Understanding Figurative Language and Inferences in Cognitive Psychology, Slides of Cognitive Psychology

Download Understanding Figurative Language and Inferences in Cognitive Psychology and more Slides Cognitive Psychology in PDF only on Docsity! Cognitive Psychology Notes 12 LANGUAGE-- MEANING Where We Are  We’re continuing with higher cognition. We still have:  Language—Meaning  Reasoning/Decision making  Human factors Docsity.com Literal Meaning  One possibility is verbatim meaning (the exact words). Unlikely:  Think of examples of things that you have learned word for word. What do they mean? You usually have to repeat them to answer that.  There is evidence that verbatim representations are the fall-back strategy when other comprehension methods are not available. Docsity.com Literal Meaning  Mani & Johnson-Laird (1982):  Provided determinate descriptions of arrangements: ○ A is behind D ○ A is to the left of B ○ C is to the right of B  Determinate descriptions were specific and described an arrangement that could be imagined (modeled). Docsity.com Literal Meaning  Mani & Johnson-Laird (1982):  There were also indeterminate descriptions of arrangements: ○ A is behind D ○ A is to the left of B ○ C is to the right of A  Indeterminate descriptions were not specific and described an arrangement that would have to be represented with more than one possible model. Docsity.com Literal Meaning  Evidence against verbatim:  Sachs (1967): ○ He sent a letter about it to Galileo, the great Italian scientist. (original) ○ He sent Galileo, the great Italian scientist, a letter about it. ○ A letter about it was sent to Galileo, the great Italian scientist. ○ Galileo, the great Italian scientist, sent him a letter about it. Docsity.com Literal Meaning  Evidence against verbatim:  Sachs (1967): Participants were asked either 0, 80, or 160 syllables later in the passage.  The results were that the original form of the sentence (verbatim) was only available long enough to get the meaning.  This argues against verbatim. Docsity.com Literal Meaning  Another way to think about literal meaning is to use propositions.  Kintsch, W. (1972). Notes on the structure of semantic memory. In E. Tulving & W. Donaldson (Eds.), Organization of memory (pp. 247-308). New York: Academic Press. Docsity.com Literal Meaning  Kinds of relations (p. 254-255):  Nouns (nominal propositions) ○ A collie is a dog. (DOG, COLLIE)  Arguments are usually nouns, but can be whole propositions.  Example:  The old man drinks mint juleps.  (DRINK, MAN, MINT JULEPS)  (OLD, MAN) Docsity.com Literal Meaning  What propositions are in this sentence?  The professor delivers the exciting lecture. Docsity.com Literal Meaning  What propositions are in this sentence?  The professor delivers the exciting lecture.  (DELIVER, PROFESSOR, LECTURE)  (EXCITING, LECTURE) Docsity.com © Change levels... & Docsity.com Inferences  From Singer (1994):  Androclus, the slave of a Roman consul stationed in Africa, ran away from his brutal master and after days of weary wandering in the desert, took refuge in a secluded cave. One day to his horror, he found a huge lion at the entrance to the cave. He noticed, however, that the beast had a foot wound and was limping and moaning. Androclus, recovering from his initial fright, plucked up enough courage to examine the lion’s paw, from which he prised out a large splinter (Gilbert, 1970) (p.479). Docsity.com Inferences  Singer (1994): How many inferences can you find? Docsity.com Inferences  It is usually necessary for the listener/reader to fill in missing text information to make sense of what is being presented.  Diane wanted to lose some weight.  She went to the garage to find her bike.  Inference: Riding a bike is a way to lose weight. Docsity.com Inferences  Inferences could be propositions not explicitly mentioned (e.g., agents or instruments).  Inferences could be features of things activated during comprehension. Docsity.com Inferences  As part of the ecological survey approach, let’s consider dimensions along which inferences can be classified (loosely based on Singer, 1994).  Logical vs. pragmatic. ○ Logical inferences are true if you make them.  Phil has three apples. He gave one apple to Mary. ○ Pragmatic inferences are some degree of likely:  Mary dropped the eggs. Docsity.com Inferences  Forward vs. backward.  Elaborative way less likely to occur (e.g., Corbett & Dosher, 1978 Docsity.com Inferences  Forward vs. backward.  The dentist pulled the tooth painlessly. The patient liked the new method. (explicit)  The tooth was pulled painlessly. The dentist used a new method. (bridging)  The tooth was pulled painlessly. The patient liked the new method. (elaborative) (Singer, 1994) Docsity.com Inferences  Forward vs. backward.  Explicit and bridging both led to faster verification of: ○ A dentist pulled the tooth.  