Psychology of Language

We investigated children's spelling in the alphasyllabic writing system of Kannada, a South Indian language. Kannada represents language at roughly the level of the syllable, but its symbols or 'akshara' can be segmented visually to reveal the consonant and vowel segments within. Having been taught akshara as whole, fourth-and fifth-grade children were poor at constructing complex akshara from their consonant and vowel segments. Analyses of their errors showed confusions between the symbols for phonologically similar consonants, visually based errors, particularly on small diacritic marks, and influences of dialect. Kannada has been considered a transparent writing system, but the challenges that arise in mastering this visuo-spatially complex and extensive orthography suggest that previous studies have missed certain factors that contribute to the ease or difficulty with which a writing system is learned.

This article presents some results of my investigation which began with a focus on that one sentence and evolved into a theory that presents an explanation for interpretation and, more importantly, misinterpretation. An appropriate interpretation is often a serious challenge. Misinterpretations can and have led to terrible consequences. A better understanding of misinterpretation may point to solutions and help avoid conflicts.
An amphoric sentence is one in which information is omitted from the overt structure but implied in the covert structure. Almost all sentences in connected writings are amphoric. Incomplete sentences, amphoric sentences, can be a major advantage. Language works efficiently because of its amphoric nature.  Amphoric sentences contribute to 1) efficiency, 2) openness, 3) creative interpretations.

L'objectif de cet article est de dresser un bilan des recherches relatives à la mise en place et au développement de la production de textes. Après une introduction générale définissant la production écrite et cernant ses contraintes, la première partie de cet article présente les différentes composantes rédactionnelles et l'accès à l'expertise, à travers les modèles de Berninger et Swanson (1994) et de Bereiter et Scardamalia (1987). Selon les auteurs de ces modèles, la progression développementale des compétences rédactionnelles relèverait de l'évolution, avec la pratique, des capacités de maintien et/ou de traitement de la mémoire de travail. De plus, ces modèles concernent chacun différentes périodes du développement : Alors que le premier rend compte de la mise en place et du développement des composantes rédactionnelles de formulation, révision et planification chez les enfants d'environ 6 à 10-11 ans, le second modèle s'intéresse au rédacteur de 9-10 à 15-16 ans. La seconde partie de cet article propose deux conceptions du développement des capacités de la MDT : l'une renvoie à la théorie de la capacité développée pour l'écrit par et l'autre fait intervenir une nouvelle instance mémorielle, la mémoire de travail à long terme . Ces deux conceptions analysent comment est envisagée l'augmentation des ressources en MDT et comment cet accroissement peut expliquer (1) l'interactivité progressive des processus rédactionnels et (2) l'accès à l'expertise rédactionnelle. La conclusion tente de montrer que l'une des dimensions centrale dans la mise en place des composantes et processus de la production de textes relève de l'automatisation de ceux-ci, libérant alors des ressources en MDT.

This study investigates the linguistic construction of psychological states in suicide notes through forensic linguistic profiling, using the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) tool. The research identifies how language reflects emotional distress and cognitive processes during writing by analyzing publicly available suicide notes. The study aims to examine what types of emotional and cognitive linguistic markers are most prevalent, to what extent these markers vary across individual notes, and how such variations can help interpret the underlying psychological condition of the writers. The analysis shows significant use of self-referential language, emotional tone shifts, and cognitive process words, highlighting patterns of self-focus, inner conflict, and reflective thinking. These findings demonstrate the potential of LIWC in quantifying psychological signals embedded in naturally occurring texts. The study offers implications for forensic profiling, psychological assessment, and suicide prevention, contributing a methodologically grounded approach to understanding the language of distress.

We develop a computational interpersonal affective response model for virtual characters that act as suspect in a serious game for training interviewing (interrogation) skills to police officers. We implemented a model that calculates the responses of the virtual suspect based on theory and observation. We describe the aspects of the move (question asked) by the police interviewer that we distinguish and how the suspect responses to the move. This response is dependent on static personality characteristics of the suspect character (persona) and on the dynamic state of the interaction. We evaluated it by means of our test, the "Guess who you are talking to?" test, showing the response model can portray a personality in a recognizable manner.

