1 |
Going beyond our means: A proposal for improving psycholinguistic methods
|
|
|
|
Abstract:
Psycholinguistics is the research of language in the mind: The architecture of storing the different components of language in our memory, and the ways we access that knowledge when processing and producing language. Psycholinguists usually conduct quantitative experimental research in which certain standards of experimental design, data collection, analysis and presentation are preferred. Established methods are used to create and report research that will be published, in the hopes of advancing our knowledge. We often rely on existing methodologies and do not scrutinize the assumptions underlying those methodologies. When examined and addressed, our research can become better, more replicable, and have better validity. This two-tiered dissertation proposes three separate ways to improve psycholinguistic designs and analyses: 1) multi-measure designs, allowing for the collection of converging data from several sources; 2) incorporating qualitative data in quantitative designs – providing for tests of assumptions, converging evidence, and fine-grained information about quantitative data; 3) going beyond averaged data – averaging data over participants and stimuli is common practice in empirical research, but averaging can obscures individual differences and important trends in the data. I conduct three separate studies, the first two studies using questionnaires, response time measures, ERP data, unsupervised learning algorithms and qualitative responses to investigate individual differences in the processing of underinformative ‘some’ scalar implicatures (e.g. Some cats are mammals). The third study uses acceptability judgements, response-time measures, eye-tracking data and qualitative responses to examine the depth of processing in comparative illusion sentences (e.g. More people have been to Russia than I have). The methodologies, analyses and findings of these three studies demonstrate how the proposed methodological improvements can be implemented. Moreover, I illustrate that by following such steps psycholinguists can collect data that are more reliable and uncover behavioral patterns and individual differences that would otherwise remain obscured.
|
|
Keyword:
comparative illusions; ERP; eye-tracking; individual differences; Language processing; multi-measure design; qualitative data; scalar implicatures; unsupervised learning algorithms
|
|
URL: http://hdl.handle.net/2142/112970
|
|
BASE
|
|
Hide details
|
|
2 |
Language learning in context: an investigation of the processing and learning of new linguistic information.
|
|
|
|
BASE
|
|
Show details
|
|
3 |
The effect of full-immersion schooling on nativelikeness and dominance in Palestinian Arabic-American English bilinguals
|
|
|
|
BASE
|
|
Show details
|
|
4 |
What's the smallest part of spinach? A new experimental approach to the count/mass distinction
|
|
|
|
In: Experiments in Linguistic Meaning; Vol 1 (2021); 113-124 ; 2694-1791 (2021)
|
|
BASE
|
|
Show details
|
|
6 |
A contextual analysis of definite and indefinite interpretations of tense
|
|
|
|
BASE
|
|
Show details
|
|
7 |
The acquisition of Mandarin by heritage speakers and second language learners
|
|
|
|
BASE
|
|
Show details
|
|
10 |
Three streams of generative language acquisition research : selected papers from the 7th meeting of generative approaches to language acquisition - North America, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
|
|
|
|
BLLDB
|
|
UB Frankfurt Linguistik
|
|
Show details
|
|
11 |
Wide scope indefinites in Russian: an experimental investigation
|
|
|
|
In: Glossa: a journal of general linguistics; Vol 4, No 1 (2019); 4 ; 2397-1835 (2019)
|
|
BASE
|
|
Show details
|
|
13 |
The roles of linguistic meaning and context in the concept of lying
|
|
|
|
BASE
|
|
Show details
|
|
15 |
Processing of canonical and scrambled word orders in native and non-native Korean
|
|
|
|
BASE
|
|
Show details
|
|
16 |
Interpretation and processing of overt pronouns in Korean, English and L2-acquisition
|
|
|
|
BASE
|
|
Show details
|
|
17 |
Comprehension of Spanish relative and passive clauses by early bilinguals and second language learners
|
|
|
|
BASE
|
|
Show details
|
|
20 |
Cardinals: The syntax and semantics of cardinal-containing expressions
|
|
|
|
In: https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-01679109 ; 2018 (2018)
|
|
BASE
|
|
Show details
|
|
|
|