Zenzi M. Griffin

Introduction to psycholinguistics, which uses methods and theories from cognitive psychology and cognitive science to understand how people speak, comprehend, and learn language(s).

Topics of contemporary interest that may vary from semester to semester. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. May be repeated for credit when the topics vary. Prerequisite: For psychology majors, upper-division standing and Psychology 301 and 418 with a grade of at least C in each; for nonmajors, upper-division standing, Psychology 301 with a grade of at least C, and one of the following with a grade of at least C: Biology 318M, Civil Engineering 311S, Economics 329, Educational Psychology 371, Electrical Engineering 351K, Government 350K, Mathematics 316, 362K, Mechanical Engineering 335, Psychology 317, Sociology 317L, Social Work 318, Statistics 309, Statistics and Scientific Computation 302, 303, 304, 305, 306, 318.

An overview of current psycholinguistic research, primarily in the production and comprehension of spoken language by adults. A core course option. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Psychology 387C and 394U (Topic: Human Language Process) may not both be counted. Prerequisite: Graduate standing and consent of instructor.

Topics of contemporary interest that may vary from semester to semester. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. May be repeated for credit when the topics vary. Prerequisite: For psychology majors, upper-division standing and Psychology 301 and 418 with a grade of at least C in each; for nonmajors, upper-division standing, Psychology 301 with a grade of at least C, and one of the following with a grade of at least C: Biology 318M, Civil Engineering 311S, Economics 329, Educational Psychology 371, Electrical Engineering 351K, Government 350K, Mathematics 316, 362K, Mechanical Engineering 335, Psychology 317, Sociology 317L, Social Work 318, Statistics 309, Statistics and Scientific Computation 302, 303, 304, 305, 306, 318.

Seminars in Cognitive or Perceptual Systems. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. May be repeated for credit when the topics vary. Prerequisite: Graduate standing and consent of instructor.

An overview of current psycholinguistic research, primarily in the production and comprehension of spoken language by adults. A core course option. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Psychology 387C and 394U (Topic: Human Language Process) may not both be counted. Prerequisite: Graduate standing and consent of instructor.

Topics of contemporary interest that may vary from semester to semester. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. May be repeated for credit when the topics vary. Prerequisite: For psychology majors, upper-division standing and Psychology 301 and 418 with a grade of at least C in each; for nonmajors, upper-division standing, Psychology 301 with a grade of at least C, and one of the following with a grade of at least C: Biology 318M, Civil Engineering 311S, Economics 329, Educational Psychology 371, Electrical Engineering 351K, Government 350K, Mathematics 316, 362K, Mechanical Engineering 335, Psychology 317, Sociology 317L, Social Work 318, Statistics 309, Statistics and Scientific Computation 302, 303, 304, 305, 306, 318.

An overview of current psycholinguistic research, primarily in the production and comprehension of spoken language by adults. A core course option. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Psychology 387C and 394U (Topic: Human Language Process) may not both be counted. Prerequisite: Graduate standing and consent of instructor.

Topics of contemporary interest that may vary from semester to semester. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. May be repeated for credit when the topics vary. Prerequisite: For psychology majors, upper-division standing and Psychology 301 and 418 with a grade of at least C in each; for nonmajors, upper-division standing, Psychology 301 with a grade of at least C, and one of the following with a grade of at least C: Biology 318M, Civil Engineering 311S, Economics 329, Educational Psychology 371, Electrical Engineering 351K, Government 350K, Mathematics 316, 362K, Mechanical Engineering 335, Psychology 317, Sociology 317L, Social Work 318, Statistics 309, Statistics and Scientific Computation 302, 303, 304, 305, 306, 318.

An overview of current psycholinguistic research, primarily in the production and comprehension of spoken language by adults. A core course option. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Psychology 387C and 394U (Topic: Human Language Process) may not both be counted. Prerequisite: Graduate standing and consent of instructor.

Seminars in Cognitive or Perceptual Systems. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. May be repeated for credit when the topics vary. Prerequisite: Graduate standing and consent of instructor.

Seminars in Cognitive or Perceptual Systems. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. May be repeated for credit when the topics vary. Prerequisite: Graduate standing and consent of instructor.

An overview of current psycholinguistic research, primarily in the production and comprehension of spoken language by adults. A core course option. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. Psychology 387C and 394U (Topic: Human Language Process) may not both be counted. Prerequisite: Graduate standing and consent of instructor.

The course content consists primarily of formal and informal research presentations in the areas of cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience. Meetings may also include discussions of professional issues. Students are expected to attend weekly course meetings and optionally give an informal research presentation. Offered on the credit/no credit basis only.