More than 50 years after the appearance of the motor theory of speech perception, it is timely to evaluate its three main claims that (1) speech processing is special, (2) perceiving speech is perceiving gestures, and (3) the motor system is recruited for perceiving speech. We argue that to the extent that it can be evaluated, the first claim is likely false. As for the second claim, we review findings that support it and argue that although each of these findings may be explained by alternative accounts, the claim provides a single coherent account. As for the third claim, we review findings in the literature that support it at different levels of generality and argue that the claim anticipated a theme that has become widespread in cognitive science.

In speech production, speakers need to activate and select appropriate lexico-syntactic features of words to plan grammatically correct sentences. While previous studies have focused on situations with a single grammatically correct option, Mandarin Chinese classifiers present a case where multiple options are correct. In this study, we asked native Mandarin Chinese speakers to name target pictures using a picture-word interference paradigm while recording EEG. Distractor words with varying degrees of classifier distribution similarity were superimposed while controlling for dominant classifier congruency. Distractors with dissimilar classifier distributions resulted in a more positive P600-like effect, but no behavioural effect was observed, compared to distractor nouns having similar classifier distributions. Based on this result, we propose that, when producing a bare noun, multiple compatible classifiers are activated at the lexical level with the degree of activation being determined by their corresponding compatibility with the given noun.

Danish and English are similar in many ways. Both are Germanic languages with deep orthographies. Both in Denmark and in the United States, reading and writing are usually taught through a variety of approaches such as phonics, whole word, and whole language. Because Danish orthography also shares some basic similarities with English, Danish children would be expected to acquire reading and writing skills in ways that are similar to those of English-speaking children. This is so in spite of the fact that Danish children do not receive formal instruction in reading until the age of 7 years. The available evidence summarized in this chapter suggests that initial reading and spelling development in Danish is indeed similar to that in English.

Theories of predictive processing postulate that the brain continuously generates predictions about future linguistic input. Many different linguistic elements have been found to function as predictive cues. One such element is classifiers, i.e., morphemes that classify noun referents according to some semantic property. However, very few studies have so far investigated the predictive function of classifiers, and all existing studies focus on major East Asian languages. The present study investigates whether listeners use classifiers as cues to following nouns in Baniwa (Arawakan, Northwestern Amazonia). Baniwa has a system of 53 classifiers that primarily encode physical shape. In a response time experiment, participants heard numeral-classifier-noun phrases and had to choose which one of two images depicted the noun. We tested two variables: informativity and degree of constraint. With respect to informativity, we found that response times were faster when the classifier could be used to identify the target image. With regard to degree of constraint, classifiers denoting shape yielded faster response times compared to the generic classifier. The results show that classifiers have a predictive function in Baniwa, and, by contributing data from a previously unexplored language family and geographical region, suggest that prediction may be a function of classifiers cross-linguistically.

This article provides a comprehensive analysis of Lipps’s seminal investigations on empathy and the aesthetics of language. After presenting Lipps’s theory of empathy, it discusses his research on the place of anthropomorphism in the experience of language, his investigations on the role of empathy in linguistic intercomprehension, his threefold model of empathizing with the linguistic object, and his narratological concept of the ideational ego of speech or literature. The article also offers a critical reassessment of Lipps’s ideas on empathy, language, and aesthetics, while highlighting their relevance in light of current historical, theoretical, and experimental research in the field.

A fundamental behaviour and essential first step in establishing interest, agreement, trust and beliefs is eye contact, which has also been referred to as 'touching somebody with your eyes'. Its importance is outlined somewhat by everyday phrases such as “I don't trust him; He won't even look me in the eye”. It is an important ability for a persuasive ECA establish backchannels with the other, to make eye contact properly, to be able to interpret the looking behaviours of others. By 'properly', we mean that eye contact should be engaged in the ...

The aim of this paper is to show a language-independent process of creating a new semantic relation between adjectives and nouns in wordnets. The existence of such a relation is expected to improve the detection of figurative language and sentiment analysis (SA). The proposed method uses an annotated corpus to explore the semantic knowledge contained in linguistic constructs performing as the rhetorical figure Simile. Based on the frequency of occurrence of similes in an annotated corpus, we propose a new relation, which connects the noun synset with the synset of an adjective representing that noun’s specific attribute. We elaborate on adding this new relation in the case of the Serbian WordNet (SWN). The proposed method is evaluated by human judgement in order to determine the relevance of automatically selected relation items. The evaluation has shown that 84% of the automatically selected and the most frequent linguistic constructs, whose frequency threshold was equal to 3, were...

