discourse 1 nov 30, 2015 – day 38 brain & language ling 4110-4890-5110-7960 nsci...

DISCOURSE 1NOV 30, 2015 – DAY 38

Brain & LanguageLING 4110-4890-5110-7960NSCI 4110-4891-6110Fall 2015

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Course organization• Schedule:

• http://www.tulane.edu/~howard/BrLg/t1-Intro.html#schedule-of-topics

• Today's chapter:• http://www.tulane.edu/~howard/BrLg/t21-Discourse.html

• Fun with https://www.facebook.com/BrLg15/• Quiz on Monday will be in class & on Blackboard.

11/30/15 Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University

http://www.tulane.edu/~howard/BrLg/t1-Intro.html%23schedule-of-topics

http://www.tulane.edu/~howard/BrLg/t1-Intro.html%23schedule-of-topics

http://www.tulane.edu/~howard/BrLg/t21-Discourse.html

https://www.facebook.com/BrLg15/

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GradesQ1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 Q6 Q7 Q8 Q9

MIN 6 5 5 4 7 3 4 5 7AVG 9.0 8.8 8.8 8.4 9.2 7.5 8.7 9.3 8.9MAX 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10


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COMBINATORIAL NET 2


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The lexical interface


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ERPs to last verb in sentence


What does the scale mean?

Where does the dashed line diverge most from the solid line?

Where does the dotted line diverge most from the solid line?

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What do they do?• N400

• A temporarily localized increase in processing load caused by a discrepancy between the meaning of a word and its sentential context.

• P600• A sustained effort to reinterpret or re-parse a garden path

sentence.• However, these two may be too slow to reflect modular

lexical or syntactic processing.• So lets look at a faster ERP.


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The early left anterior negativityN150 or ELAN


Basic flaws in phrase structure:The shirt was on the hanger.The shirt was ironed.*The shirt was on ironed.

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Modular vs. interactive processing

English example(orig. German)

Phrase structure obeyed

Argument structure obeyed

N150 N400 P600

The old cat slept in the garden and … ✔ ✔ -- -- --

The cat old slept in the garden and … ✖ ✔ ✔ ✖ ✔The old cat slept the garden and … ✔ ✖ ✖ ✔ ✔The cat old slept the garden and … ✖ ✖ ✔ ✖ ✔


Modular: an error found early could turn off additional processing. Interactive: errors should add up.

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What is this?

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.


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Jabberwocky sentencesTable 13.2, adapted from Hahne & Jescheniak (2001)

English example(orig. German)

Phrase structure obeyed

Real words N150 N400 P600

The old cat slept in the garden. ✔ ✔ -- ✔* --

The lon garp frept in the kayton. ✔ ✖ ✖ ✖* ✔The old cat slept the in garden. ✖ ✔ ✔ ✖* ✔The lon garp frept the in kayton. ✖ ✖ ✔ ✖* ✔


Modular: an error found early could turn off additional processing.Interactive: errors should add up.

Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 12

What do you understand as discourse?

• To me, a text (perhaps spoken) that is longer than 1 sentence.

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Major problems underlying discourse deficits associated with RHD• Reduced ability to generate inferences.• Reduced ability to comprehend and produce main

concepts and central themes.• Reduced level of informative content.• Reduced ability to manage alternative meanings.• Reduced sensitivity to communicative context

(Theory of Mind). Odd fact: RHD often looks like prefrontal

disorders.

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Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 1411/30/15

Describe to yourself what you see here.


Responses: NBD ~ RHD(list from Myers 1999:190, Fig. 6-2; see discussion of Main Concepts Guidelines p. 167)

NBD RHD

Thanksgiving 96% 73%

turkey 93% 68%

mother/grandmother 73% 56%

father/grandfather 48% 32%

serving/bringing in the turkey 55% 31%

everybody happy/laughing/having a good time 38% 14%

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Rockwell’s waiting room scene•Printing on wall “lence … lease”•3 people …

• watching a baseball game• sitting in a church pew• looking at television or a movie• returned from a war• house/docto's office, but not sure whether waiting or daydreaming

•see table of main concepts next slide



NBD RHD

waiting room (hospital, doctor's office) 76% 27%

bandage on man’s head 59% 36%

The boy is scared/worried/tense/concerned. 48% 14%

They are waiting. 41% 32%

sitting on a bench/couch/pew 3% 23%

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Operations involved in drawing inferences and their status in RHD• Attention to individual cues > deficient.• Selection of relevant cues > deficient.• Integration of relevant cues with one another > deficient.• Association of those cues with prior experience/world

knowledge > OK.



