• Comprehension
» Conversation
◊ Cursing, Swearing, and
use of profanity
◊ Mondagreens, eggcorns,
Spoonerisms and
Malapropisms
◊ Humour
• Review
Study Questions.
• Describe Pinker’s typologies of profanity usage.
• Describe the violation theory of humour.
3/22/2016
Comprehension
• Conversations
» Using profanity
Final clip from Pinker’s Authors@ Google
Comprehension
• Conversations
» Using profanity
◊ Pinker’s typologies
– Dysphemistic swearing - (opposite of euphemism) Forces listener
to think about negative matter.
E.g.,
Hapless Hal: Look Dr. McCormick, I found a paper that shows
you can split attention.
Dr. McCormick: That’s Bull Shit!
#2
Family Member: What’s for supper
Dr. McCormick: (on the way to B.B.Q.): Shit on a stick
Comprehension
• Conversations
» Using profanity
◊ Pinker’s typologies
– Abusive swearing - for abuse or intimidation or insulting of others
– Idiomatic swearing > swearing without really referring to it,
> arousing interest, showing off, expressing that the setting is
informal.
E.g., Don’t call me sir, I’m not …
Comprehension
• Conversations
» Using profanity
◊ Pinker’s typologies
– Emphatic swearing - to emphasise something with swearing.
E.g., Close the fucking door!
– Cathartic swearing - Using profanity when something bad happens
(e.g., hitting one’s thumb with a hammer).
> May have evolved to inform the audience that you're undergoing a
negative emotion.
Comprehension
• Conversations
» Using profanity
◊ Using profanity as Expletives – meaningless words used to fill a syntactic vacancy.
– From Troy Duffy's film The Boondock Saints:
Short scene from the Boondock Saints
Comprehension
• Conversations
» Using profanity
◊ Cultural differences
– Profanity in Québec vs. English Canada
» According to The Anglo Guide To Survival in Québec:
Unlike English where the human body is considered dirty, joual
cursing draws its material from the body of the church.
For instance, while ‘sacré tabernacle’ (sacred tabernacle) would be
strong language in front of your shop steward, ‘c’est tout fucké’ is
perfectly acceptable in front of your mother.
– According to the Hitchhikers Guide to the Universe
» The most offensive word in the universe (unspeakable obscenity):
Belgium
Comprehension
• Conversations
» Using profanity
◊ Cultural differences: European Languages
– A comparison of three major forms of profanity
– French, Italian, Provencal:
religious> sexual> excretory
– Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Polish:
sexual> religious> excretory
– English:
sexual> excretory> religious
– Welsh, Swedish:
excretory> religious> sexual
Comprehension
• Conversations
» The neuropsychology of cursing
◊ Tourette’s syndrome
– Coprolalia
5-15% of Tourette’s patients
– Some relief disabling nuclei
• Thalamus
• Globus pallidus
• Cingulate cortex
– Theories
• Sharpness of curse words
• Conflict between lower limbic systems and prefrontal cortex
- Congenital deaf Tourette’s and hand cursing
Comprehension
• Language slip-ups
» Freudian slips
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEIslG2McpA
Comprehension
• Language slip-ups
» Freudian slips
◊ Baars study
– Three conditions
1. Situation causing anxiety about shock
2. Situation causing anxiety about sex
3. No anxiety (control)
– Silently read pairs of words on the computer screen. When a buzzer
went off, participants had to read them out loud.
– Results
(1) made twice as many shock-related slips as (2).
(2) made twice as many sex-related slips as (3).
Comprehension
• Language slip-ups
» Spoonerisms
◊ Rev. Dr. William Archibald Spooner (1844-1930).
– Lecturer, tutor, and dean at Oxford university
– Some examples:
Cattle ships and bruisers
..we’ll have the hags flung out ..
Our Lord is a shoving leopard
Nosey little cook
“Son, it is now kisstomary
cuss the bride.”
(Battle ships and cruisers)
(…we’ll have the flags hung out..)
