Introduction to Cognitive Psychology - Department of Psychological ...

Professor Greg Francis 8/14/12WordsGrammarPSY 200Greg FrancisThe rules of phrases rules for combining phrases universals for all languagesLecture 28What is the plural of walkman?So why do we have so difficult a timecommunicating with people that speak otherlanguages?Purdue UniversityPurdue UniversityWordsWords are specialEven if all languages have similarrules for combining phrases, they usedifferent wordsWords are symbols that are arbitraryin many respectsWe are better at identifying a word thanan individual letter Word superiority effect--?-E or L--?-E or L dog is nothing like a dog is it rote memorization?» partly, but it is also more than thatLXXXXFELTXXXXPurdue UniversityPurdue UniversityWords are specialNote: context does not give the answer Just knowing there was a word should not help FEET FELTLXXXX--?-E or LFELTXXXXPurdue University--?-E or LWords are specialNevertheless, a letter in a word is better identifiedCogLab class data Results are based on data from 155 participants" Condition ! !Percent correct detections" Target letter in a word "67.4" Target letter in isolation "66.7"CogLab global data" Results are based on data from 39,489 participants" Condition ! !Percent correct detections" Target letter in a word "77.2" Target letter in isolation "76.0"No convincing explanationPurdue UniversityPSY 200: Intro. to Cognitive Psychology 1