NBD RHDDog, without reference to emotion 7% 69%Going to college/university/school 76% 32%Father/grandfather 55% 32%Sitting on the running board 24% 32%Young boy/young man/boy 72% 18%Dog looks sad/saying good-bye 80% 5%Waiting for a train/bus/at the station 41% 0%(Grand)father looks sad/anxious/depressed 31% 0%

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Deficits in macrostructure (central concept ~ thematic inference)

• Rockwell’s “Breaking home ties”• NBD: 80% identify scene as leaving home & going to college • RHD: none identify father’s emotion; few appreciate concept of

leaving home.¨RHD impaired on giving titles to simple stories, extracting

story morals, and summarizing story content• Difficulty of macrostructure generation depends on …

• how explicit links between individual sentences are,• how expected the central theme is, and• how explicitly the theme is stated.


Impairment of appreciation of discourse structure

• Discourse structure is the framework around which conversational, procedural, narrative, and other forms of discourse are organized.

• Knowledge of routine activities appears to be preserved in RHD, as is knowledge of basic social & emotional scripts. • Script: stereotypical sequence of events, e.g. eating in a

restaurant. • What is script of waiting room scene?


Faulty integration of discourse features into larger wholes• E.g. man with a bandage = patient in waiting room scene.• RHD impaired in inferring concepts to describe a scene

• e.g cookie theft.• RHD impaired in eliciting superordinate category for a

group of objects:• car, plane, truck, train are all what?

• RHD impaired in abstracting & integrating information in narratives and in visuospatial organization• see next slide for visuospatial organization


Reduced level of informative content• RHD discourse may be

• ‘abrupt & perfunctory’ (impoverished or unelaborated output, see next slide) or

• ‘verbose & excessive’ (excessive or over-elaborated output, see two slides after next) .

• Either way, RHD discourse does not supply an appropriate amount of information.

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Abrupt & perfunctory discourse• Thanksgiving painting: “Looks like the mother’s got turkey.

That’s it.”• Waiting room painting: “They’re sitting on a bench is all.”


Verbose & excessive discourse (1): RHD describing ‘waiting room’ sceneThere are three people waiting, sitting on a bench. An older man. It looks like he has a bandage on his head. And the boy in the middle has his hands clenched in his lap. He’s wearing blue shorts, white shoes with striped socks. And the man on the end of the bench is wearing leather shoes. And the boy on this end of the bench, I guess he’s between the two of them in age. And he has a cigarette tray right by him. And he looks a little anxious. He’s got his elbows on his knees. He’s got his chin in his hand. He’s wearing a khaki suit. The boy’s wearing a short sleeved shirt, blue shorts. The man’s wearing a dark suit with a tie, and the man has a bandage on his head.


Verbose & excessive discourse (2): RHD describing ‘leaving home’ sceneWell, collie or Lassie – looks like they’re going to take him back to college. That's State U, or U State. State U. And they’ve had car trouble somewhere. Old Dad's still puffin’ on cigarettes. This is before cigarettes went out of fashion. They better watch out about that porch they're sitting on there. Isn’t that a mess? It’s all rotted away. Termites must be at it. Look at those bumper shoes that kid – he’s a collegiate. Look at the socks. Striped socks and he’s got those snub-nosed kickers on. Must be gonna be the kicker for the team. He’s got a yellow handkerchief in his shirt – coat jacket – and he thinks he’s very dapper. You'll find this hard to believe, but that is an Atlas tire and I sold those stinkers for 20 years. Now how do I know? I know because of the figuration on the side of the tire. That’s an Atlas junior, sold by Atlas TBA Company to Exxon, and American Oil, and Chevron on a wire wheel and that tire is probably a 475 by 17. I mounted many of those. That's a Model A Ford truck.


Verbose & excessive discourse• Digressions, tangentiality, intrusions, ‘looseness’ of

expression • > twice as many words as NBD, even after excluding

tangential comments. • May wander off the topic or bury it an avalanche of

unnecessary detail. May confabulate.

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Final project• Improve a Wikipedia article about any of the topics

mentioned in class or any other topic broadly related to neurolinguistics.

• Write a short essay explaining what you did and why you did it.

• Print the article before you improve it, highlighting any subtractions.

• Print the article after you improve it, highlighting your additions.


NEXT TIMEMore discourse

11/30/15 Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 31

discourse 1 nov 30, 2015 – day 38 brain & language ling 4110-4890-5110-7960 nsci...

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