This independent cross-cultural survey explores which emotionally vulnerable phrases people find hardest to say—and why. Drawing from over 250 global responses collected through Google Forms and shared across psychology and research-oriented Reddit communities, the study analyzes linguistic and emotional resistance to expressions such as “I need help,” “I’m sorry,” “I was wrong,” “I do care,” and “I don’t know.” Findings reveal recurring themes of shame, trauma, ego, and cultural conditioning influencing verbal vulnerability. The project integrates qualitative and quantitative insights to examine patterns across gender, age, education, and cultural background. Originally conducted in August 2025, the ongoing research continues to expand monthly, with the latest update published on October 5th, 2025 (266 responses to date). This paper aims to contribute to broader conversations on emotional literacy, psychological defense mechanisms, and the relationship between language and vulnerability.

We present a speeded production study of the English past tense that is designed to evaluate between conflicting theories of the mechanism of verb inflection. Test items are verbs that systematically differ in regularity but also in overall ease of processing as defined by a number of statistical and distributional factors. We show that overall ease, but not regularity, predicts differences in the response latencies of produced past tense forms in adults. These results indicate that the processing of inflections is best explained by a ...

There is mounting evidence that the ease of producing and understanding language depends not only on the frequencies of individual words but also on the frequencies of word combinations. However, in two picture description experiments, Janssen and Barber (2012) found that French and Spanish speakers' speech onset latencies for short phrases depended exclusively on the frequencies of the phrases but not on the frequencies of the individual words. They suggested that speakers retrieved phrase-sized units from the mental lexicon. In the present study, we examined whether the time required to plan complex noun phrases in Dutch would likewise depend only on phrase frequencies. Participants described line drawings in phrases such as rode schoen [red shoe] (Experiments 1 and 2) or de rode schoen [the red shoe] (Experiment 3). Replicating Janssen and Barber's findings, utterance onset latencies depended on the frequencies of the phrases but, deviating from their findings, also depended on the frequencies of the adjectives in adjective-noun phrases and the frequencies of the nouns in determiner-adjective-noun phrases. We conclude that individual word frequencies and phrase frequencies both affect the time needed to produce noun phrases and discuss how these findings may be captured in models of the mental lexicon and of phrase production.

Disqualification is vague, tangential, nonstraightforward communication. Previous research had shown that the disqualified speech of subjects who were role-playing politicians was the product of an avoidance-avoidance conflict. In the present field 'experiment, two groups of ...

The present study investigates the developmental trajectory of abstract representations for syntactic structures in children. In a structural priming experiment on the dative alternation in German, we primed children from three different age groups (3–4 years, 5–6 years, 7–8 years) and adults with double object datives (Dora sent Boots the rabbit) or prepositional object datives (Dora sent the rabbit to Boots). Importantly, the prepositional object structure in German is dispreferred and only rarely encountered by young children. While immediate as well as cumulative structural priming effects occurred across all age groups, these effects were strongest in the 3- to 4-year-old group and gradually decreased with increasing age. These results suggest that representations in young children are less stable than in adults and, therefore, more susceptible to adaptation both immediately and across time, presumably due to stronger surprisal. Lexical boost effects, in contrast, were not present in 3- to 4 year-olds but gradually emerged with increasing age, possibly due to limited working-memory capacity in the younger child groups.

The present study provides a descriptive and comparative analysis of the acoustic space and formant patterns of vowels in Maithili and Angika. Angika is traditionally regarded as a variety of Maithili (Jha, 1958). The concept of acoustic space serves as an effective tool for objectively determining the vowel inventory and articulatory dispersion in a given language. Moreover, it allows for a critical examination of phonological frameworks such as Dispersion Theory and Quantal Theory. Speech data were collected from twenty native speakers in the Speech and Language Laboratory at Jawaharlal Nehru University, ensuring controlled recording conditions and consistency across samples. The results indicate that the formant frequencies (F1 and F2) and the acoustic vowel spaces of Maithili and Angika exhibit significant differences. Specifically, the Maithili vowel system displays higher formant frequency values and a larger acoustic space compared to Angika. These findings diverge from Jha's (2001) earlier observations concerning the relative positioning of vowels and their formant values. The study concludes with a re-evaluation of Jha’s claims in light of the current acoustic evidence.