(Our Lord is a loving shepherd)
(Cosy little nook)
(“Son, it is now customary to kiss to
the bride”
Comprehension
• Language slip-ups
» Spoonerisms
◊ SLIP Experiments (spoonerism elicitation technique, Motley
& Baars, 1976).
– Word-pairs are presented tachistoscopically
– Read silently unless there is a signal (e.g. a tone)
– word-pair should be read out loud.
E.g. target = red bowl,
– Preceded by several word pairs with the initial phonemes reversed,
I.e., /b/ then /r/ e.g. best rose, bets rode
“Expected” error = bed roll
Comprehension
• Language slip-ups
» Spoonerisms
◊ SLIP Experiments (Spoonerism elicitation technique, Motley
& Baars, 1976).
– Basic Findings
» Elicits 30% of predicted spoonerisms.
» Spoonerism frequency affected by lexical status
I.e., “wrong loot” FOR “long root is more likely than
“rawn loof” FOR “lawn roof”
Comprehension
•
Language slip-ups
» Malapropisms
◊
◊
◊
Sheridan’s “The Rivals” (Mrs. Malaprop)
Similar to Spoonerisms, one word is replaced
Three characteristics
– The word means something different from the intended word
– The word sounds similar to the intended word.
E.g.,
obtuse (wide or dull) for acute (narrow or sharp)
--> not a malapropism
obtuse (stupid or slow-witted) for abstruse (esoteric or difficult to
understand)
--> is a malapropism.
– The word has a recognized meaning in the speaker's language.
Comprehension
•
Language slip-ups
» Malapropisms
◊
Some examples
“He’s a vast suppository of information”
(Repository)
“ committed a Miss-Marplism”
(Malapropism)
- anonymous staffer at New Scientist
“vagrant disregard for the law”
(Flagrant)
- Archie Bunker
“I know right now I'm suppose to swallow my prize, but I'm fucking
pissed off”
(Pride)
“Lahey was my mother’s mating name”
(Maiden)
- Ricky (TPB)
“when the history of this administration is written at least there's an
authoritarian voice saying exactly what happened
- George W. Bush
(Authoritative)
Comprehension
•
Language slip-ups
» Eggcorns
◊ Mark Liberman blogging in 2003
– Looking for a precise term to describe a phenomenon he had noted
-> A friend was using “egg corn” for “accorn”
-> Pulman suggested the term “eggcorn”
– There is more phonological overlap than a malapropism
– Often replace an unfamiliar or archaic word with a more common or
modern word
E.g.,
"baited breath" -> "bated breath”
“for all intensive purposes” -> “ for all intents and purposes”
“ A flare for…”
-> “A flair for”
Humour
• Freudian/ psychoanalytic view
» Jokes arise when consciousness allows forbidden
thoughts to arise
◊ The Groucho Marx “I love my husband” myth
– “Well I like pancakes, but I haven’t got closets full of them!”
◊ Superego allows the ego to generate humour
– Type of superego is related to sense of humour
» Benevolent -> allows humour
» Very Harsh -> Does not allow humour
» Harsh -> creates biting sarcastic type of humour
E.g, Doug Piranha
Humour
• Freudian/ psychoanalytic view
Clip from “The Pirhana Brothers” part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-FDW1shmqA
Humour
• Conventional theories
» Relief theory
◊ Freudian - humour relieves stress
» Superiority theory
◊ Plato
– Humour is related to malice towards less fortunate people
◊ Hobbes
– ‘sudden glory’ of realizing we are better than others
◊ Gruner (1997)
– Three parts
1. A winner and a loser
2. Incongruity
3. Surprise
Humour
• Conventional theories
» Violation theory (Veatch, 1998)
◊ Three necessary conditions
1. Violation of the perceiver’s commitment to how things ought to be (V)
2. The perceiver has a strong feeling that the situation is normal (N)
3. (V) and (N) must occur simultaneously
◊ E.g.,
A skeleton walks into a bar and says “Give me a beer and a mop”.
– To find this joke humourous you must accept (N)
A skeleton can walk, order beer, etc.
