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Psycholinguistics: A bibliography

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 OXFORD BIBLIOGRAPHIES IN PSYCHOLOGY
“PSYCHOLINGUISTICS”
By Shelia M. Kennison and Rachel H. Messer
© Oxford University Press
Not for distribution. For permissions, please email [email protected].
Introduction
General Overviews
Language Processing
Language Comprehension
Phonology
Morphology
Syntax
Language Production
Message and Grammatical Encoding
Phonological Encoding
Conversation
Figurative Language Processing
Processing Across Languages
Language Disorders
Human Language Acquisition
Bilingualism/Second Language Acquisition
Methods of Psycholinguistic Research

Introduction

Psycholinguistics is the field of study in which researchers investigate the

psychological processes involved in the use of language, including language
comprehension, language production, and first and second language acquisition. The
field is interdisciplinary, with contributions from psychology, linguistics, cognitive
science, philosophy, anthropology, and neuroscience. Modern psycholinguistic study
originated with Chomsky’s review of B.F. Skinner’s book Verbal Behavior (1957)
(see Chomsky 1959, cited under Language Processing), which detailed how language
is acquired from a behaviorist perspective. Chomsky claimed that behaviorist
principles were not enough to account for language acquisition or for higher order
mental processes in general. The work of Skinner and Chomsky introduced a long-
standing debate regarding the degree to which language is acquired through innate
faculties, and the role that environmental input plays in language acquisition.
Currently, cognitive neuroscience has enabled further understanding of the role of
language in human experience through brain imaging and other technological
advances. This article will focus on the major areas of psycholinguistics and will
showcase both classic and contemporary resources to facilitate further understanding
of this complex and fascinating area of cognitive science.

General Overviews

Since its rise in the 1960s, the study of psycholinguistics, despite being a subspecialty
within the broader field of cognitive science, has involved a wide range of topics. The
history of psycholinguistics as a field of study has been detailed by several authors.
Altmann 2001 constitutes a history article detailing early founders of
psycholinguistics as well as major findings in the field. The article includes in-depth
information about major players in early psycholinguistics as well as sections about
language in infancy, spoken and written word recognition, meaning, and future
directions in the field. Concerning the interdisciplinary nature of psycholinguistics,
debate has been ongoing about how the melding of psychology, linguistics, and other
fields has historically been characterized by a “crossing of boundaries” between
disciplines (Blumenthal 1987). Abrahamsen 1987 responds to claims set forth in
Blumenthal 1987 that psycholinguistics is inherently full of unneeded boundary
issues and asserts that psycholinguistics is a role model for other cross-disciplinary
fields. Both articles also provide histories of some of the disciplines contributing to
psycholinguistics. Cutler 2005 also includes commentary on the interdisciplinary
nature of psycholinguistics and more general information about the study of
psycholinguistics. For a longer history and more detailed discussion of methodology,
Spivey, et al. 2012 is an informative handbook in psycholinguistics that details theory
and research methods in psycholinguistics and provides several color diagrams,
graphs, and brain scan images. Most of this article focuses on aspects of language
processing, and Clifton and Duffy 2001 is a useful review for theoretical backgrounds
and classical experiments in language comprehension and production. Two other
useful textbooks are Fernández and Cairns 2010 and Harley 2008, which both provide
extensive background information on psycholinguistic study and language
acquisition.

Abrahamsen, Adele. 1987. Bridging boundaries versus breaking boundaries:

Psycholinguistics in perspective. In Special issue: Psycholinguistics as a case of
cross-disciplinary research. Guest edited by William Bechtel. Synthese 72.3: 355–
388.

This article gives a brief history of psycholinguistics and responds to

Blumenthal’s comments within the same issue regarding difficulties in
psycholinguistics’ crossing of disciplines.

Altmann, Gerry. 2001. The language machine: Psycholinguistics in review. British

Journal of Psychology 92.1: 129–170.

This article serves as a fitting historical piece for anyone interested in the
background to psycholinguistics as well as the history behind major
contributors to the field in its early days.

Blumenthal, Arthur. 1987. The emergence of psycholinguistics. In Special issue:

Psycholinguistics as a case of cross-disciplinary research. Guest edited by William
Bechtel. Synthese 72.3: 313–323.

This article discusses the back-and-forth difficulties experienced by the

separate fields of psychology and linguistics as they formed the field of
psycholinguistics.
Clifton, Charles, Jr., and Susan A. Duffy. 2001. Sentence and text comprehension:
Roles of linguistic structure. Annual Review of Psychology 52:167–196.

This review contains many citations regarding linguistic structure, such as

works on the role of prosody, semantics, and memory.

Cutler, Anne, ed. 2005. Twenty-first century psycholinguistics: Four cornerstones.

Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

This book provides information about the interdisciplinary development of

psycholinguistics as well as sections on biology associated with
psycholinguistic ability and methodology.

Fernández, Eva M., and Helen Smith Cairns. 2010. Fundamentals of

psycholinguistics. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

This text provides an overview of psycholinguistics, including first and

second language acquisition. It also provides information about the biological
bases of language processing.

Harley, Trevor A. 2008. The psychology of language: From data to theory. 3d ed.
Hove, UK: Psychology Press.

This textbook includes information on speech production and comprehension

in children and adults. It also provides an entertaining developmental
perspective on language acquisition.

Spivey, Michael, Ken McRae, and Marc Joanisse. 2012. The Cambridge handbook of
psycholinguistics. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.

This handbook is useful for those interested in psycholinguistics during

college and graduate school as well as for faculty. It includes information
about theory and methods as well as background on the field, on modern
methods such as brain scanning, and on future directions in research.

Language Processing

Research in psycholinguistics has produced several theories of how human beings

process language. Noam Chomsky (see Chomsky 1959), as well as Eric Lenneberg,
claimed that language ability is seated in innate capacities and that evolution of
mental processes has enabled the sophisticated use of language. Later researchers,
such as Steven Pinker, emphasized the evolution of language ability through the
nativist view. MacWhinney and Bates 1989 introduces the competition model, which
asserts that linguistic cues (e.g., morphology and syntax) enable language processing.
Processing is carried out through weights on linguistic cues that provide probabilistic
information about meaning. The model rests on learning principles. Rumelhart, et al.
1986 argues that a connectionist model, also known as the parallel distribution model
or the neural network approach, could simulate language learning. This model is
characterized by units of linguistic information that vary between inhibitory and
excitatory activation during language use. The units are joined by weighted
connections based on linguistic properties and abstractly represent activation of
neuronal networks in the brain. Frazier 1990 asserts that the language processing
system is composed of specialized modules, which operate independently, while
providing information to each other over the time course of processing. Kintsch 1988
and Ratcliff and McKoon 1988 propose “word-by-word” models of language
processing, often called parallel-processing theories. That is, each individual word is
processed by itself and concepts associated with a word are activated before being
integrated into a larger context. According to these theories, all possible concepts
associated with a word, even those that are not relevant to the current context, are
activated each time that word is encountered. A filtering process takes place that
clarifies which associations are needed for that particular instance. Other theories of
processing state that as language is processed, it integrates with past linguistic
information that has already been encountered and forms meaning by linking together
past and current input (Frazier and Rayner 1982). MacDonald, et al. 1994 claims that
the same knowledge representations are accessed when attempting to resolve both
lexical and syntactic ambiguities. In this integrated theory, similarities in the
processing of both types of ambiguities are cited.

Chomsky, Noam. 1959. A review of Skinner’s Verbal Behavior. Language 35:26–58.

This review is cited as the birth of the modern debate between nativist and
behaviorist language acquisition theories. It critiques Skinner’s account of
behaviorism as the mechanism for language learning.

