Language processing is a complex cognitive task involving multiple stages and models. From perception to comprehension and production, our brains navigate a series of intricate steps to understand and generate language.

Working memory and attention play crucial roles in language tasks. These cognitive functions allow us to temporarily store and manipulate information, focus on relevant stimuli, and integrate various sources of information during language processing.

Language Processing Stages and Models

Stages of language processing

• Perception involves receiving auditory or visual input of language through sensory systems
  • Phonological processing segments and identifies speech sounds (phonemes, syllables)
  • Orthographic processing recognizes and decodes written symbols (letters, words)
• Comprehension involves understanding the meaning of the perceived language
  • Lexical access matches words with their stored meanings in the mental lexicon (dictionary)
  • Syntactic parsing analyzes the grammatical structure of the sentence (noun phrase, verb phrase)
  • Semantic integration constructs the overall meaning based on word meanings and syntax (who did what to whom)
  • Pragmatic interpretation infers the intended meaning based on context and world knowledge (irony, metaphor)
• Production involves expressing a message through spoken or written language
  • Message planning formulates and organizes the intended meaning (main idea, supporting details)
  • Grammatical encoding selects appropriate words and syntactic structures (subject-verb agreement)
  • Phonological encoding retrieves and sequences speech sounds (phonemes, stress patterns)
  • Articulation executes motor commands to produce speech (tongue, lips, vocal cords)

Working memory in language tasks

• Working memory temporarily stores and manipulates information during cognitive tasks
  • Phonological loop stores and rehearses verbal information (words, numbers)
  • Visuospatial sketchpad holds and manipulates visual and spatial information (images, locations)
  • Central executive controls and coordinates the slave systems, allocates attentional resources (focus, switching)
  • Episodic buffer integrates information from various sources into a coherent episode (story, scene)
• Attention selectively focuses on relevant stimuli while ignoring irrelevant ones
  • Selective attention filters out distractions (background noise)
  • Divided attention allocates resources to multiple tasks simultaneously (driving and talking)
  • Sustained attention maintains focus on a task over an extended period (reading a book)
• Working memory and attention play crucial roles in language processing
  • Working memory capacity affects the ability to process complex sentences and maintain discourse coherence (long-distance dependencies)
  • Attention helps resolve ambiguities and filter out irrelevant information in language input (garden path sentences)
  • Individual differences in these cognitive abilities can influence language comprehension and production performance (reading span, verbal fluency)

Context, Ambiguity, and Modularity in Language Processing

Context effects on comprehension

• Context provides cues that guide language interpretation at various levels
  • Linguistic context includes the surrounding words and sentences (co-text)
  • Situational context refers to the physical and social setting of language use (classroom, dinner party)
  • Discourse context involves the overall topic and structure of the conversation or text (narrative, argument)
• Context helps resolve ambiguities, establish reference, and generate expectations
  • Lexical ambiguity occurs when words have multiple meanings (bank: financial institution or river side)
  • Syntactic ambiguity arises when sentences have multiple possible grammatical structures ("The man saw the girl with binoculars")
  • Referential ambiguity involves determining the antecedent of pronouns or anaphoric expressions (he, she, it)
• Expectations based on context facilitate processing by priming relevant information
  • Semantic expectancy anticipates upcoming words based on the preceding context (salt and __)
  • Syntactic expectancy predicts grammatical structures based on the current parse (if...then)
  • Violations of expectations can lead to processing difficulties, reflected in N400/P600 ERP components (semantically or syntactically anomalous sentences)

Modularity vs interactivity in processing

• Modularity views language processing as carried out by specialized, autonomous modules
  • Fodor's modularity hypothesis proposes that modules are domain-specific, informationally encapsulated, and computationally autonomous
  • Evidence for modularity comes from double dissociations in aphasia (selective impairments in specific language functions) and the apparent independence of modules from other cognitive processes
• Interactivity emphasizes the interconnectedness and mutual influence of different levels of processing
  • Connectionist models represent language processing as emerging from the interaction of simple processing units (neurons)
  • Evidence for interactivity includes top-down effects (semantics influencing phonology), context effects (linguistic and non-linguistic context modulating processing), and graded effects of frequency and regularity (no clear-cut distinctions between regular and exceptional forms)
• Hybrid models attempt to reconcile modularity and interactivity by combining specialized and interactive components
  • Example: dual-route model of reading, with a lexical route for familiar words and a sublexical route for novel words (grapheme-phoneme conversion)
  • Allows for both domain-specific processing and interaction between levels of representation (orthography, phonology, semantics)