True for agents, patients, and instruments. Docsity.com Inferences  Inference type:  Event structure: Fill in causes, effects, etc. ○ The actress fell from the 14th floor balcony. Docsity.com Inferences  Inference type:  Lots of research on causal inferences (e.g., Myers, Shinjo, & Duffy, 1987): ○ Tony’s friend suddenly pushed him into a pond. ○ Tony met his friend near a pond in the park. ○ Tony sat under a tree reading a good book. ○ He walked home, soaking wet, to change his clothes. Docsity.com Inferences  Inference type:  Myers, Shinjo, & Duffy (1987): The difficulty of forming the bridging inference affected reading time. Difficulty was a function of causal relatedness. Docsity.com Inferences  Implicational probability: How strongly the inference is implied by the text. Docsity.com © Change levels... & Docsity.com Figurative  The basic issue is that this kind of language has words that differ from the intended meaning. We will consider a variety of types. Docsity.com Figurative  Metaphor:  Gibbs (1994): Ubiquitous. ○ A lot of what appears to be literal is actually figurative.  ARGUMENT IS WAR  TIME IS MONEY (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980) ○ Some of the confusion comes from the idea that conventional metaphors are necessarily “dead” and not figurative any more (like kick the bucket). Docsity.com Figurative  Metaphor:  Gibbs (1994): Ubiquitous. ○ Entire domains of cognition (like event structure) appear to have a metaphorical foundation (Lakoff, 1990):  IMPEDIMENTS TO ACTION ARE IMPEDIMENTS TO MOTION - We hit a roadblock.  AIDS TO ACTION ARE AIDS TO MOTION - It’s all downhill from here. Docsity.com Figurative  Metaphor:  Gibbs (1994): Ubiquitous. ○ Metaphorical communication:  Conduit metaphor:  Ideas or thoughts are objects.  Words and sentences are containers for these objects.  Communication consists in finding the right word container for your idea-object. (p. 417) Docsity.com Figurative  Metaphor:  How is it understood? Do you have to understand a literal meaning and then metaphor? Does it violate communication norms?  Cacciari & Glucksberg (1994): How do you spot them? ○ Syntactic difference? No.  The old rock has become brittle with age. (Referring to a professor.) Docsity.com Figurative  Metaphor:  Cacciari & Glucksberg (1994): How do you spot them? ○ Semantic difference? No.  The old rock has become brittle with age. (Referring to a professor.)  Your defense is an impregnable castle. (Can be both literal and metaphorical, where is the semantic feature violation clue?) Docsity.com Figurative  Metaphor:  Cacciari & Glucksberg (1994): How do you spot them? ○ Deviance (e.g., some literal violation is detected)? No.  No man is an island. (True and figurative.)  My husband is an animal. (True and figurative.)  Tom’s a real marine. (Could be true.) ○ I guess it’s a puzzle unless you accept an alternative viewpoint. Docsity.com Figurative  Metaphor:  Lakoff and Johnson (1980): Metaphor is thought.  Implication: Metaphors we use aren’t just words.  ARGUMENT IS WAR  Not just what we say, what we do. Docsity.com Figurative  Idioms (Gibbs, 1994):  Traditional view is that they are “frozen” or “dead” metaphors. They are essentially large lexical items.  Some certainly look like this: ○ Kick the bucket. ○ Cannot be altered syntactically:  John kicked the bucket.  *The bucket was kicked by John. (No longer figurative.) Docsity.com Figurative  Idioms (Gibbs, 1994):  Some are frozen: ○ Kick the bucket. ○ Cannot be altered semantically:  John kicked the bucket.  *John punted the bucket. (No longer figurative.) Docsity.com Figurative  Idioms (Gibbs, 1994):  Data supports the argument that some idioms are decomposable.  Decomposable idioms are read faster and are easier to learn.  The data suggest that a compositional analysis (how the parts go together) is part of idiom understanding (different from literal meaning). Docsity.com Figurative  Idioms (Gibbs, 1994):  For example, spill the beans connects to tipping over a container of beans and the trouble you would have getting them back (plus the idea of it being inadvertent).  Also connects to structural metaphors: ○ THE MIND IS A CONTAINER ○ IDEAS ARE PHYSICAL ENTITIES Docsity.com Figurative  Metonymy (Gibbs, 1994):  Letting the part stand in for the whole. ○ Washington has started negotiating with Tehran. ○ The White House isn’t saying anything. ○ Wall Street is in a panic. ○ Hollywood is putting out terrible movies. Docsity.com Figurative  Metonymy (Gibbs, 1994):  Traveling events: ○ Precondition: Access to the vehicle. ○ Embarcation: Get in the vehicle and get it started. ○ Center: Drive (etc.) to your destination. ○ Finish: Stop and exit the vehicle. ○ End point: At your destination. Docsity.com Figurative  Metonymy (Gibbs, 1994):  Metonymy can pick aspects of the traveling event script to highlight, and the listener can fill in the rest.  Precondition: ○ I called my friend Bob. ○ I stuck out my thumb.  Embarcation: ○ I hopped on a bus.  Center: ○ I drove my car. Docsity.com Figurative  Metonymy (Gibbs, 1994):  Shared cognitive models make it possible for this to work. Docsity.com Figurative  Colloquial tautologies (Gibbs, 1994):  Special form of metonymy.  Tautology: “Logic: An empty or vacuous statement composed of simpler statements in a fashion that makes it logically true whether the simpler statements are factually true or false; for example, the statement Either it will rain tomorrow or it will not rain tomorrow” Docsity.com Figurative  Colloquial tautologies (Gibbs, 1994):  [N (abstract singular) is N (abstract singular)]: ○ “Sober, mostly negative, attitude toward complex human activities that must be understood and tolerated” (Gibbs, 1994, p. 432). ○ Business is business. ○ Politics is politics. ○ War is war. Docsity.com Figurative  Colloquial tautologies (Gibbs, 1994):  [N (plural) will be N (plural)]: ○ “Refer to some negative aspects of the topic but also convey an indulgent attitude” (Gibbs, 1994, p. 433). ○ Boys will be boys. Docsity.com Figurative  Oxymora (Gibbs, 1994):  “Figures of speech that combine two seemingly contradictory elements” (Gibbs, 1994, p. 439).  