Frazier, Lyn. 1990. Exploring the architecture of the language-processing system. In

Cognitive models of speech processing: Psycholinguistic and computational
perspectives. Edited by Gerry T. M. Altmann, 409–433. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

This chapter outlines an approach that builds on Fodor’s modular theory. It

provides an input-output conceptualization of processing.

Frazier, Lyn, and Keith Rayner. 1982. Making and correcting errors during sentence
comprehension: Eye movements in the analysis of structurally ambiguous sentences.
Cognitive Psychology 14:178–210.

This article provides information about garden-path theories and the

construction of garden-path sentences. It also provides data on how eye
movements can be used to track processing of garden-path sentences.

Kintsch, Walter. 1988. The role of knowledge in discourse comprehension: A

construction-integration model. Psychological Review 95.2: 163–182.
 This article describes a word-by-word model of language processing that
disregards the context in which a word occurs. Later mechanisms solidify
relevant associations with each word to form meaning within context.

MacDonald, Maryellen C., Neal J. Pearlmutter, and Mark S. Seidenberg. 1994.

Lexical nature of syntactic ambiguity resolution. Psychological Review 101:676–703.

This article details ambiguity resolution during sentence processing. The

theory presented claims that both lexical and syntactic ambiguities are
resolved through the same mechanisms.

MacWhinney, Brian, and Elizabeth Bates, eds. 1989. The cross-linguistic study of
sentence processing. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.

This book describes the competition model of processing. It also details

application of the model to cross-linguistic study.

Ratcliff, Roger, and Gail McKoon. 1988. A retrieval theory of priming in memory.
Psychological Review 95.3: 385–408.

This article details an individual word theory of language processing and how
individual words are eventually integrated into a larger context.

Rumelhart, David E., James L. McClelland, and the PDP Research Group. 1986.
Parallel distributed processing: Explorations in the microstructure of cognition. Vol.
1, Foundations. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

This volume is one of two describing the connectionist model of processing. It

also discusses mechanisms behind activation theories of processing, such as
the connectionist model.

Language Comprehension

Comprehended language is called receptive language, whereas produced language is

known as expressive language. Language comprehension is known to precede
language production developmentally (Huttenlocher 1974). Children are normally
able to comprehend what they hear before they are able to reproduce language
sounds. A major area of study in language comprehension is that of spoken language
comprehension. Treiman, et al. 2003 provides theories of spoken language
comprehension and how single-word theories have evolved, including modular,
parallel, and dual-route processing of words. The chapter also includes a brief
background of the building blocks of language, phonemes and morphemes. Later in
the chapter, sentence processing is also discussed. Tanenhaus, et al. 1995 details how
visual context can help the comprehension of spoken language and notes that
individuals use visual context very early in processing speech. Another major area is
written language comprehension. Just and Carpenter 1987 details basic reading
processing theories and explains the higher processes associated with integrating
visual and verbal information. Rayner, et al. 2011 reviews psychological processes
behind reading as well as an interesting history of writing systems around the world.
The book also explains visual system activity during reading and concepts such as
speed-reading and individual differences in reading ability. Carreiras and Clifton
2004 details online sentence comprehension through multiple methodologies,
including eye-tracking and ERP. Treiman, et al. 2003 also provides information about
written language comprehension, including sections on resolving ambiguity in
garden-path sentences. An example of a garden-path sentence provided in Sturt, et al.
1999 is: “Before the woman visited the famous doctor had been drinking quite a lot.”
Upon reading the sentence, one tends to think that “the famous doctor” is the direct
object; during sentence reanalysis, a different meaning may be ascertained. Both
Treiman, et al. 2003 and Sturt, et al. 1999 describe theories of ambiguity resolution in
sentence reanalysis, including structural change theories.

Carreiras, Manuel, and Charles Clifton Jr. 2004. The on-line study of sentence
comprehension: Eyetracking, ERPs, and beyond. New York: Psychology Press.

This book provides data from multiple methodologies in order to characterize

the nature of sentence comprehension.

Huttenlocher, Janellen. 1974. The origins of language comprehension. In Theories in

cognitive psychology: The Loyola Symposium. Edited by Robert L. Solso, 331–368.
Potomac, MD: Lawrence Erlbaum.

This article presents longitudinal data on infants aged ten to eighteen months
and demonstrates that receptive language precedes expressive language.

Just, Marcel Adam, and Patricia Ann Carpenter. 1987. The psychology of reading and
language comprehension. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

This book gives background information about how linguistic information is

comprehended through reading processes. It also provides information about
how visual information can affect comprehension.

Rayner, Keith, Alexander Pollatsek, Jane Ashby, and Charles Clifton Jr. 2011.
Psychology of reading. 2d ed. Hove, UK: Psychology Press.

This is the second edition of the original text on the psychology of reading
published in 1989. It includes two new co-authors’ perspectives and
information on additional methods.

Sturt, Patrick, Martin J. Pickering, and Matthew W. Crocker. 1999. Structural change
and reanalysis difficulty in language comprehension. Journal of Memory and
Language 40:136–150.
 The article gives in-depth information about garden-path sentences as well as
tree diagrams outlining sentence processing.

Tanenhaus, Michael K., Michael J. Spivey-Knowlton, Kathleen M. Ebrehard, and

Julie C. Sedivy. 1995. Integration of visual and linguistic information in spoken
language comprehension. Science 268.5217: 1632–1634.

The article presents evidence that spoken language is processed with aid from
the visual context in which it occurs. Methods used include eye movement to
track use of the visual context.

Treiman, Rebecca, Charles Clifton Jr., Antje S. Meyer, and Lee H. Wurm. 2003.
Psycholinguistics: Language comprehension and production. In Experimental
psychology. Comprehensive handbook of psychology 4. Edited by Alice F. Healy and
Robert W. Proctor, 527–548. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

The chapter is an excellent source of the major processes and theories behind
language comprehension and production. It also includes information about
concepts underlying language.

Phonology

The role of phonology in language comprehension is an important aspect of

processing. A main area of discussion within the subfield of comprehension has been
the influence of phonological representations during reading. Van Orden 1987
presents evidence that even skilled reading (i.e., reading at an expert level) is
constrained by phonology in word identification. The study demonstrates that during
skilled reading, readers could be influenced to identify homophones of semantically
related words as semantically related words themselves. These results were not
influenced by word frequency of the target homophones (see also Lesch and Pollatsek
1998). On the contrary, Seidenberg 1985 postulates that skilled readers can usually
disregard phonology in the reading process and that phonological representation is
available as a back-up method of comprehension when needed. Another aspect of
phonological comprehension that has been investigated is lexical stress. Lexical stress
refers to prosody, or the emphasis put on various syllables of a word. Ashby and
Clifton 2005 uses eye movement recordings to examine readers’ fixation durations
for words with either one or two stressed syllables. The authors found that lexical
stress is carried out during silent reading, with longer fixations spent on words with
two stressed syllables than those with one stressed syllable. Another novel method
that has been utilized to examine phonological influence on reading is that of visual
tongue-twisters. Visual tongue-twisters involve reading words with a repetitive first
phoneme. The design can be useful in investigating whether silently reading words
with the repetitive first phoneme can produce longer reading times, just as a tongue-
twister would if read aloud. McCutchen and Perfetti 1982 found that silent reading of
these this type of sentence results in longer reading times than control sentences,
indicating that phonological activation occurs even during silent reading. Zhang and
Perfetti 1993 finds similar results in Chinese, with both oral and silently read tongue-
twisters resulting in longer reading times than sentences not containing tongue-
twisters. Results of the tongue-twister studies suggest automatic activation of
phonological representations during reading.

Ashby, Jane, and Charles Clifton Jr. 2005. The prosodic property of lexical stress
affects eye movements during silent reading. Cognition 96.3: B89–B100.

This article provides empirical evidence that words with more stressed
syllables take longer to read during silent reading. Eye movement fixations
also reflect longer time spent processing words with more stressed syllables,
as opposed to words with fewer stressed syllables.

