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Psycholinguistic Research Methods 251 Psycholinguistic Research Methods 251 See also: Deixis and Anaphora: Pragmatic Approaches; Freud S (1915). ‘Die Verdra¨ngung.’ In Gesammelte Werke Jakobson, Roman (1896–1982); Lacan, Jacques (1901– X. Frankfurt am Main: Imago. 1940–1952. 1981); Metaphor: Psychological Aspects; Metonymy; Lacan J (1955–1956). Les Psychoses. Paris: Seuil, 1981. Rhetoric, Classical. Lacan J (1957). ‘L’instance de la lettre dans l’inconscient ou la raison depuis Freud.’ In E´ crits. Paris: Seuil, 1966. Lacan J (1957–1958). Les formations de l’inconscient. Bibliography Paris: Seuil, 1998. Lacan J (1959). ‘D’une question pre´liminaire a` tout traite- Freud S (1900). ‘Die Traumdeutung.’ In Gesammelte werke ment possible de la psychose.’ In E´ crits. Paris: Seuil, II-III. Frankfurt am Main: Imago. 1940–1952. 1966. Freud S (1901). ‘Zur Psychopathologie des Alltagslebens.’ Lacan J (1964). Les quatre concepts fondamentaux de la In Gesammelte werke IV. Frankfurt am Main: Imago. psychanalyse. Paris: Seuil, 1973. 1940–1952. Lacan J (1969–1970). L’envers de la psychanalyse. Paris: Freud S (1905). ‘Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbe- Seuil, 1991. wussten.’ In Gesammelte Werke, VI. Frankfurt am Main: Imago. 1940–1952. Psycholinguistic Research Methods S Garrod, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK This usually involves taking the average of the values ß 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. of the dependent variable (response latencies) for each value of the independent variable (each list of words acquired at different ages) and establishing Psycholinguistics aims to uncover the mental repre- whether the differences associated with the different sentations and processes through which people pro- values of the independent variable are statistically duce and understand language, and it uses a wide reliable. It is now standard in psycholinguistics range of techniques to do this. The preferred psycho- experiments to test that the effects hold true both linguistic method is to carry out a controlled experi- across the range of participants used in the experi- ment. This means that the researcher manipulates an ment and across the range of linguistic materials used independent linguistic variable to control some aspect in the experiment. of language processing and then measures the effect Because the psycholinguist is interested in the of the manipulation on a dependent variable of inter- dynamics of language processing, an important dis- est. For example, consider an experiment aimed at tinction is drawn between on-line techniques, which discovering the influence of the age of acquisition of a measure variables that tap into language processing word (independent variable) on the time it takes an as it happens, and off-line techniques, which measure adult to identify that word (dependent variable). The variables related to the subsequent outcomes of pro- psycholinguist would construct two lists of words, cessing. In practice, on-line and off-line techniques one containing words learned early in life, the other compliment each other, with off-line techniques containing words learned later in life, and then mea- used to determine the outcome of interpretation and sure the effect of age of acquisition (the independent on-line techniques used to determine its time course. variable) on the time to identify the word (the depen- Another major distinction between psycholinguis- dent variable). To make sure that the independent tic techniques relates to the nature of the dependent variable is the real cause of any effect observed in variables they measure. Some experiments have be- the dependent variable, the experimenter needs to havioral dependent variables, such as those asso- carefully control that variable. For example, in the ciated with a reader’s eye movements while reading, above experiment it is important to make sure that others have neurophysiological dependent variables age of acquisition is not confounded with the length such as those associated with electrical brain activity of the word or its citation frequency, because we produced while listening to a sentence. The article know that longer words and low frequency words first considers behavioral methods and then related take longer to read. neurophysiological methods. It starts with methods Once the experiment has been run with a sufficient for the study of spoken and written language compre- number of participants and a sufficient range of lin- hension, and then methods for studying language guistic materials, the data is analyzed statistically. production and dialogue. 