This course is a general introduction to psycholinguistics. It covers areas such as speech perception, word recognition, lexical ambiguity, sentence comprehension, sentence production, and discourse processing. We'll look at how language behavior illuminates our understanding of the mind and the brain, and how properties of the mind and brain influence human language. You'll learn something about the nature of language, how it is used, how our language skills develop, and how they can be impaired.
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.
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.
Ling 102
Ling 320
Psy 100
Consent of the instructor
Traxler, M. (2011/2023). Introduction to Psycholinguistics: Understanding Language Science. Wiley. (book website for Second edition)
Part of a major in Linguistics through the Interdisciplinary Studies Program.
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.
Language Analysis and Experimentation Labs (LAE Labs)
Vowels and Consonants - online material
Recordings of the same paragraph by multiple speakers, with IPA transcription
Interactive mid-sagittal section
Mid-sagittal speech videos (USC)
Sivu music video with mid-sagittal speech
Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA)
IRIS database of instruments used in bilingualism research
WordNet (lexical database of English with sense relations)
The Language Goldmine (links to many databases and datasets)
EsPal (Spanish database, includes word frequency)
IRIS database of instruments used in bilingualism research
Sebastiaan Mathot's list of image sets (and more; some links out of date)
GoogleScholar with UH login (for full-text accesss to subscribed journals)
UH Manoa Library (tip: filter by "Peer-reviewed Journals" under "Availability")
Short science briefs (with transcripts)
American Psychological Association (APA) style (reference examples)
Purdue Online Writing Lab info on APA style
Excelsior Online Writing Lab info on APA style
Avoiding Plagiarism (Purdue Online Writing Lab)
Classroom equipment & equipment pools
Center for Language & Technology
Language Analysis and Experimentation Labs (LAE Labs)
Loanable Technology Devices at Hamilton Library
UH Student Conduct Code (Academic Honesty Policy)
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.
See course Ling 640Y , or contact Professor Schafer.