Ling 412 - Psycholinguistics

Spring 2024: Tues & Thurs 10:30 - 11:45 am, Moore 119

Course description:

We'll cover topics like:

• How speakers' eye gaze patterns can affect how you understand their speech.
• Why some sentences are hard to understand, even when you know all of the words in them.
• How you go from having a thought to getting it out as a sentence.
• Some ways in which what you've just seen or heard might change what you say.
• How you decide it's your turn in a conversation.

Students will conduct a small experiment, in which you will test hypotheses like these:

• Letters are more accurately detected in a sentence if they occur in content words (like 'hat') than function words (like 'the').
• The rhythm of a spoken sentence affects how the listener identifies the grammatical structure of the sentence.
• A good title improves comprehension and recall of reading passages.
• It's easier to remember words in a sentence than in a list of words.
• Talking on a cellphone impairs driving more than talking to someone who's present.
• The objects in front of you can affect the interpretation of ambiguous sentences.
• Descriptions of objects become shorter as speakers continue to talk about them.
• Listeners will tend to repeat the grammatical structures (syntactic structures) that they hear.

Prerequisites - One of the following:

• Ling 102
• Ling 320
• Psy 100
• Consent of the instructor

Textbook (free through the UH library):

• Traxler, M. (2011/2023). Introduction to Psycholinguistics: Understanding Language Science. Wiley. (book website for Second edition)

Requirements it meets:

• Oral Communication Requirement (O/OC).
• Social Sciences Diversification Requirement (DS).
• Part of a major in Linguistics through the Interdisciplinary Studies Program.

This course is for students interested in:

• Linguistics
• Second Language Studies
• Psychology
• Speech Pathology and Audiology
• Education
• East Asian Languages and Literatures
• Hawaiian and Indo-Pacific Languages
• Languages and Literature of Europe and the Americas
• English
• Interpretation and Translation
• Computer and Information Sciences
• Philosophy
• Anthropology
• and other areas related to the study of language and cognition.

Associated research and teaching laboratories:

Instructor:

Phonetics: 

Word recognition, corpora:

Image sets:

Searching for references: 

Video/presentation resources: 

Style guidelines and writing resources:

Computer and A/V equipment: 

Other material:

Beyond this course:

• The small experiment you do for class could be something you develop into a larger project, that might become part of your work in the UH Honors Program.
• You can find other opportunities for research on campus through the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP).
  
• If you plan to go on to graduate school (in linguistics, psychology, or a related field) you could become a research assistant to a faculty member. Talk to Prof. Schafer for more information about options.

What about more advanced coursework in psycholinguistics?