Lesch, Mary F., and Alexander Pollatsek. 1998. Evidence for the use of assembled
phonology in accessing the meaning of printed words. Journal of Experimental
Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 24.3: 573–592.

This article investigates the extent to which phonological coding occurs

during reading. It postulates that assembled phonology contributes to word
recognition in the comprehension of written text.

McCutchen, Deborah, and Charles A. Perfetti. 1982. The visual tongue-twister effect:
Phonological activation in silent reading. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal
Behavior 21:672–687.

The article presents evidence for automatic activation of phonological

representations. A visual tongue-twister design was utilized and provides
evidence that phonologically similar phrasing produces longer reading times.

Seidenberg, Mark S. 1985. The time course of information activation and utilization
in visual word recognition. In Reading research: Advances in theory and practice.
Vol. 5. Edited by D. Besner, T. G. Waller, and G. E. Mackinnon, 199–252. Orlando,
FL: Academic Press.

This chapter outlines arguments as to why phonological representations are

not accessed as important contributions to skilled reading.

van Orden, Guy C. 1987. A ROWS is a ROSE: Spelling, sound, and reading. Memory
& Cognition 15:181–198.

This article presents evidence that visual word recognition does involve some
identification of phonological features during skilled reading, mainly through
the use of homophony. Word frequency as it relates to phonological
representation is also investigated.
Zhang, Sulan, and Charles A. Perfetti. 1993. The tongue-twister effect in reading
Chinese. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition
19:1082–1093.

The article aims to mimic visual tongue-twister effects in English with written
Chinese text. The studies show that tongue-twister effects act on both oral and
silent reading, with repetition of initial phonemes producing longer reading
times in both testing scenarios.

Morphology

It has been argued that the processing of morphological information takes place at
one of two time points during comprehension. The first is that the morphemes that
make up words are segmented before a word is even accessed in memory. The second
is that the morphological information contained within a word is processed as a whole
word unit, without prior segmentation. Lima 1987 is based on an eye movement study
in which participants read words that had either real or pseudo prefixes (“revive”
versus “rescue,” respectively). Results showed that participants had longer fixation
times for words with pseudo prefixes than for words with real prefixes. The study
suggests that morphemes such as prefixes are separated from other morphemes in a
word prior to lexical access, as indicated by a longer fixation time for a word such as
“rescue” compared to a word with a real prefix such as “revive” (see Järvikivi, et al.
2009 for similar results in Finnish and Velan and Frost 2011 for a study in Hebrew).
In another Finnish study, Pollatsek, et al. 2011 shows that words with novel first
constituents (i.e., beginning morphemes) had longer fixation times than the first
constituents in words already lexicalized, indicating early breakdown of morphology.
Alternatively, Juhasz 2012 presents eye movement evidence that morphological
breakdown during comprehension is affected not just by the nature of the
morphological segments, but also by the context of the sentence. In the study,
sentence context was manipulated by either including words predictive of the target
word or including words early in the sentence that were neutral in comparison with
the target word. Participants spent less time fixated on the initial morpheme of the
target word when words predictive of the target word were presented earlier in the
sentence, compared to sentences in which neutral words were presented.

Järvikivi, Juhani, Pirita Pyykkönen, and Jussi Niemi. 2009. Exploiting degrees of
inflectional ambiguity: Stem form and the time course of morphological processing.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 35:221–237.

The article describes a Finnish study in which the researchers used ambiguous
and unambiguous word comparisons to investigate if and when morphological
breakdown occurs. It provides support for the early time-course account of
morphological segmentation during comprehension.

Juhasz, Barbara J. 2012. Sentence context modifies compound word recognition:

Evidence from eye movements. Journal of Cognitive Psychology 24:855–870.
 The article presents evidence that both sentence context and the recognition of
a word can influence morphological segmentation during comprehension.

Lima, Susan D. 1987. Morphological analysis in sentence reading. Journal of

Memory and Language 26:84–99.

The article presents a study in which eye movement recordings were used to
examine whether words with real or pseudo prefixes took longer to read. The
results suggested that prefixes are separated from the rest of a word prior to
lexical access, supporting the early morphological breakdown account of
comprehension.

Pollatsek, Alexander, Raymond Bertram, and Jukka Hyöna. 2011. Processing novel
and lexicalised Finnish compound words. Journal of Cognitive Psychology 23.7:
795–810.

This article presents a Finnish eye movement study in which novel and
lexicalized words were presented to participants. Fixation times indicated that
participants spent longer on novel first constituents than those of lexicalized
words.

Velan, Hadas, and Ram Frost. 2011. Words with and without internal structure: What
determines the nature of orthographic and morphological processing? Cognition
118.2: 141–156.

The article presents a study in Hebrew in which readers encountered words

with Semitic origin (internally structured) and non-Semitic origin
(morphologically simple, more similar to European languages). Results
showed that the two types of words were morphologically processed
differently.

Syntax

During the comprehension of sentences, grammatical structure (i.e., syntax) can affect
how quickly and accurately a sentence is comprehended. Gibson and Pearlmutter
1998 proposes that four syntactic constraints can affect comprehension: lexical
constraints, contextual constraints, locality-based computational resource constraints,
and phrase-level contingent frequency constraints. The authors postulate that these
constraints apply to comprehension of both spoken and written sentences. Lexical
constraints refer to knowledge that is held about a particular word or category of
words, such as whether a certain verb can validly be used in a particular sentence.
Contextual constraints refer to whether references can effectively be made with the
given information. Judgments of the plausibility of a sentence can also be affected by
contextual constraints. Locality-based computational resource constraints refer to
how long words or phrases must be maintained in memory until their other
components are encountered in a sentence. For example, the further the distance
between parts of a sentence that are connected, the greater the processing cost,
resulting in difficulties or delays in comprehension (see also Staub 2010 for effects of
memory on syntactic comprehension). Lastly, phrase-level contingent frequency
constraints refer to a tabulation or computation of the frequency at which different
syntactic circumstances occur. Some phrase structures are more commonly heard or
read that others, indicating that these higher frequency syntactic structures may be
easier to resolve during a temporary ambiguity in the sentence, for example (see
Frazier and Rayner 1982 for further description of ambiguity research). Ivanova, et al.
2012 also postulates that important extra-lexical factors affect comprehension under
ambiguous syntactic conditions. The authors found that syntactic priming affects
comprehension of both ambiguous and unambiguous to an equal degree, suggesting
an influence from other, nonlexical factors. In another syntactic priming study,
Tooley, et al. 2009 uses ERP and eye-tracking methods to show that having a prime
sentence with the same verb as a target sentence facilitated comprehension, as
compared to a prime sentence with a verb similar in meaning.

Frazier, Lyn, and Keith Rayner. 1982. Making and correcting errors during sentence
comprehension: Eye movements in the analysis of structurally ambiguous sentences.
Cognitive Psychology 14:178–210.

This article provides information about garden-path theories and the

construction of garden-path sentences. It also provides data on how eye
movements can be used to track processing of garden-path sentences.

Gibson, Edward, and Neal J. Pearlmutter. 1998. Constraints on sentence

comprehension. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 2.7: 262–268.

The article outlines four main constraints on sentence comprehension.

Implications for how these four constraints affect comprehension of both
ambiguous and unambiguous sentences are discussed.

Ivanova, Iva, Martin J. Pickering, Holly P. Branigan, Janet F. McLean, and Albert
Costa. 2012. The comprehension of anomalous sentences: Evidence from structural
priming. Cognition 122:193–209.

The article presents evidence that syntactic representations are similar for both
anomalous and non-anomalous sentences. Results suggest that nonlexical
information is also important for comprehension, as opposed to only lexical
information.