– Two violations contribute to the humourous impact
1. There is no such thing as a ‘living’ skeleton (increases impact)
2. Patrons do not order mops with their beverages (V)
- It is the simultaneous occurance of N & V that generates humour
Humour
• Conventional theories
» Violation theory (Veatch, 1998)
◊ Violations must have an emotional impact
– E.g., elephant jokes
Q: How do you know that an elephant has been in the refrigerator?
A: There are footprints in the butter dish.
Q: How do you know that two elephants have been in the refrigerator?
A: There are two sets of footprints in the butter dish.
Q: How do you know that a herd of elephants has been in the refrigerator?
A: There is a Volkswagen parked in front of your house and there are lots of
footprints in the butter dish.
– The level of emotional impact dictates a scale of response
None - Not humourous
Moderate - humourous
Strong - Offended
Humour
• Conventional theories
» Violation theory (Veatch, 1998)
◊ Offensive jokes
– Shortly after the Columbia space shuttle crash, I heard the following:
Q: Why don’t astronauts shower before lift-off?
A: They wash ashore
– The violations in this joke “cross the line”
Violates sanctity of life
Violates sanctity of heros
Etc.
– Stand-up comedians consider “cancer” a taboo for humour.
Humour
• Conventional theories
» Violation theory (Veatch, 1998)
◊ Why aren’t puns really funny?
– Q: When is a door not a door?
– A: When it is ajar.
1. X is a door (Given by Q:)
2. a) X is ajar, AND b) X is a jar (ambiguity given in A:)
3. If X is a jar, X is not a door. (By definition)
4. Therefore, X is not a door. (by 3 and 2b)
-> 1 and 4 are logically inconsistent.
– In A:, “it” cannot be both a jar and a door so N is not established
Humour
• Conventional theories
» Violation theory (Veatch, 1998)
◊ The three level scale
Level
Logic
Commitment gets it
is offended sees humor
1
not-V
none
no
no
no
Q: How many c++ programmers does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: They can’t do it, it wasn’t declared!
2
V and N
weak
yes
no
yes
A skeleton walks into a bar….
3
V and not-N
strong yes
yes
no
Q: Why don’t astronauts shower….
Humour
Semantic Jokes
(left and right)
(Just left)
• Neuroscience of humour
» Components of getting a joke
◊ Language processing
– Ambiguity resolution
» Semantic processing
Q: What do engineers use for birth control?
A: Their personalities
» Phonological processing (for puns)
Q: Why did the golfer wear two pairs of pants?
A: Because he got a ‘hole-in-one’
Puns
(Just left)
(Just left)
Humour
• Neuroscience of humour
» Components of getting a joke
◊ Pleasure response
– Mesolimbic system
Nucleus accumbens
Ventral Tegmental Area (VTA)
◊ Emotional response
– Amygdala
Humour
• Cognitive processing and humour
» Incongruity-resolution theory
◊ Humour arises from combining unlikely/incongruous parts
◊ Two Types
– 1. Surprise Disambiguation
» Set-up has 2 interpretations, one is more obvious
» Punch-line conflicts with the obvious meaning
» Evokes the hidden meaning
E.g., “The first thing that strikes a stranger in New York is a big car”
E.g.2 “There are 10 types of people in world, those that understand
binary and those that don’t.”
– 2. Two-stage
Punchline creates ambiguity
Cognitive rule must be found to allow it to follow from the set-up
Humour
• Cognitive processing and humour
» Incongruity-resolution theory
◊ Evidence for Surprise Disambiguation (Vaida, et al. 2003)
– Visually presented with joke
– E.g., I went to a strip mall and found that everyone else had clothes on.
– Presented with lexical decision task either during set-up, incongruity or
following resolution
– Looked for priming of favoured or surprising meaning
Favored meaning-related: PLAZA
Surprising meaning related: BARE
– Favored primed early, then both, then just surprising meaning
Humour
• The world’s shortest joke?