The current study examines in detail effects of stress, final segments, and vowel-quality on syllable counts of bisyllabic English words by Koreans. Proportionally more words are judged as bisyllabic when words have a stress on the first syllable than when words have a stress on the second syllable. In addition, word-final stops often induce a vowel insertion at the end of words resulting in increase of syllable counts while sonorous final segments such as nasals and liquids tend not to. Finally, compared to lax or tense vowels, word-final diphthongs tend to be counted as two separate vowels by Korean speakers.

Different speakers produce speech sounds differently. The phonetic context is known to facilitate the recovering of phonological categories from productions with talker variation. However, whether the context effect originates from central auditory processing or speech-related processing remains debated. It is worth noting that the context effect may be a combined effect, contributed by both auditory and speech-related processing. To investigate this question, we compared the effect of four types of contexts with incrementally more cues (nonspeech, reversed speech, meaningless speech and meaningful speech) on perception of Cantonese level tones. Results indicate that the context effect is a product of multiple levels of processing, with the primary contribution from phonological cues (meaningless speech context). The contribution of auditory cues is negligible, and that of phonetic cues and semantic+syntactic cues is both moderate. Phonological cues likely enable listeners to calibrate the acoustic-to-phonological mapping of speech sounds for each talker, facilitating the categorization.

Adults often learn to spell words during the course of reading for meaning, without intending to do so. We used an incidental learning task in order to study this process. Spellings that contained double n, r and t which are common doublets in French, were learned more readily by French university students than spellings that contained less common but still legal doublets. When recalling or recognizing the latter, the students sometimes made transposition errors, doubling a consonant that often doubles in French rather than the consonant that was originally doubled (e.g., tiddunar recalled as tidunnar). The results, found in three experiments using different nonwords and different types of instructions, show that people use general knowledge about the graphotactic patterns of their writing system together with word-specific knowledge to reconstruct spellings that they learn from reading. These processes contribute to failures and successes in memory for spellings, as in other domains.

Two experiments investigated whether and how the learning of spellings by French third graders is influenced by two graphotactic patterns: consonants cannot double in word-initial position (Experiment 1) and consonants cannot double after single consonants (Experiment 2). Children silently read meaningful texts that contained three types of novel spellings: no doublet (e.g., mupile, guprane), doublet in a legal position (e.g., muppile, gupprane), and doublet in an illegal position (e.g., mmupile, guprrane). Orthographic learning was assessed with a task of spelling to dictation. In both experiments, children recalled items without doublets better than items with doublets. In Experiment 1, children recalled spellings with a doublet in illegal word-initial position better than spellings with a doublet in legal word-medial position, and almost all misspellings involved the omission of the doublet. The fact that the graphotactic violation in an item like mmupile was in the salient initial position may explain why children often remembered both the presence and the position of the doublet. In Experiment 2, children recalled non-words with a doublet before a single consonant (legal, e.g., gupprane) better than those with a doublet after a single consonant (illegal, e.g., guprrane). Omission of the doublet was the most frequent error for both types of items. Children also made some transposition errors on items with a doublet after a single consonant, recalling for example gupprane instead of guprrane. These results suggest that, when a doublet is in the hard-to-remember medial position, children sometimes remember that an item contains a doublet but not which letter is doubled. Their knowledge that double consonants can occur before but not after single consonants leads to transposition errors on items like guprrane. These results shed new light on the conditions under which children use general knowledge about the graphotactic patterns of their writing system to reconstruct spellings.