Staub, Adrian. 2010. Eye movements and processing difficulty in object relative
clauses. Cognition 116:71–86.

The article presents evidence of differences in processing costs for object- and
subject-extracted clauses. Implications for memory theories are discussed.
Tooley, Kristen M., Matthew J. Traxler, and Tamara Y. Swaab. 2009.
Electrophysiological and behavioral evidence of syntactic priming in sentence
comprehension. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and
Cognition 35:19–45.

This article presents ERP and eye-tracking evidence for the role of syntactic
priming in comprehension. Results suggest that syntactic priming of the same
word from a prime sentence to a target sentence can reduce time spent on
disambiguation of the target sentence.

Language Production

The production of language, called expressive language, occurs after the ability to
comprehend language has been acquired. Spoken language production is a large area
of research that has flourished since the 1950s. Altmann 2002 contains chapters of
expert contributions on the topic of speech production. Topics include, among others,
the significance of speech errors as evidence for an ordering mechanism in speech,
lexical access during speech, and the conceptual bases of sentence production. Dell
1986 asserts the spreading activation theory based on data from speech errors. Dell’s
spreading activation theory rests on the activation of nodes, which are individual units
of information stored in memory. The article explains that according to the theory,
when a node of information is activated during retrieval in order to produce language,
three steps occur: spreading, summation, and decay. Levelt 1992 examines in more
depth a specific stage theory of speech production. The four stages (i.e., conceptual
basis, lexical encoding, phonological encoding, and articulatory program) are
discussed in terms of the process of lexical access during speech production. Garrett
1988 also details speech production from the message level and sentence level and
discusses some of the history behind how sentence production has been
conceptualized. Methods of language production research vary by population being
studied and type of data collection, and Menn and Ratner 2000 is an entire book
devoted to discussing the main methods used as well as lesser-known methods and
variations. The book has a large section on gathering language data in naturalistic
settings, and it also focuses on language disorders and how production research can
be altered for data on disordered populations. Common strategies and methods for
gathering language data from individuals with autism, specific language impairment,
and aphasia are discussed. Writing is another aspect of language production. Treiman,
et al. 2003 asserts that spoken and written language production involve similar
cognitive processes. During writing, as during speaking, lexical selection still occurs,
but instead of phonological expression, orthographic expression occurs. Some
interesting findings in the area of written language production involve orthographical
word differences and how writing can be affected by them. Rapp and Dufor 2011
discusses the spelling process, including how phonological word forms are
transferred to orthography. The authors also present the impact of word length and
word frequency on spelling as well as the neural substrates behind the spelling
process.
Altmann, Gerry. 2002. Spoken language production. Vol. 5, Psycholinguistics:
Critical concepts in psychology. New York: Routledge.

This volume includes several chapters by leaders in the field of

psycholinguistics regarding language production from concepts to lemmas and
sentence production.

Dell, Gary S. 1986. A spreading-activation theory of retrieval in sentence production.

Psychological Review 93.3: 283–321.

This article discusses the three steps of activation during retrieval for sentence
production outlined in Dell’s spreading activation theory, based on speech
errors.

Garrett, Merrill F. 1988. Processes in language production. In Language:

Psychological and biological aspects. Linguistics: The Cambridge survey 3. Edited
by Frederick S. Newmeyer, 69–96. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.

This chapter discusses language production processes and intent of messages

as well as “problem areas” in the investigation of real-time sentence
production.

Levelt, Willem J. M. 1992. Accessing words in speech production: Stages, processes,

and representations. Cognition 42:1–22.

The article diagrams lexical access in speech production and explains each of
the four stages of lexical access in detail.

Menn, Lise, and Nan Bernstein Ratner. 2000. Methods for studying language
production. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

This book includes information about collecting spoken language data from
both normal and disordered children and adults.

Rapp, Brenda, and Olivier Dufor. 2011. The neurotopography of written word
production: An fMRI investigation of the distribution of sensitivity to length and
frequency. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 23:4067–4081.

This article discusses the brain activity behind writing and specifically how
word differences can affect the spelling process.

Treiman, Rebecca, Charles Clifton Jr., Antje S. Meyer, and Lee H. Wurm. 2003.
Psycholinguistics: Language comprehension and production. In Experimental
psychology. Comprehensive handbook of psychology 4. Edited by Alice F. Healy and
Robert W. Proctor, 527–548. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
 The chapter is an excellent source of the major processes and theories behind
language comprehension and production. It also includes information about
concepts underlying language.

Message and Grammatical Encoding

When producing sentences, output is determined by several factors, including

conceptual knowledge and word order. Dell 1986 puts forth the spreading activation
theory of speech production, which uses a connectionist network approach to explain
that activation of one node of information (e.g., a specific phoneme, word, etc.) leads
to activation of surrounding, similar nodes of information. The author used spreading
activation theory to inform why and how speech errors occur, and how they are often
systematically similar due to node activation. The authors of Ivanova, et al. 2012 use
ungrammatical sentences in a priming study to show that being exposed to
ungrammatical sentences with the same structure as the target sentences can make
participants produce ungrammatical sentences themselves. The study provides
evidence that sentences are produced on an individual basis, given that a bond was
formed between the ungrammatical verb structure in the priming sentence, and it was
replicated by participants. Another issue relevant to grammatical encoding when
producing messages is conceptual availability. Conceptual availability refers to how
easily a word can be accessed regarding properties associated with the word. For
example, Tanaka, et al. 2011 finds that animacy is an important conceptual property
that affects Japanese speakers’ recall of sentence subjects. Animacy refers to a living
person, animal, etc., compared to an inanimate object such as a chair. Bock and
Warren 1985 finds that imageability is also an important factor in conceptualization
of sentence formation. Imageability refers to the concreteness or abstractness of
information stored about a word. Concrete words have been shown to be more
accessible during production and easier to think about; thus, they are more easily
conceptualized during word selection. Timmermans, et al. 2012 is a Dutch study in
which the authors find that temporal availability of information can affect how
speakers describe simple events. They found that the longer it took for participants to
receive all parts of information associated with viewing an event (i.e., a circle and a
square moving around), the more likely they were to construct sentences that
described the circle and square’s actions together (e.g., “The circle and the square are
moving. . .”).

Bock, J. Kathryn, and Richard K. Warren. 1985. Conceptual accessibility and

syntactic structure in sentence formulation. Cognition 21:47–67.

The article presents a study that compares conceptual accessibility and

grammatical role during word selection in sentence production. Effects of
imageability are discussed.

Dell, Gary S. 1986. A spreading-activation theory of retrieval in sentence production.

Psychological Review 93.3: 283–321.
 This article discusses the three steps of activation during retrieval for sentence
production outlined by Dell’s spreading activation theory, based on speech
errors.

Ivanova, Iva, Martin J. Pickering, Janet F. McLean, Albert Costa, and Holly P.
Branigan. 2012. How do people produce ungrammatical utterances? Journal of
Memory and Language 67.3:355–370.

The article presents evidence as to why speakers produce sentences that are
considered ungrammatical. Results show that production of ungrammatical
sentences can be encouraged by priming with ungrammatical sentence
structure.

Tanaka, Mikihiro N., Holly P. Branigan, Janet F. McLean, and Martin J. Pickering.
2011. Conceptual influences on word order and voice in sentence production:
Evidence from Japanese. Journal of Memory and Language 65.3: 318–330.

This article presents evidence from Japanese that the animacy associated with
conceptual information is a key factor in where words are placed when
sentences are produced. Implications for grammar and word-order choice are
discussed.

Timmermans, Mark, Herbert Schriefers, Simone Sprenger, and Ton Dijkstra. 2012.
Describing simple events: The dynamics of incremental grammatical encoding.
Journal of Cognitive Psychology 24.4: 441–456.

The article presents a study on how Dutch speakers produce verbal

descriptions of events. Results suggest an important role of availability of
conceptual characteristics and time of description onset in production.

