Talk:Psycholinguistics
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Dec. 13, 2005. With all due respect to the person or persons who put up the section on "Theories" of psycholinguistics, I have taken the liberty of expanding it greatly. I have tried to show the spilt between pro- and anti-Chomsky theories. I also deleted the small paragraph on Freud. While it was correct and helpful in other contexts, it is irrelevant to the discussion of theories of psycholinguistics.
Dec. 15, 2005. I made substantial additions to the "Methodologies" section in order to provide some concrete examples. Before reverting or deleting the "Theories" or "Methodologies" sections, it would be helpful to engage in some discussion in this space.
I added a bibliography section. User: Jeffmatt
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[edit] psycholinguistics
I cannot answer this question from my lecturer: What is meant by 'experimental paradox' in obtaining psycholinguistics evidence? What is the best way to overcome this problem? Could you help me? Thank Lisa
[edit] an attempt at an answer
First, let me say that I am newcomer to Wikipedia. It is my understanding that discussion pages such as this are meant to relate to the main article. On the other hand, I don't mind having a shot at your question. I hope I am not misusing this page. If anyone objects, please let me know. So--experimental paradox:
An experimental paradox in any discipline is an experiment that produces different—often opposite—results in a series of trials where a researcher might expect the results to be the same (since the experimental design has not changed). That is, the first trial produces a "yes" and the second trial produces a "no."
When Gallileo decided to drop lead weights from the Tower of Pisa to see if a heavy one falls faster than a light one (it doesn't!), he didn't have an awful lot of variables to worry about; essentially, he just had to be sure to drop them both at the same time. Lead weights don't get nervous about being experimented upon, nor do they get tired or depressed, nor can they sneakily conspire to play a private joke on Gallileo by deciding to vary the rate at which they fall. They have no internal mental states that might complicate the experiment.
On the other hand, with a psycholinguistic experiment, it is difficult to imagine experimental designs that are unchanging since the internal state of human subjects is in constant flux. For example, the subject might reconsider an answer between trial 1 and trial 2. This is technically not a paradox because the two trials are, in fact, different; the physical and mental events that inevitably occur change the experiment. Even the fact of making a judgement on trial 1 may change the subject mentally so that he or she is not the same before the first trial as before the second trial. Though, as I said, it's not technically a paradox, the very impossibility of setting up an unchanging experimental design might be what you are referring to.
It seems to me that all psychological experiments have this problem. The best way to overcome it? I suppose you might increase the number of trials such that all of these many, many variables find a common level, so to speak, and even out. If I can think of anything else, Ill put it here somewhere.
Does that help? User: Jeffmatt
[edit] the section on "issues"
19 Dec 05. I expanded the section that was called "Issues". I also changed the name of that section to "Issues and Areas of Research." Jeffmatt
Thanks. I think some parts here can be expanded. Some can be made concise. I will look through my books to see if there are any more relevant issues. Matlee 11:18, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
[edit] What syntactic structure does not exist?
I do not get this part of the article: ..."the fact that a particular, conceivable syntactic structure does not exist in any of the world's finite repertoire of languages is an interesting observation"...
But syntactic structure does exist in the language of humans! I it should be rephrased to: ..."the fact that a finite observable group of non-human animals doesn't express a particular, conceivable syntactic structure is an interesting observation"... Do you agree? Sandman2007 09:51, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
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- I am responsible for that sentence. I apologize if it is unclear. Also, I'm sorry it has been so long since I looked at this article. They key words are "...particular, conceivable..., by which I meant to point out that those who champion "innate" grammar will point out, for example, that no human language asks a question by reversing the word order of a declarative sentence. That would be an example of a "particular, conceivable syntactic structure [that] does not exist." Thus, they might claim, our brains are not "wired" to do that. The counter-argument is that that fact doesn't prove anything. It is interesting, but not proof that the sructure could NOT exist. After all, there are only a finite number of langauges, so if some structures don't exist in any of them, all that means is that they don't exist. Hmmmmm, I hope I haven't made it even more confusing. Jeffmatt (talk) 05:59, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Substantial Rewrite
This is a courtesy message to anyone watching this article. Over the coming weeks I'll be conducting a substantial rewrite and expansion with a view to having the article assigned GA status. I've no doubt that, as a relatively inexperienced Wikipedian, I'll make lots of mistakes along the way. I therefore request your patience, though at the same time request that you quickly correct me on anything that's patently incorrect or specious and indicate where my sources may be inappropriate or improperly applied. Thanks in advance! --Mcr hxc (talk) 15:14, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
- Here we go! Removing the small section on machine translation - this falls under the domain of Computational Linguistics and does not belong here. --Mcr hxc (talk) 15:21, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