Term Review
Chapter 6: Learning and Remembering
»
Overview of Long Term Memory
◊
◊
»
Storing Information in Episodic Memory
◊
◊
◊
»
Rehearsal
Levels of Processing
Encoding specificity
Retrieving Information from Episodic Memory
◊
»
Taxonomy of long term memory
Mnemonics and Mnemonists
Encoding specificity
Implicit /Explicit memory
Term Review
Chapter 6: Learning and Remembering
»
Key Terms
◊
»
Savings score; Episodic memory; Semantic memory; Implicit memory; Explicit memory;
Procedural memory; Declarative memory; Mnemonics; Mnemonists; The method of loci;
Synaethesia; Encoding; Storage; Retrieval; The van Restorff effect; Rehearsal; Maintenance
rehearsal; Elaborative rehearsal; Incidental learning; Orienting task; Self-reference effect;
Subjective organization; Dual coding hypothesis; Law of disuse; Accessibility; Availability;
Tip of the tongue phenomenon; Cued recall; Encoding specificity hypothesis; Contextdependent memory; Retrograde amnesia; Anterograde amnesia; Repetition priming;
Study Questions
–
–
–
Describe the three principles of mnemonics and give an example of how each serves to improve
memory.
Describe the levels (depth) of processing approach to memory
Why would it likely be better for a student to write their exams in the same classroom in which they
attend lecture? Relate Tulving’s encoding specificity principle to this phenomenon.
Term Review
Chapter 7: Knowing
»
Models of Semantic Memory
◊
◊
◊
TLC
Feature Comparison
Spreading Activation
–
»
Neurophysiology I
◊
»
»
ERPs and the N400
Concept formation
Neurophysiology II
◊
»
The Fan Effect
Damasio’s Study
Distributed representation
◊
Farah & McClelland’s model
Term Review
Chapter 7: Knowing
»
Key Terms
◊
»
Sentence verification task; True-false effect; Category size effect; Semantic distance;
typicality effect; Semantic priming; TLC; Hierarchical organization; Cognitive economy;
Feature comparison model; Defining features; Characteristic features; Spreading activation;
Propositional representation; The fan effect; Evoked responses; N400; Lexical decision task;
Exemplar theory; Prototype theory; Category-based representation; Property-based
representation
Study Questions
–
–
–
Describe four well established findings from the sentence verification task. Which of these findings
are predicted by TLC and which findings are not handled well by TLC? Which findings can Feature
Comparison and Spreading Activation handle?
What is the N400 and why is it important?
Compare and contrast category-based and property-based representation. How does this distinction
account for the living/non-living dichotomy in neuropsychological studies?
Interactions in Long Term Memory
•
Chapter 8: Using knowledge in the real world
»
Outline
◊
◊
Schacter’s seven sins of memory.
Interactions between Semantic and Episodic memory
–
–
–
–
◊
False memory
–
–
◊
Reconstructive memory
Semantic integration
Propositional representation and propositional networks
Scripts
Eyewitness memory
Repressed/recovered memories
Autobiographical memories
–
–
–
–
Very Long Term Memory
Real World Memories
Emotion and Memories
Flashbulb memories
Interactions in Long Term Memory
•
Chapter 8: Using knowledge in the real world
»
Study Questions
◊
◊
◊
◊
◊
Describe Schactor’s seven sins of memory.
Would you rather that I mark your technical accuracy or your
content accuracy for this question? Why?
Draw a propositional network that represents the meaning in a
simple sentence.
Compare and contrast misinformation effects with retroactive
interference.
According to research, what do you expect will happen to
your knowledge of Cognitive Psychology over the next
several years?
Interactions in Long Term Memory
•
Chapter 8: Using knowledge in the real world
»
Key Terms
◊
Transience; absent-mindedness; blocking; misattribution; suggestibility;
bias; persistence; schemata; reproductions; reconstructions; technical
accuracy; content accuracy; propositions; strength assumption; activation
assumption; spread of activation; dampening assumption; active list
assumption; the fan effect; scripts; headers; frames; default values; scriptpointer-plus-tag theory; false memory; leading questions; memory
impairment; misinformation effect; source misattribution; misinformation
acceptance; imagination inflation; repressed memories; recovered
memories; autobiographical memory; self-reference effect; self-schema;
permastore; amygdala; flashbulb memory;
Interactions in Long Term Memory
•
Chapter 9: Language
»
Outline
◊
What is language?
