr. Randi Martin Ofc: Sewall 492A, x3417 Email: rmartin@rice.edu Office hours: 9:30 - 10:45 Tuesday, 1:00-2:00 Monday, or by appt. TA: Cris Hamilton,, x2215, email: ahamilto@rice.edu Office hrs: 1 - 2: 30 T Th, Sewal 121 This course takes a cognitive approach to the study of language production and comprehension. The topics will include speech perception, word and sentence processing, reading and writing, discourse, language development, language disorders, bilingualism and sign language. Psychological and neuropsychological research and theories will be examined. Requirements: There will be three in-class essay exams worth 100 points each. There will be three lab assignments worth 25 point eachs. All students will complete a research project involving either carrying out an experiment or writing a library-based research paper (see below). Students will also be required to give a short presentation on their research project (about 10 minutes or so) to the class. Class participation throughout the semester will also be graded. Point summary: In-class exams (100 pts each) 300 pts Labs (25 pts each) 75 pts Class participation 25 pts Project 150 pts - including 25 points for presentation Total 550 pts Students will have the option of obtaining extra credit points by participating in psychology experiments. Five points per one hour of participation will be awarded for a maximum of 15 points. Students who do not wish to participate in experiments may obtain extra credit by writing summaries of journal articles on psycholinguistic topics or attending colloquia on psycholinguistics topics and writing a summary. These summaries should be one typed page in length and will be worth 5 points each. Again, a maximum of three such summaries will be accepted for extra credit points. Research Project Students will work individually or with a partner on a research project. The research project can involve either carrying out an experiment or doing library research. If you choose to do an experiment, you need to start working on your project early, as experiments always take longer than you expect. Each student will turn in a written report of his or her project. These reports should not be identical for students working together, but should be written separately by each student. The project must be written up in the format specified by the American Psychological Association. |
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The textbook is: Carroll, D. (1999). The Psychology of Language, 3rd Edition. Pacific Grove, Ca.: Brooks-Cole. The Caroll book covers mainly research on normal individuals. Chapters listed below without an author name are from the text. This book will be supplemented by readings on the neuropsychology of language and other topics. These readings are listed on the syllabus by author name. They will be on reserve in the library.
Tentative Schedule: |
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Date |
Topic |
Readings |
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Jan. 14 |
Introduction |
Chap. 1 |
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Jan. 16 |
Linguistic and psycholinguistic approaches |
Chap. 2 -3 |
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Jan. 21 |
Speech perception |
Chap. 4, pp. 67-90 Altmann, Chap. 3 |
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Jan. 23 |
Spoken word recognition |
Altmann, Chap. 5-6 |
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Jan. 28-30
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Neuropsychology of speech perception |
Coltheart Franklin & Howard |
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Feb. 4 |
Lab 1: Speech perception |
Handout ; for more information about "Baldy" and the McGurk effect: Massaro's lab |
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Feb. 6 |
Written word recognition |
Chap. 4, pp. 90-100 |
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Feb. 11 |
Reading disorders |
Ellis & Young, Chap 8 Rayner, Murphy, Henderson, & Pollatsek |
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Feb. 13 |
Exam I |
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Feb. 18-20 |
Developmental dyslexia Semantics and the internal lexicon |
Overheads: developmental dyslexia Chap. 5, Temple |
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Feb. 25-27 |
Semantic deficits Bilingual lexical access |
overheads: semantics Heredia overheads: Bilingualism |
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March 4 March 6 |
Lab 2: Comprehension Sentence Comprehension |
Overheads: Sentence comprehension Chap.6 |
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March 10-14 |
Mid-term recess |
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March 18 |
Disorders of sentence comprehension |
Martin; Martin & Romani |
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March 20 |
Exam II |
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March 25 |
Text Comprehension Guest lecture: Dr. Margaret Blake: UH |
Chap 7, Gernsbacher overheads: text comprehension
overheads: right hemisphere comprehension |
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March 27-April 1 |
Speech production |
Chaps 8-9 Overheads: word and sentence production Overheads: discourse poduction |
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April 3 |
Sign language Lab 3: Speech production |
Corina, overheads: sign Handout |
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April 8 |
Language development |
Chaps 10, 11 |
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April 10 |
Language development |
Chap 12, Pinker |
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April 15 |
Exam III |
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April 17 - 24 |
Presentations |
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May 3 |
Papers due for senior |
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May 14 |
Papers due for others |
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Additional Readings Altmann, G. (1997). The Ascent of Babel. New York: Oxford University Press. Coltheart, M. (2001). Assumptions and methods in cognitive neuropsychology. In B. Rapp (Ed.), The handbook of cognitive neuropsycholgy: What deficits reveal about the human mind. Philadelphia: Taylor & Francis. Corina, D. (1998). Studies of neural processing in deaf signers: Toward a neurocognitive model of language processing in the deaf. J. of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 3, 35-48. Ellis, A. & Young, A. (1988). Human cognitive neuropsychology. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum. Franklin, S., & Howard, D. (1992). Deaf to the meaning of words. In R. Campbell (Ed.), Mental lives: Case studies in cognition. Oxford: Blackwell. Gernsbacher, M. A. (1990). Language comprehension as structure building. Hillsdale, N. J.: Erlbaum. Heredia, R. (1997). Bilingual memory and hierarchical models: A case for language dominance. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 6, 34-39. Keysar, B., Barr, D., Horton, W. (1998). The egocentric basis of language use: Insights from a processing approach. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 72, 46-50. Martin, R. (1993). Short-term memory and sentence processing: Evidence from neuropsychology. Memory and Cognition, 21, 176-183. Martin, R., & Romani, C. (1996). Remembering stories but not words. In R. Campbell & M. Conway (Eds.), Broken Memories. Oxford: Blackwell. Pinker, S. (1994). The language instinct. New York: William Morrow. Chap. 2 (Chatterboxes) Rayner, K., Murphy, L. Henderson, J., Pollatsek, A. (1989). Selective attentional dyslexia. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 6, 357-378. Savage-Rumbaugh, E. S. (1991). Language learning in the bonobo: How and why they learn. In N. A. Krasnegor, D. Rumbaugh, R. Schiefelbusch, & R. Studdert-Kennedy (Eds.), Biological and behavioral determinants of language development. Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum. Temple, C. (1995). The kangaroo's a fox. In R. Campbell & M. Conway (Eds.), Broken memories: Case studies in memory impairment. Oxford: Blackwell. |