The question whether compound words are stored in our mental lexicon in a decomposed or full-listing way prompted Janssen and colleagues (2008) to investigate the representation of compounds using word and morpheme frequencies manipulations. Our study replicated their study using a new set of stimuli from a spoken corpus and incorporating EEG data for a more detailed investigation. In the current study, despite ERP analyses revealing no word frequency or morpheme frequency effects across conditions, behavioral outcomes indicated that Mandarin compounds are not sensitive to word frequency. Instead, the response times highlighted a morpheme frequency effect in naming Mandarin compounds, which contrasted with the findings of Janssen and colleagues. These findings challenge the full-listing model and instead support the decompositional model.

This study investigates the role of morphology during speech planning in Mandarin Chinese. In a long-lag priming experiment, thirty-two Mandarin Chinese native speakers were asked to name target pictures (e.g., "山" /shan1/ "mountain"). The design involved pictures referring to morpheme-related compound words (e.g., "山羊" /shan1yang2/ "goat") sharing a morpheme with the first (e.g., "山" /shan1/ "mountain") or the second position of the targets (e.g., 脑 /nao3/ "brain" with prime电脑 /dian4nao3/ "computer"), as well as unrelated control items. Behavioral and electrophysiological data were collected. Interestingly, the behavioral results went against earlier findings in Indo-European languages, showing that the target picture naming was not facilitated by morphologically related primes. This suggests no morphological priming for individual constituents in producing Mandarin Chinese disyllabic compound words. However, targets in the morpheme-related word condition did elicit a reduced N400 compared with targets in the morpheme-unrelated condition for the first position overlap in the ERP analyses but not for the second, suggesting automatic activation of the first individual constituent in noun compound production. Implications of these findings are discussed.

Is the peak or vowel nucleus of an English syllable more closely linked to the phonemes that come after it (the coda) than to the phonemes that come before it (the onset)? Although many linguists claim that the peak and coda form a constituent (the rime) , others disagree, citing co-occurrence restrictions between the onset and the following phonemes within a syllable. Experiment I found that people rated syllables that violated certain proposed constraints between the onset and following phonemes as less acceptable than syllables that conformed to the constraints. However, Experiment 2 found that people nevertheless grouped the peak with the coda in a blending task, supporting the idea that syllables have an onset/ rime structure.

Do errors in short-term memory for spoken stimuli sometimes combine one syllable from one to-be-remembered item with one syllable from another to-be-remembered item? If so, can the errors shed light on how the stimuli are syllabified? We report three experiments in which college students tried to recall five-item lists containing two CVCVC (consonant-vowel-consonant-vowel-consonant) nonwords and three filler digits. When the second vowel of the nonword was stressed, recombination errors tended to blend the initial CV of one nonword with the final CVC of another, especially if the middle consonant was an obstruent. When the first vowel was stressed, the error pattern depended on the type of vowel. CV/CVC recombinations were more common for tense vowels than for lax vowels. In general, CV/CVC recombinations tended to be more frequent relative to CVC/VC recombinations when the middle consonant was an obstruent than when it was a sonorant. The findings are discussed in relation to lingu...

Language learning has been a subject of extensive debate, leading to the development of various theories. Among them, behaviorism and mentalism present two distinct perspectives. Behaviorism emphasizes external stimuli, reinforcement, and habit formation, while mentalism focuses on innate cognitive abilities and internal processing. Despite their theoretical differences, both approaches offer valuable insights into language acquisition. This paper explores the complementary nature of behaviorism and mentalism, arguing that integrating both perspectives provides a more comprehensive understanding of language learning.

This study investigates the nostalgic aspects of Frederic Leighton's Arab Hall. Through analysis of the room and collection, the aim is to identify how the nostalgic feelings are visualized in the hall and what this might say about the nostalgic meaning. Arab Hall serves to function as beautiful surroundings for Leighton's significant collection of middle--eastern ornament, especially tile works from the 16 th and 17 th century. The hall is created as an Arabic scene, inspired by the Sicilian palace La Zisa, and Moorish architecture and is therefore not just a display case of exclusive and exotic souvenirs, but provides a context to the collection. This context creates an impression of an escapist dream, placed in London, but longing for the East. The theoretical approach to the nostalgic aspects of Arab Hall is founded in Susan Stewarts On longing, where the nostalgic longing is attached to objects, and these objects then portrays a fragment of a whole: a desired, but always imaginary place, created within. A part of the study is therefore also applied to Jean Baudrillard's ideas of simulacra and the hyperreal, a world that exists as a representation with no references. The study leads to a discussion of the nostalgic aspects in Arab Hall and concludes that imaginary qualities are essential in order to create nostalgic feelings in physical space. Arab Hall's many symbols and dreamy atmosphere may create an individual nostalgia, which looks for sincerity, beauty and spirituality, more than a nostalgic interpretation of the East as a geographical place.

