Abstracts 2005 - The Psychonomic Society

Posters 3085–3090 Friday Evening
learners, especially given the absence of invariant cross-linguistic
cues. However, studies using artificial language streams indicate that
infants and adults can use statistics to correctly segment words from
the speech stream. To date, studies have utilized a single input language.
However, since bilingualism is common worldwide, it is crucial
to determine how multiple language input might be segmented.
Our study addresses this issue by employing artificial language
streams to simulate the earliest stages of segmentation in adult L2
learners. In three experiments, we required participants to track multiple
sets of statistics for two artificial languages. The results demonstrate
that adult learners can track two sets of statistics simultaneously,
suggesting that they can form multiple representations when confronted
with bilingual input. This work addresses a central issue in
bilingualism research—namely, determining at what point listeners
can form multiple representations when exposed to multiple languages.
• DISCOURSE PROCESSES •
(3085)
Idiom Familiarity and Semantic Decomposition: Evaluating a Hybrid
Model of Idiom Processing. MAYA LIBBEN & DEBRA A.
TITONE, McGill University (sponsored by Debra A. Titone)—The
hybrid model of idiom comprehension (Titone & Connine, 1999) hypothesizes
that semantic decomposition effects decrease as idiom familiarity
increases. We evaluated this hypothesis in a study where native
English-speaking participants rated 221 “verb the noun” idioms
(e.g., meet your maker) on several linguistic dimensions, including familiarity,
meaningfulness, global decomposability, and decomposability
of the verb and the noun individually (n = 30 per dimension).
Multiple regression analyses indicated that global decomposability
ratings significantly predicted meaningfulness for low-familiar idioms,
but not for moderately or highly familiar idioms. Moreover,
when global decomposability was partitioned into that of the noun or
the verb individually, noun, but not verb, decomposability significantly
predicted meaningfulness. These data suggest that semantic decomposition,
largely driven by nouns in “verb the noun” idioms, occurs
for low-familiar idioms that do not benefit from a robust phrasal
representation. Speeded meaningfulness judgments are being obtained
to determine whether these effects extend to online processing.
(3086)
On Reversing the Topics and Vehicles of Metaphor. JOHN D. CAMP-
BELL & ALBERT N. KATZ, University of Western Ontario (sponsored
by Albert N. Katz)—Class inclusion theory asserts that one cannot reverse
the topic and vehicle of a metaphor and still produce a meaningful
metaphor based on the interpretive ground found for the
metaphor in its canonical order. In two studies, we test that claim. We
replicate the seminal study that provided support for the claim but now
add conditions that place both canonical and reversed metaphors in
discourse contexts supporting the interpretive ground used to interpret
the canonical metaphors (Study 1). In Study 2, online processing of
the metaphors in context were examined in a word-by-word reading
task. Both studies indicate that metaphors can be reversed, contrary
to claims of class inclusion theory. Nonreversibility cannot be taken
as a necessary condition of metaphor.
(3087)
Representations of Argument Predicates. CHRISTOPHER KURBY &
M. ANNE BRITT, Northern Illinois University, & CHRISTOPHER R.
WOLFE, Miami University (sponsored by Christopher R. Wolfe)—
While reading, people create multiple levels of representation simultaneously:
a verbatim and a gist representation (Kintsch & van Dyke,
1978). According to the fuzzy trace theory, people reason from the
least precise level that they can—that is, the most gist-like representation
(Brainerd & Reyna, 1992). Despite the need for precision in
representing argument, we found that undergraduates relied on a gist
representation. Approximately 28% of the time, they could not state
the specific predicate of the claim (i.e., stance) to which they had just
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made an agreement or quality judgment. We rule out several alternative
explanations (e.g., near-perfect recall of argument themes and
event predicates). This lack of precision is specific to stances and, we
believe, is a result of underdeveloped argumentation schemas (in the
vein of pragmatic reasoning schemas and thematic frames). We present
an analysis of several stance schema, such as legalize and harmful.
(3088)
Factors Influencing Cross-Language Word Transfer in Bilingual Text
Processing. DEANNA FRIESEN & DEBRA JARED, University of
Western Ontario (sponsored by Debra Jared)—The present study investigated
bilinguals’ mental representations of texts, using a repeated
reading paradigm. Specifically, it examined whether the memory representation
formed after a text is read in one language includes surface
form information that is available when a subsequent text is read
in another language and whether such transfer depends on a repeated
story context and second-language skill. Target words were cognates,
which have the same surface form and meaning in two languages.
Skilled and novice English–French bilinguals’ eye movements were
tracked while they read five pairs of passages. Passages overlapped
completely (language, story, words), in story and target cognates, in
story only, in target cognates only, or not at all. Fixation latencies on
cognates in the second passages in each pair depended on the nature
of the overlap between passages in a pair, the language of the second
passage, and second language skill. These results suggest that surface
form information from a passage read in one language can influence
subsequent reading in another language in some circumstances.
(3089)
The Influence of Partner-Specific Memory Associations on Picture
Naming. WILLIAM S. HORTON, Northwestern University—According
to the memory-based view of common ground (Horton & Gerrig, 2005),
conversational partners automatically cue the retrieval of partnerspecific
information from memory. In two experiments, this claim was
tested by having participants first complete a task during which each
of two partners provided category clues (“a bird”) to help solve a series
of visual word fragments (O_T_IC_). Then, participants named a
series of pictures in the presence of each partner, and the current partner
was either the same or a different individual as the person associated
with each critical picture label (e.g., ostrich). A final memory test
asked participants to identify the partner with whom they had seen the
critical words during the first task. Participants were fastest to produce
names associated with the current partner, and such partner-specific
priming was not correlated with source recall. Domain-general implicit
memory mechanisms can make partner-relevant information more immediately
accessible during language processing.
(3090)
Impact of Speaker Coordination Varies With Speaker Perspective:
Evidence From Request-to-Commit Dialogues. PAUL C. AMRHEIN,
Montclair State University—The influence of perspective taking on the
illocutionary strength of performative speech acts under conditions of
variable speaker coordination was investigated. Participants judged
speaker committedness (Experiment 1) or speaker imposition (Experiment
2) for request-to-commit dialogues; requesting verbs (e.g., ask,
suggest, challenge, demand) and committing verbs (e.g., promise, agree,
hope, guess) were systematically varied. Judgments were made from the
requester’s or committer’s perspective. Results supported the posited independent
contribution of speaker intentions (e.g., ±desire, ±ability) for
requesting verbs (denoting requester-perceived enablers of, or obstacles
to, the committer making an ideal verbal commitment) and committing
verbs (denoting committer-acknowledged enablers or obstacles). Extent
of mismatch in intention polarity between requesting and committing
verbs reduced verb distinctiveness, especially from the committer’s perspective.
When interverb intention polarity matched, speaker perspectives
exhibited congruent judgments. These findings demonstrate how
variance in speaker coordination can arise through conveyed verb meaning
and how its impact depends on speaker agenda.