252 Psycholinguistic Research Methods Behavioral Methods boosts the interpretation of the target (e.g., by speed- ing up the recognition of the target item), this is taken Common Assumptions Underlying Behavioral as evidence that there is something in common be- Methods tween the representation of target and prime. For Although there is a wide range of behavioral psycho- example, if a person is quicker to decide that giraffe linguistic methods, most depend upon the same basic is a word having just read the word tiger than having assumptions. One important assumption concerns just read the word timer, then it is assumed that this is how measurements of the time to carry out a task due to the closer semantic relationship between tiger- relate to inferences about complexity of processing. giraffe than between timer-giraffe. On the hand, Whether the timed response be an eye movement or when it hinders the interpretation of the target – this the time to answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to a question, it is is called negative priming as opposed to positive assumed that the complexity of the mental process is priming – this is taken to reflect some conflict be- reflected in the response latency. For example, if a tween the representations of prime and target. reader takes longer to read the fragment ‘‘... raced Priming techniques are particularly useful for estab- past the barn fell’’ when it is part of the sentence ‘‘the lishing the relationship between different linguistic horse raced past the barn fell’’ than the sentence representations used during processing and are wide- ‘‘the horse that was raced past the barn fell,’’ this is ly used in conjunction with a number of behavioral taken to reflect greater complexity in the syntactic or neurophysiological measures. analysis of the former than the latter. This assumption It is beyond the scope of this article to describe all is used when interpreting results from most on-line the behavioral techniques that have been used in psy- techniques. cholinguistics. Instead, the article concentrates A more sophisticated timing methodology investi- on techniques that have had a major impact on the gates the trade-off between speed to respond and field. accuracy of that response. This is called a speed accu- Behavioral Methods for Spoken Language racy trade-off (SAT) method. With SAT, participants Comprehension are required to make some response to a linguistic stimulus as soon as they hear a tone, presented at Cross-modal Priming A common priming technique different intervals after the presentation of the stimu- used to tap into spoken language comprehension is lus. When the interval is short, participants tend to what is called cross-modal priming. In cross-modal make many errors, and when sufficiently long, they priming the prime item is usually a word embedded in become completely accurate. So plotting response a spoken sentence or text used to prime a target item latency and accuracy across the range of tone inter- presented in written form, which is why it is called vals gives an unbiased measure of the rate at which cross-modal. Consider the problem of working out the task can be carried out. SAT techniques have been how listeners resolve ambiguous words. Cross-modal used to assess the rate at which different kinds of priming can indicate the immediate interpretation of lexical, syntactic, and semantic processing occur. an ambiguous word, such as bug, in contexts that Although it is considered a particularly refined tech- promote either one or other meaning of the word nique for establishing processing rates, it has the dis- (e.g., ‘insect’ or ‘listening device’). As participants advantage that many thousands of trials have to be listen to bug in the different contexts, they are pre- run to produce a clear SAT profile, and this will mean sented with a written word (ANT or SPY) or a non- that there will have to be many examples of each kind word (AST) and have to decide as quickly as possible of material used. So there are only a limited number whether the target is a word or not (this is called of issues that can easily be investigated with SAT. lexical decision). The question of interest is whether Another important assumption underlying many lexical decision of the targets ANTand SPY is boosted behavioral methods concerns the interpretation of by hearing the prime bug in the different contexts. priming effects. Priming techniques measure the ef- It turns out that when the visual target is presented fect of having previously processed a prime item on immediately after hearing the prime in either context the subsequent processing of a target item. The prime it promotes lexical decision for both targets. So this might be a word with a particular form or meaning indicates that both interpretations (‘insect’ and ‘lis- or it might even be a whole sentence with a particular tening device’) are immediately activated irrespective syntactic structure. The rationale behind priming of the disambiguating context. However, if the visual techniques is that any influence of prime on the target is presented at a slightly later point (about subsequent processing of the target must reflect 200 ms after the prime), only the target related to some relationship between the mental representations the contextually appropriate interpretation (i.e., of prime and target items. Typically, when a prime ANT for ‘insect’ or SPY for ‘listening device’)is Psycholinguistic Research Methods 253 primed.
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