My project is an instruction manual entitled My Book of Sounds for Reading. It describes in detail how to teach the sounds of letters that make two or more sounds. It is accompanied by a workbook where children will be able to write the letters that represent the sounds. They will hear the sounds from their instructor and repeat the sounds. This manual can be used by teachers, parents, homeschoolers and anyone interested in helping children who are struggling to learn to read. It's an excellent intervention tool to help raise reading levels and can be used along with other curriculum that teaches the basic sounds of the letters in the English alphabet, and it may be used to teach children in grade levels from Kindergarten through 8 th grade.

Hypotheses v In comparison to non-speech-related vocalization, infant’s amount of speech-related vocalization will increase with age. vMothers will respond more to speech-related vocalizations regardless of infants’ age (in comparison to non-speech-related ones). vMothers reactions to speech-related vocalizations will be quicker regardless of infants’ age (in comparison to non-speech-related ones).

Статья посвящена научноиD деятельности доктора филологических наук, профессора Евгения Фёдоровича Тарасова (1935–2024), выдающегося лингвиста и исследователя, чьи труды оказали значительное влияние на развитие этнопсихолингвистики и организационноиD психолингвистики. В статье анализируются ранние публикации Е.Ф. Тарасова, в которых он исследует национально-культурную специфику языковой коммуникации, взаимодействие речевых и неречевых компонентов, а также роль языка в когнитивных процессах. Особое внимание уделяется его попыткам синтезировать теорию речевых действий с философией языка, включая идеи Л.С. Выготского, А.А. Леонтьева и неогумбольдтианцев. Хотя работы Е.Ф. Тарасова тех лет и были адаптированы к господствующей в СССР идеологии, они содержат оригинальные концептуальные подходы, такие, как исследование «поля значений» и его соотношения с «полем смыслов», интерпретация социальных ролей в коммуникации. Эти идеи легли в основу новых направлений психолингвистики и продолжают вдохновлять современных исследователей. Автор делится воспоминаниями о совместной работе и дискуссиях с Евгением Фёдоровичем, акцентируя внимание на его интерпретации идей неогумбольдтианцев и влиянии классических трудов на его взгляды. Статья также описывает яркие эпизоды из жизни замечательного лингвиста, которые иллюстрируют его человечность и юмор, дополняя образ выдающегося учёного. /
The article is dedicated to the academic work of Evgeniy Fyodorovich Tarasov (1935–2024), Doctor of Philological Sciences, Senior Professor, a distinguished linguist and researcher whose works significantly influenced the development of ethnopsycholinguistics and organizational psycholinguistics. It analyzes E.F. Tarasov's early publications that explore the national and cultural specifics of linguistic communication, the interaction between verbal and non-verbal components, and the role of language in cognitive processes. Special attention is given to his attempts to synthesize the theory of speech acts with the philosophy of language, incorporating ideas by L.S. Vygotsky, A.A. Leontiev, and the Neo-Humboldtians. Although his works of that time were adapted to the prevailing ideology in the USSR, they contained original conceptual approaches, such as the study of the "field of meanings" and its relationship to the "field of senses," as well as the interpretation of social roles in communication. These ideas formed the foundation for new directions in psycholinguistics and continue to inspire contemporary researchers. The author shares memories of collaborative work and discussions with Evgeniy Tarasov, emphasizing his interpretation of Neo-Humboldtian ideas and the influence of classical works on his perspectives. The article also describes vivid episodes from this remarkable linguist’s life, illustrating his humanity and sense of humor, complementing the portrait of an outstanding scholar.

DOCUMENT RESUME FL 021 148 Heltoft, Lars; Geist, Uwe Relevans og intention. To analyser of en massemedietekst om okonomisk politik. ROLIG-papir 33 (Relevance and Intention. Two Analyses of a Mass Media Text on Economic Politics. ROLIG-paper 33).