Phonological Encoding

Phonological encoding occurs when a speaker accesses the sounds associated with a
word that they are attempting to articulate. One way that psycholinguistic researchers
have studied phonological encoding is through slip of the tongue research. Slip of the
tongue studies have been informative regarding speech production due to the patterns
of slips of the tongue that have been produced. Baars, et al. 1975 demonstrates that
when slips of the tongue occur, nonlexical phrases are often suppressed. In other
words, someone is more likely to generate a slip of the tongue that is made up of real
words from their language as opposed to nonsense words that do not have meaning.
Speech errors such as slips of the tongue were also elicited in Vitevitch 2002, a study
investigating phonological similarity. Results showed that speech errors were more
likely to occur when they involved words with a sparse neighborhood versus those
with a dense neighborhood. A sparse neighborhood of phonological similarity
indicates that a word has few similar-sounding words, while a dense neighborhood
indicates that a word has many similar-sounding words (see Cook and Meyer 2008
for other types of distractors used during phonemic selection tasks). In another type of
phonological encoding study, the author of Cohen-Goldberg 2012 investigates
phonological competition. Phonological competition refers to a type of lexical
struggle during which one phoneme is produced before another, for any of several
reasons. Cohen-Goldberg’s study examines within-word phonemic competition, in
which the author tested which type of words participants could utter more quickly,
words with similar phonemes in the first and last syllable or words with different,
noncompeting phonemes in the first and syllable. Words with more phonemic
competition (e.g., similar beginning and ending phonemes) took longer for
participants to begin articulating. Goldrick and Rapp 2007 provides evidence from
two brain-damaged individuals that suggests postlexical articulation processes can be
hindered just as severely as lexical processes, indicating the importance of both
processes during production.

Baars, Bernard J., Michael T. Motley, and Donald G. MacKay. 1975. Output editing
for lexical status from artificially elicited slips of the tongue. Journal of Verbal
Learning and Verbal Behavior 14.4: 382–391.

The article presents a classic study in slip of the tongue research. Results show
that slips of the tongue without lexical validity are suppressed when slips of
tongues are attempted to be elicited.

Cohen-Goldberg, Ariel M. 2012. Phonological competition within the word:

Evidence from the phoneme similarity effect in spoken production. Journal of
Memory and Language 67.1: 184–198.

This article provides evidence that phonemic competition within words occurs
during production. Results demonstrate that phonemes in the first and last
syllable position may compete for selection.

Cook, Amy E., and Antje S. Meyer. 2008. Capacity demands of phoneme selection in
word production: New evidence from dual-task experiments. Journal of Experimental
Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 34.4: 886–899.

The article investigates the effects of distractor tasks in phoneme selection.

Results indicate that both pictorial and lexical distractors can affect speed of
phoneme selection.

Goldrick, Matthew, and Brenda Rapp. 2007. Lexical and post-lexical phonological
representations in spoken production. Cognition 102:219–260.

The article presents data from two brain-damaged individuals regarding their
abilities and deficits in phonemic production. Results indicate that specific
lexical and postlexical properties are hindered for the individuals.
Vitevitch, Michael S. 2002. The influence of phonological similarity neighborhoods
on speech production. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and
Cognition 28.4: 735–747.

The authors used speech error tasks to investigate the influence of dense and
sparse phonological similarity neighborhoods on production. Implications for
speed and accuracy of production are discussed.

Conversation

The ultimate utilization of speech production skills is to converse with another person
successfully. Although areas of speech production such as phonology and
grammatical encoding can affect one’s ability to converse, researchers have devoted
much time and effort to some phenomena specific to conversation per se. A key
feature of conversation is that it involves two or more people, which calls for some
degree of awareness regarding the knowledge and attention of a conversation partner.
Brown and Dell 1987 is based on a study in which participants read and then were
asked to retell short stories to a conversation partner. Results indicated that when
atypical information was included in the short story, participants mentally noted the
uniqueness of the information and adapted their retelling to include the special
information, in line with the idea that the participants were considering the
conversation partner’s knowledge of the story. The authors of Clark and Wilkes-
Gibbs 1986 found that when participants were asked to explain a complex design
together, a degree of responsibility to the conversation was noted, with both
conversation partners contributing to the common goal. Additionally, the study
demonstrated that simple noun phrases and ones that had already been used in the
conversations were repeated by conversation partners in order to quickly and
efficiently assure maximum contributions from each partner. Similarly, Galati and
Brennan 2010 demonstrates that conversation partners tend to lessen the emphasis on
certain words or phrases during prolonged conversations, attenuating their
contributions after judging the audience’s experiences with the subject. Clark and
Schaefer 1989 emphasizes the importance of mutual understanding of the current
conversation during successful conversation in such scenarios, and Haywood, et al.
2005 highlights the consideration of how easily the speaker could be comprehended
as well as the prior knowledge of the conversation partner.

Brown, Paula M., and Gary S. Dell. 1987. Adapting production to comprehension:
The explicit mention of instruments. Cognitive Psychology 19.4: 441–472.

The article details a study that required participants to read and retell short
stories. Results describe the role of the listeners’ perceived knowledge in how
the speaker retells stories.

Clark, Herbert H., and Deanna Wilkes-Gibbs. 1986. Referring as a collaborative

process. Cognition 22.1: 1–39.
 This article describes a task in which participants help one another explain a
complex design. Results indicate that simplicity of noun phrasing and
responsibility to the conversation enable effective conversation.

Clark, Herbert H., and Edward F. Schaefer. 1989. Contributing to discourse.

Cognitive Science 13:259–294.

The article provides a conversational model that outlines the importance of

contributions of speakers in a conversation. The importance of speakers’
mutual understanding of the current conversation is highlighted.

Galati, Alexia, and Susan E. Brennan. 2010. Attenuating information in spoken

communication: For the speaker, or for the addressee? Journal of Memory and
Language 62.1: 35–51.

The article suggests that speakers lessen the emphasis on certain words and
phrases in conversation in a variety of circumstances. Notably, speakers’
detail is affected in part by what they believe their audience has experienced
earlier during conversation.

Haywood, Sarah L., Martin J. Pickering, and Holly P. Branigan. 2005. Do speakers
avoid ambiguities during dialogue? Psychological Science 16.5: 362–366.

This article details a turn-by-turn dialogue task in which conversational

partners were working toward a common goal. The authors emphasize the role
of sensitivity to the knowledge of the conversation partner as well as ease of
comprehension of their own contributions.

Figurative Language Processing

Most studies on psycholinguistics focus on the processing of literal language. Literal

language is that which is straightforward and does not have more than one potential
meaning (Ariel 2002). On the other hand, figurative language is that which is much
more reliant on the context, speaker, and pragmatics of language. Figurative
(nonliteral) language can be structured one way but mean something different.
Examples of figurative language are metaphor, idioms, irony, and proverbs (Gibbs
and Colston 2012). Searle 1979 asserts that processing figurative language, such as
metaphor, requires greater cognitive effort than processing literal language. The
author’s reasoning is that metaphor is outside of literal meaning and must require
more in-depth processing to take into account alternative meanings besides the
traditional literal language presented. In this line of thinking, literal meanings are
activated first, followed by figurative meaning. Conversely, Keysar 1989 proposes
the processing equivalence hypothesis, in which literal and figurative meanings of an
expression are automatically concurrently activated. That is, the figurative meaning of
a statement is always activated even if it is not the one utilized during resolution of a
phrase. A more contemporary model of figurative language processing is the graded
salience hypothesis. Giora 1997 states that this hypothesis rests on the assumption
that the most salient meaning of a sentence is the first interpretation that an individual
arrives at during processing. Salient interpretations are stored in the lexicon due to
frequency of exposure and other factors, such as how typical they are of other similar
interpretations (Filik and Moxey 2010). Giora, et al. 1998 compares the three types of
theories. For metaphor processing in particular, Gentner and Bowdle 2001 discusses
metaphor conventionality, or the degree to which a metaphor has become habit in
language. Conventional metaphors are generally high in frequency of use and may
initially be thought of as literal, such as saying something is a lifesaver. On the other
hand, novel metaphors are low in conventionality because they are spontaneously
generated and likely have not been encountered before. Differences in the
conventionality of figurative language may affect how it is processed.