–
◊
◊
◊
Five levels of analysis
Whorf’s hypothesis
Speech perception
–
–
–
◊
◊
Case Grammar
Neuropsychology
–
–
–
◊
Acoustic Phonetics
Articulatory Phonetics
Top down processes
Syntax
Lexical and semantic factors
–
◊
Hocket’s defining features
Broca’s aphasia
Wernicke’s aphasia
Classical localization model
Neurophysiology
–
ERP studies
Interactions in Long Term Memory
•
Chapter 9: Language
»
Study Questions
◊
◊
◊
◊
Compare and contrast animal communication with human
language. Use Hockett’s defining features to underscore the
distinction.
Compare and contrast acoustic and articulatory phonetics
How has sentence ambiguity been used to study the
psycholinguistics of grammar.
Describe the classical localization model of brain and
language. How do different aphasias relate to the model. Give
examples.
Interactions in Long Term Memory
•
Chapter 9: Language
»
Key Terms
◊
Continuity theory; apparent specificity; language; linguistics;
psycholingistics; semanticity; arbitrariness; discreteness; duality of
patterning; displacement; productivity; traditional transmission; grammar;
phonology; syntax; linguistic competency; dysfluences; linguistic
intuitions; linguistic relativity hypothesis; phonetics; articulatory
phonetics; acoustic phonetics; the speech spectrograph; phoneme; places
of articulation; manners of articulation; voicing; voice onset time;
categorical perception; coarticulation; phonemic restoration effect; finite
state grammar; phrase structure grammar; transformational grammar; deep
structure; surface structure; transformational rules; case grammar; aphasia;
Broca’s aphasia; expressive or nonfluent deficits; receptive or fluency
deficits; dysarthria; Speech apraxia; Wernicke’s aphasia; neologisitic;
anomia; classical localization model; transcortical motor aphasia;
transcortical sensory aphasia; conduction aphasia; arcuate fasciculus;
P600;
Term Review
•
Chapter 10: Comprehension
»
»
Traditional research
Online comprehension tasks
◊
◊
»
Reading
◊
◊
»
Gernsbacher’s Structure Building
Situation model approach
Gaze duration
Dual route model
Conversation
◊
◊
◊
◊
Cursing and Humour
Pragmatics
Structure
Empirical investigations
Term Review
• Chapter 10: Comprehension
»
Study Questions
◊
◊
◊
◊
Describe the three processes and two control mechanisms
associated with Gernsbacher’s structure building model of
comprehension.
Describe the two routes for word naming.
Describe the violation theory of humour.
Describe some of the maxims or rules of conversation.
Term Review
•
Chapter 10: Comprehension
»
Key Terms
◊
Traditional comprehension research; “on-line” procedures; lexical decision; mental structure
building; enhancement; suppression; mapping; advantage of first mention; advantage of
clause recency; reference; inference; anaphoric reference; implication; bridging; saccade;
fixation; regressions; gaze duration; mind-eye assumption; moving window technique;
perceptual span during reading; dual route model; horse-race model; direct or whole word or
addressed phonological route; indirect or phonetic or assembled phonological route; regular
and irregular orthography; pseudohomophones; acquired dyslexia; phonological or deep
dyslexia; surface dyslexia; imlicature; direct speech act; indirect speech act; dysphemic
swearing; Idiomatic swearing; emphatic swearing; cathartic swearing; Coprolalia; Violation
theory of humour; Surprise disambiguation; locution; illocution; perlocution; conversational
maxims (quantity, quality, relevance, and manner); constative locution; directive locution;
commissive locution; acknowledgement; cooperative principal; direct theory; second-order
theory;