Direct: Flip a defining feature: ○ Woman man ○ Intense lazy ○ Internal external Docsity.com Figurative  Oxymora (Gibbs, 1994):  Indirect: Flip a defining feature and pick a hyponym (specific example) of the antonym. Three levels: ○ Unmarked (use prototypical example for hyponym):  The silence cries.  Cold fire. ○ Medium (use a medium exemplar):  The silence whistles.  Sacred dump. Docsity.com Figurative  Oxymora (Gibbs, 1994):  Indirect: Flip a defining feature and pick a hyponym (specific example) of the antonym. Three levels: ○ Marked (use a very poor category member for the hyponym):  The silence sighs.  Evidence suggests that marked and unmarked are processed most easily. However, medium most frequent. Docsity.com Pragmatics  Pragmatics: Varieties.  Presuppositions: Have you stopped exercising regularly? vs. Have you tried exercising regularly?  Speech acts: ○ Locutionary act: The thing said. ○ Illocutionary act: The thing intended. ○ Perlocutionary act: The effect. Docsity.com Pragmatics  Pragmatics: Varieties.  Speech acts: Can you turn out the lights? ○ L: Can you? ○ I: Get up and do it. ○ P: It gets done.  Forms: ○ Statement: There’s a roach in your chili. ○ Command: Don’t eat that. ○ Yes/no question: Do you normally eat your chili with roaches in it? ○ Wh- question: Why do you have a roach in your chili?  The form chosen is a function of pragmatics. Docsity.com © Change lectures... & Docsity.com Discourse  Questions:  When you say you “understand” one of these passages, what do you have? What have you done?  Why does one seem easier to “understand” than the other? Docsity.com Discourse  Influences: Reader knowledge (e.g., scripts and schemas) can have a big effect.  Prior context: Knowing which script or schema to apply will really help. (Spoiler alert: Reading past this point before class will ruin the lecture.) Docsity.com Discourse  Influences: Reader knowledge.  With hocked gems financing him, our hero bravely defied all scornful laughter that tried to prevent his scheme. “Your eyes deceive,” he had said, “An egg, not a table, correctly typifies this unexplored planet.” Now, three sturdy sisters sought proof. Forging along, sometimes through calm vastness, yet more often over turbulent peaks and valleys, days became weeks as many doubters spread fearful rumors about the edge. At last, from nowhere, welcome winged creatures appeared, signifying momentous success (Dooling & Lachman, 1971). Docsity.com Discourse  Influences: Reader knowledge.  Memory for text: How do you remember any individual event if all comprehension is done by scripts and schemas? ○ You don’t. ○ You remember the script/schema plus tags based on the unique situation. Docsity.com Discourse  Influences: Reader knowledge.  1/2 read the next passage: Docsity.com Discourse  Influences: Reader knowledge.  Gerald Martin strove to undermine the existing government to satisfy his political ambitions. Many of the people of the country supported his efforts. Current political problems made it relatively easy for Martin to take over. Certain groups remained loyal to the old government and caused Martin trouble. He confronted these groups directly and so silenced them. He became a ruthless, uncontrollable dictator. The ultimate effect of his rule was the downfall of his country (Sulin & Dooling, 1974). Docsity.com Discourse  Influences: Reader knowledge.  Was each sentence in the passage (T or F)?  He became a ruthless, uncontrollable dictator.  The participants in the experiment then returned a week later.  He was obsessed by the desire to conquer the world.  Many of the people of the country supported his efforts.  Some events were then included in a tape-recorded transcript.  He was an intelligent man, but had no sense of human kindness.  He hated the Jews particularly and so persecuted them.  He confronted these groups directly and so silenced them.  The operculum is the part at the top that maintains pressure.  The ultimate effect of his rule was the downfall of his country. Docsity.com Discourse  Influences: Reader knowledge.  As you can guess, people with the Hitler passage endorsed more of the Hitler relevant statements that hadn’t been presented, especially after some time had passed. Docsity.com Discourse  Influences: Reader knowledge.  Other forms of context.  If the balloons popped, the sound wouldn’t be able to carry, since everything would be too far away from the correct floor. A closed window would also prevent the sound from carrying. Since the whole operation depends on a steady flow of electricity, a break in the middle of the wire would also cause problems. Of course, the fellow could shout, but the human voice is not loud enough to carry that far. An additional problem is that a string could break on the instrument. Then there could be no accompaniment to the message. It is clear that the best situation would involve less distance. There would be fewer potential problems. Docsity.com