Ariel, Mira. 2002. The demise of a unique concept of literal meaning. Journal of
Pragmatics 34.4: 361–402.

This article compares how meaning is derived from literal, versus figurative,
language. It also examines the concept of depth of meaning as it relates to
language.

Filik, Ruth, and Linda M. Moxey. 2010. The on-line process of written irony.
Cognition 116:421–436.

This article provides eye-tracking data for processing of ironic and nonironic
statements. It discusses how irony processing can be explained by the graded
salience hypothesis.

Gentner, Dedre, and Brian F. Bowdle. 2001. Convention, form, and figurative
language processing. Metaphor and Symbol 16.3–4: 223–247.

This article discusses controversies regarding metaphor processing and also

provides information about domain metaphors and target-base domains in
metaphor processing.

Gibbs, Raymond, Jr., and Herbert L. Colston. 2012. Interpreting figurative meaning.
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.

This book is a blend of classic and contemporary studies on figurative

language. It contains a massive amount of findings regarding many different
types of figurative language, including less commonly studied types such as
indirect requests.

Giora, Rachel. 1997. Understanding figurative and literal language: The graded
salience hypothesis. Cognitive Linguistics 8.3: 183–206.
 This article lays out the graded salience hypothesis of interpretation of
figurative language. It also discusses how this hypothesis is different from the
processing-equivalence hypothesis and the sequential theories of figurative
language processing.

Giora, Rachel, Ofer Fein, and Tamir Schwartz. 1998. Irony: Graded salience and
indirect negation. Metaphor and Symbol 13.2: 83–101.

This article focuses on graded salience theory as an explanation for figurative

language processing and also compares some of the other major theories of
figurative language processing.

Keysar, Boaz. 1989. On the functional equivalence of literal and metaphorical

interpretations in discourse. Journal of Memory and Language 28.4: 375–385.

This article details the processing equivalence hypothesis and contrasts it with
sequential theories of figurative language processing. It also discusses how
literal and metaphorical representations are functionally equal in cognition.

Searle, John R. 1979. Metaphor. In Metaphor and thought. Edited by Andrew Ortony,
92–123. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.

This chapter discusses how metaphor differs from literal speech and also how
individuals process metaphors.

Processing Across Languages

One area of study that has been valuable in psycholinguistic research is that of how
language processing differs between languages. Vincenzi 1999 discusses how,
although the majority of psycholinguistic research has focused on English as the
language of study, examining cross-linguistic processing patterns can provide
evidence for and against some popular theories of language processing. Carreiras, et
al. 1996 provides information from Spanish studies of language processing that
supports the importance of the individual-language view versus universal processing
theories. The book also provided Spanish data that had not been encountered in the
English-dominated literature. Chen and Tzeng 1992 provides similar information
about Chinese language processing. It details how Chinese characters are similar to,
and different from, English and related languages, and what methodological issues
can arise when studying Chinese processing. Mazuka and Nagai 1995 provides
information about language processing in Japanese as well as more commentary on
the universality of language processing. Arai 2012 contributes evidence for
universality in syntax processing from studies of head-initial versus head-final
languages. Carreiras, et al. 2010 provides evidence against universality of language
processing from studies in Basque, another head-final language. The competition
model is one language processing model that has been characterized as cross-
linguistic in nature. However, Devescovi and D’Amico 2005 provides evidence from
several languages that questions the predictions of the competition model’s cross-
linguistic assertions. In contrast, Hyönä and Vainio 2009 asserts that the competition
model is an effective model to draw on for studies using languages with more
complex and rich morphology, such as Finnish.

Arai, Manabu. 2012. What can head‐final languages tell us about syntactic priming
(and vice versa)? Language & Linguistics Compass 6.9: 545–559.

This article details processing differences between head-initial and head-final

languages. It describes how the research that has been conducted comparing
syntactic processing in these two types of languages supports universal
processing mechanisms.

Carreiras, Manuel, Jon Andoni Duñabeitia, Marta Vergara, Irene de la Cruz-Pavía,

and Itziar Laka. 2010. Subject relative clauses are not universally easier to process:
Evidence from Basque. Cognition 115:79–92.

This article provides evidence against universality of language processing

through studies in Basque. It also provides commentary on processing of
head-initial and head-final languages.

Carreiras, Manuel, José García-Albea, and Núria Sebastián Gallés, eds. 1996.
Language processing in Spanish. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

This book provides ample data and methodological information about Spanish
language processing studies carried out primarily in Spain. It provides
evidence for differences in Spanish and English language processing.

Chen, Hsuan-Chih, and Ovid J. L. Tzeng, eds. 1992. Language processing in

Chinese. Amsterdam: North-Holland.

This book provides information about character processing in Chinese. It also

outlines some research issues in studying Chinese as well as information
about dyslexia in Chinese language learners.

Devescovi, Antonella, and Simonetta D’Amico. 2005. The competition model:

Crosslinguistic studies of online processing. In Beyond nature-nurture: Essays in
honor of Elizabeth Bates. Edited by Michael and Dan I. Slobin, 165–191. Mahwah,
NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

This chapter describes the competition model and provides several cross-
linguistic studies that challenge it. The chapter also provides linguistic data on
less frequently studied languages such as Kiswhali.

Hyönä, Jukka, and Seppo Vainio. 2009. Sentence parsing in a morphologically rich
language—Finnish. Language & Linguistics Compass 3:719–733.
 This article provides evidence for the efficacy of the competition model in
cross-linguistic study. It focuses on the effectiveness of the model when
studying languages such as Finnish.

Mazuka, Reiko, and Noriko Nagai, eds. 1995. Japanese sentence processing.
Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

This book provides more commentary on the universality of language

processing. It provides information about how the Japanese language is
processed and the mechanisms behind its processing.

Vincenzi, Marica de. 1999. Cross-linguistic psycholinguistics. In Architectures and

mechanisms for language processing. Edited by Matthew W. Crocker, Martin
Pickering, and Charles Clifton Jr., 282–300. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.

This chapter provides reasoning for the consideration of non-English

psycholinguistic research when arguing for or against several well-known
language processing theories. It stresses the fact that different languages may
require different patterns of processing in contrast to several universal
processing theories commonly adopted.

Language Disorders

Sometimes neurological impairments can hinder one’s ability to develop proficient

reading or writing skills. Snowling and Hulme 2012 reviews the different reading
disorders currently being diagnosed and researched, including dyslexia and specific
language impairment. Specific language impairment (SLI) is language development
disorder that is unique in that language deficits occur without global cognitive
problems or other disorders (Rice, et al. 1998). As described in Leonard 2000,
individuals with SLI show grammatical deficits in morphemes associated with verb
tenses such as the third person singular (e.g., she walks), the past tense (e.g., she
walked), problems conjugating the verbs be and do, as well as subject-verb agreement
using these two verbs (e.g., she are happy versus she is happy). Research has found
that the disorder has some genetic basis, and that males are slightly more likely to
have SLI than females. Rice 1997 also describes genetic and other factors
contributing to SLI. Dyslexia is another language disorder, with subtypes of
developmental and acquired dyslexia. Developmental dyslexia is the more common
type in that the difficulties encountered are innate (O’Brien, et al. 2012). Acquired
dyslexia is when dyslexia symptoms result from a brain injury, which damages part(s)
of the brain used in processing reading. Dyslexia is the inability to map phonology
onto orthography, resulting in inaccuracy and reduced fluency of reading. Often,
people with dyslexia invert or switch letters, which causes processing difficulty.
Disorders of writing are termed dysgraphia, and they are defined as being unable to
develop intact writing ability. Several types of dysgraphia involve the same
processing problems as dyslexia, such as an inability to translate phonology into
orthography during writing, which can result in frequent spelling errors (Gubbay and
de Klerk 1995). Communication disorders involve difficulty with speech and
expression of language. Anderson and Shames 2010 explains common types of
communication disorders, their origins, and how they are treated. Aphasia is one
common type of communication disorder. In Damasio 1992, the author describes
aphasia as the inability to convert mental images or planned speech into verbal
expression. Difficulties can be encountered with comprehension of spoken language
and/or difficulties with producing spoken language. Aphasia is caused by damage to
parts of the brain responsible for language functions, usually from traumatic injury in
an accident, during a stroke, or from dementia.

Anderson, Noma B., and George H. Shames. 2010. Human communication disorders:
An introduction. 8th ed. Boston: Pearson.

This textbook covers all communication disorders with an emphasis on speech

pathology. It includes information about biological bases of these disorders
and evidence-based treatments for them.

Damasio, Antonio R. 1992. Aphasia. New England Journal of Medicine 326:531–

539.

This article reviews aphasia and its causes. It also discusses the subtypes of
aphasia, such as Broca’s aphasia and Wernicke’s aphasia. In addition, it
discusses the role of other parts of the brain in language ability.

Gubbay, Sasson Stephen, and Nicholas Hubert de Klerk. 1995. A study and review of
developmental dysgraphia in relation to acquired dysgraphia. Brain & Development
17.1: 1–8.

This article discusses differences between acquired and developmental

dysgraphia. It also provides a potential test battery for the assessment of
dysgraphia.

Leonard, Laurence B. 2000. Children with specific language impairment. Cambridge,

MA: MIT Press.

This book includes information on causes and origins of specific language

impairment and on how specific language impairment is researched. It also
includes cross-linguistic findings from studies examining specific language
impairment.

O’Brien, Beth A., Maryanne Wolf, and Maureen W. Lovett. 2012. A taxometric
investigation of developmental dyslexia subtypes. Dyslexia 18.1: 16–39.

This article discusses deficits underlying developmental dyslexia. It describes

the differences in subtypes and presents evidence regarding phonological and
lexical access deficits in dyslexia.
Rice, Mabel L. 1997. Specific language impairments: In search of diagnostic markers
and genetic contributions. Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities 3:350–
357.

This review discusses diagnostic criteria for specific language impairment,

prevalence rates, and deficits associated with the disorder. Evidence of
grammatical deficits is discussed in-depth.

Rice, Mabel L., Kenneth Wexler, and Scott Hershberger. 1998. Tense over time: The
longitudinal course of tense acquisition in children with specific language
impairment. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 41:1412–1431.

This article provides a background of common grammatical difficulties that

characterize specific language impairment. It also compares children with and
without specific language impairment on grammatical milestone mastery.

Snowling, Margaret L., and Charles Hulme. 2012. Annual research review: The
nature and classification of reading disorders—a commentary on proposals for DSM-
5. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 53.5: 593–607.

This review defines different types of reading disorders and suggests

adjustments for the classification of these disorders in the DSM-5.

Human Language Acquisition

Psycholinguistic ability begins with language acquisition. Children perceive language

from an early age and eventually are able to reproduce it and proceed through the
stages of language development. Studies have shown that the ability to perceive
speech sounds begins prenatally, and children can pick up on phonetic pattern
differences from infancy (Morgan and Demuth 1996). Later, children progress
through phonological and morphological development. Brown 1973 provides detailed
information on development of speech complexity in children during language
acquisition. Berko Gleason 1958 details a well-known experimental task designed to
assess children’s plural morpheme acquisition. Slobin 1985–1997 provides evidence
of how acquisition of language progresses from a cross-linguistic point of view,
providing examples of how children across the world acquire their specific language
abilities. Bates, et al. 1991 takes an individual differences perspective and explains
how children progress from using single words to using grammatically complex
sentences. The authors assert that similar trajectories of acquisition of syntax and
grammar indicate that both come from the same mechanisms. Clark 2002 describes
the stages of language acquisition as well but focuses on how language is a social
utility designed to achieve social goals. The book takes a pragmatic language
approach to language use in everyday life. Snyder 2007 describes the parametric
approach to language acquisition, which uses a hypothesis testing procedure of the
possible grammars a child can learn. Possible grammars are then compared to
language acquisition data to predict how language acquisition occurs in general. Lust
2006 provides an up-to-date neurological account of the areas of brain development
that enable language acquisition in children.

Bates, Elizabeth, Inge Bretherton, and Lynn Snyder. 1991. From first words to
grammar: Individual differences and dissociable mechanisms. Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge Univ. Press.

This book details how early words turn into complex grammatical
development in children. It also focuses on rates of language development
through commentary on individual differences.

Berko Gleason, Jean. 1958. The child’s learning of English morphology. Word
14:150–177.

This article describes the wug test, an experimental method used to test levels
of morpheme acquisition in children. It also reports information on ages
associated with children’s morphological development.

Brown, Roger. 1973. A first language: The early stages. London: Allen & Unwin.

This classic text details the stages of children’s syntactic and morphological
development. It provides common examples of child language ability from
one to five years of age.

Clark, Eve V. 2002. First language acquisition. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ.
Press.

This book describes the well-known studies that have informed our
knowledge of child language acquisition. It adds information about social
cognition to describe how language helps humans achieve social goals and
emphasizes pragmatic language aspects.

Lust, Barbara. 2006. Child language: Acquisition and growth. New York: Cambridge
Univ. Press.

This book uses a nativist approach to describe the process of language

acquisition from infancy. It provides evidence about brain development during
early life that contributes to language acquisition.

Morgan, James L., and Katherine Demuth. 1996. Signal to syntax: Bootstrapping
from speech to grammar in early acquisition. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

This book focuses on the hypothesis that more speech cues than just prosody
guide children’s acquisition of grammar. It also provides commentary on early
sources of linguistic information for infants.
Slobin, Dan I. 1985–1997. A cross-linguistic study of language acquisition. 5 vols.
Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

These five volumes explore hundreds of examples of language acquisition in

well-known and lesser-known languages across the world. They describe
similarities and differences in the acquisition of these languages.

Snyder, William. 2007. Child language: The parametric approach. Oxford: Oxford
Univ. Press.

This book describes the parametric approach to language acquisition with

several data sets as examples. It describes how these examples can be used to
examine child language acquisition for children of different ages.

Bilingualism/Second Language Acquisition

Bilingualism is when a person is fluent in two languages. Kroll and de Groot 2005
explains the cognitive roots of bilingualism and neural characteristics of the bilingual
mind. Bilingualism can occur differently depending on the language learning context.
Simultaneous bilingualism is when both languages are learned at the same time,
which is often common in children who grow up in households in which more than
one language is spoken. Genesee 2001 details some specific processes behind
simultaneous bilingualism, including how much each language influences the other
during acquisition. Sequential bilingualism is when a first language (L1) is learned
prior to a second language (L2). The difference in these two types is also called early
versus late bilingualism. Castilla, et al. 2009 describes a common instance of
sequential bilingualism in which a child learns one language at home and then begins
to learn a second language when they attend school. One major area of bilingual
research is the potential benefits of bilingualism to cognition as a whole. Bialystok, et
al. 2012 reviews characteristics of the bilingual mind based on years of research with
bilinguals. The review also discusses how bilingual older adults may benefit from
increased cognitive reserve due to bilingualism, which is a store of protective
resources against brain aging. Young children can also show signs of cognitive
benefits from being bilingual (Kroll and de Groot 2005). One such way is through
metalinguistic awareness is how cognizant a person is of the characteristics of
language, such as grammar and phonology, and also how well they can analyze
language (Cummins 1978). Executive control is the cognitive process of orienting and
attention. It often involves attention to relevant stimuli in the environment and
inattention to irrelevant stimuli. Hernández, et al. 2010 describes the cognitive and
brain bases of executive control as well as the impact of bilingualism on executive
control ability. In short, tasks that require conflict resolution or choosing between
alternatives may be performed faster by bilinguals. Some individuals are known as
multilinguals, who acquire three or more languages (Auer and Wei 2007). Cenoz and
Genesee 1998 outlines situations in which multilinguals learn several languages, and
it also includes a short summary of multilingual study findings.
Auer, Peter, and Li Wei, eds. 2007. Handbook of multilingualism and multilingual
communication. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

This book serves as a guide to language acquisition of bilinguals and

multilinguals as well as characteristics of living in a multilingual society.

Bialystok, Ellen, Fergus I. M. Craik, and Gigi Luk. 2012. Bilingualism:

Consequences for the mind and brain. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 16.4: 240–250.

This article reviews past research on the benefits of bilingualism throughout

the lifespan, with a focus on the advantages of bilingualism as it relates to
cognitive reserve in older age.

Castilla, Anny P., Maria Restrepo, and Ana Perez-Leroux. 2009. Individual
differences in language interdependence: A study of sequential bilingual development
in Spanish-English preschool children. International Journal of Bilingual Education
and Bilingualism 12.5: 565–580.

This article describes sequential bilingualism in the context of childhood. It

also focuses on how two languages learned sequentially can affect one
another’s later understanding.

Cenoz, Jasone, and Fred Genesee. 1998. Psycholinguistic perspectives on

multilingualism and multilingual education. In Beyond bilingualism: Multilingualism
and multilingual education. Edited by Jasone Cenoz and Fred Genesee, 16–32.
Philadelphia: Multilingual Matters.

This chapter reviews multilingualism as a linguistic phenomenon and presents

findings from multilingual studies involving a variety of languages. It also
includes information on how a multilingual’s languages may affect one
another.

Cummins, James. 1978. Bilingualism and the development of metalinguistic

awareness. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 9.2: 131–149.

This article discusses the attributes of metalinguistic awareness and provides

data supporting the notion that bilingual children are more aware of language
properties than unilingual children.

Genesee, Fred. 2001. Bilingual first language acquisition: Exploring the limits of the
language faculty. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 21:153–168.

This article discusses whether simultaneous bilingualism involves

interdependent processes related to grammar and other parts of language, as
opposed to autonomous development of both languages separately.
Hernández, Mireia, Albert Costa, Luis J. Fuentes, Ana B. Vivas, and Núria Sebastián-
Gallés. 2010. The impact of bilingualism on the executive control and orienting
networks of attention. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 13:315–325.

This article describes the mechanisms of executive control and how bilinguals
have advantages in the ability of executive control as it relates to attention and
other cognitive processes.

Kroll, Judith, and Annette de Groot, eds. 2005. Handbook of bilingualism:

Psycholinguistic approaches. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.

This book describes the reasoning behind psycholinguistic methodology in

bilingualism research. It also describes how bilingualism can be beneficial to
cognition both in childhood and in adulthood.

Methods of Psycholinguistic Research

Methods of psycholinguistic research vary depending on the goal of the research.

Vorweg 2012 outlines major types of commonly used psycholinguistic methods.
Psycholinguistic methods can be combined with one another to answer different
research questions, or used individually. Often, several sources of information are
accessed during language processing, which can become complicated when devising
psycholinguistic methods. Swinney 1984 discusses some pitfalls and characteristics
of language information interactions as it relates to methodology. One common
method of psycholinguistic research is the lexical decision task. In this type of task,
participants are presented with strings of letters and asked if what they saw is a word
or a nonword. The time elapsed during stimulus presentation can vary depending on
the purpose of the experiment. Chumbley and Balota 1984 discusses the use of lexical
decision tasks and provides information about the use of reaction time as a dependent
measure. Eye-tracking is another popular psycholinguistic method. It involves
participants wearing an apparatus that traces their eye movements to some visual
stimulus while they hear other linguistic stimuli, thus providing information about
language processing from the participants’ pattern of looking. Tanenhaus and Spivey-
Knowlton 1996 describes this methodology in-depth and includes information about
potential independent and dependent variables that may be studied using eye-
tracking. Rayner 1998 also provides an in-depth review about eye movement tracking
methods. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) are a type of neurolinguistic method.
They are measures of electrical activity in the brain after the experience of a stimulus.
Common components of ERP that are discussed in psycholinguistic literature are the
P300, P400, and P600 components (Friederici and Kotz 2003). Duncan-Johnson and
Donchin 1982 discusses using ERPs as a method and the significance of the P300
component. Perhaps the most sophisticated technology used in psycholinguistic
experiments is brain scanning, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging
(fMRI). During fMRI procedures, the goal is to determine specific brain structures
active during language processing. Depending on the stimuli presented, different
areas of the brain will activate during the scan, indicating which parts of the brain are
responsible for processing of that information. Hagoort 2008 discusses the functions
of fMRI and compares it with ERP procedures.

Chumbley, James I., and David A. Balota. 1984. A word’s meaning affects the
decision in lexical decision. Memory & Cognition 12.6: 590–606.

This article discusses lexical decision tasks as methods and the way reaction
time can be assessed using other methods. It also discusses the role of words’
meaning as it relates to reaction time in these types of tasks.

Duncan-Johnson, Connie C., and Emmanuel Donchin. 1982. The P300 component of
the event-related brain potential as an index of information processing. Biological
Psychology 14.1–2: 1–52.

This article discusses the usefulness of ERPs as a method and explains how
the P300 component can be used to assess information processing during
psycholinguistic studies.

Friederici, Angela D., and Sonja A. Kotz. 2003. The brain basis of syntactic
processes: Functional imaging and lesion studies. NeuroImage 20:S8–S17.

This article describes different ERP, fMRI, and other types of studies and how
their results relate to overall brain bases of language processing. The specific
focus of the article pertains to syntactic processing.

Hagoort, Peter. 2008. Should psychology ignore the language of the brain? Current
Directions in Psychological Science 17.2: 96–101.

This article describes both ERP and fMRI procedures and compares their
usefulness. It also discusses the criticisms of both methods.

Rayner, Keith. 1998. Eye movements in reading and information processing: 20 years
of research. Psychological Bulletin 124.3: 372–422.

This review details using eye movement tracking as a research method, and
how the use of it has changed throughout the short history of its life as a
psycholinguistic method. It also discusses the significance of eye movements
during processing in general.

Swinney, David. 1984. Theoretical and methodological issues in cognitive science: A

psycholinguistic perspective. In Methods and tactics in cognitive science. Edited by
Walter Kintsch, James R. Miller, and Peter G. Poulson, 217–233. Hillsdale, NJ:
Lawrence Erlbaum.
 This chapter provides extensive information about psycholinguistic methods
as well as difficulties commonly encountered in psycholinguistic
methodology.

Tanenhaus, Michael, and Michael J. Spivey-Knowlton. 1996. Eye-tracking. Language

and Cognitive Processes 11.6: 583–588.

This article covers the methodology of eye-tracking and potential uses for it. It
also briefly covers advantages and disadvantages to its use.

Vorweg, Constance. 2012. Experimental methods in psycholinguistics. In Methods in

contemporary linguistics. Edited by Andrea Ender, Adrian Leeman, and Bernard
Walchli, 363–386. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

This chapter briefly covers major types of psycholinguistic methods and

provides examples of instances in which to use different methods.

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