This undergraduate course provides an introduction to psycholinguistics, which uses methods and theory from cognitive psychology to understand how people use language to express themselves (i.e., speaking or language production) and to understand what other's say (i.e., language comprehension). Classes will be composed of lectures, exercises, and discussion. Topics include the relationship between language and thought, the representation of meaning, speech errors, parallels between signed and spoken languages, the time courses for preparing various aspects of utterances and articulating speech, speech perception, and spoken word recognition. The course is recommended for students with an interest in language or cognitive science, as well as those interested in communication sciences and disorders or automatic speech recognition and generation.

Seminars in Cognitive or Perceptual Systems. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. May be repeated for credit when the topics vary. Prerequisite: Graduate standing and consent of instructor.

Seminars in Cognitive or Perceptual Systems. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. May be repeated for credit when the topics vary. Prerequisite: Graduate standing and consent of instructor.

Course Description:

This undergraduate course provides an introduction to psycholinguistics, which uses methods and theory from

cognitive psychology to understand how people use language to express themselves (i.e., speaking or

language production) and to understand what other's say (i.e., language comprehension). Classes will be

composed of lectures, exercises, and discussion. Topics include the relationship between language and

thought, the representation of meaning, speech errors, parallels between signed and spoken languages, the

time courses for preparing various aspects of utterances and articulating speech, speech perception, and

spoken word recognition. The course is recommended for students with an interest in language or cognitive

science, as well as those interested in language acquisition, automatic speech recognition and generation, or

communication.

This course carries the Writing Flag. Writing Flag courses are designed to give students experience with

writing in an academic discipline. In this class, you can expect to write regularly during the semester, complete

substantial writing projects, and receive feedback to help you improve your writing. You will also have the

opportunity to revise some assignments, and to read and discuss your peers' work.

Seminars in Cognitive and Perceptual Systems. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. May be repeated for credit when the topics vary. Prerequisite: Graduate standing and consent of instructor.

Language Processing - Spring 2010  
 
PSY 341K - Language Processing
Syllabus Version 1*
Unique number: 43915
Class time: T Th 11:00 - 12:15 PM Location: NOA 1.124
Instructor: Dr. Zenzi M. Griffin  TA: Jamil Bhanji
E-mail: griffinz@psy.utexas.edu  E-mail: bhanji@mail.utexas.edu
Instructor Website: www.psy.utexas.edu/griffin  
Course Website: Blackboard  
Phone: (512) 232-8062 (e-mail is recommended) 
Office: SEA 5.214 Office: SEA 3.426E
Office hours: Tue 12:15-1:15; Fri 12-1; & by appointment  Office hours: Mon real 1-2, Mon chat 4-5, &
by appointment
 
*Syllabus Version 1
A syllabus should be an agreement between an instructor and students in a course. Version 2 of the syllabus
will incorporate feedback from student responses and therefore may be somewhat different.
 
Course Description:
This undergraduate course provides an introduction to psycholinguistics, which uses methods and theory from
cognitive psychology to understand how people use language to express themselves (i.e., speaking or
language production) and to understand what other's say (i.e., language comprehension). Classes will be
composed of lectures, exercises, and discussion. Topics include the relationship between language and
thought, the representation of meaning, speech errors, parallels between signed and spoken languages, the
time courses for preparing various aspects of utterances and articulating speech, speech perception, and
spoken word recognition. The course is recommended for students with an interest in language or cognitive
science, as well as those interested in language acquisition, automatic speech recognition and generation, or
communication.
 
Course Objectives:
This course is an introduction to psycholinguistics, the study of the psychological processes of language use.
The goal of the course is to:
(a) introduce students to the field of psycholinguistics;
(b) familiarize students with methods and terminology from psycholinguistics and cognitive psychology; 
(c) provide examples of how information is evaluated from a scientific perspective; how psychological
research is conducted; and how psychological findings are communicated. 
The objectives of the course will be accomplished through the combination of readings, lectures, exercises,
and assignments. The lectures will not exactly follow the textbook. Information from both lectures and readings
will be needed to do well on exams. 
 
Pre-requisites: The Psychology Department will drop all students who do not meet the prerequisite: PSY 301
General Psychology with a C or better.
 
Required reading: 
Carroll, D. W. (2008). The Psychology of Language (5th ed.). Belmont CA: Wadsworth. [Students are
encouraged to work out a sharing plan to keep costs down.]. The 2004 (?) version is acceptable and
some other related textbooks such as Harley (2001), which is available as an e-book through UT.
http://catalog.lib.utexas.edu/record=b6564494~S29
Plus journal articles which will be posted on Blackboard.
 
Office Hours
Come to the instructor's or TA's listed office hours or e-mail for an appointment. The TA will also have a virtual
office hour when he will be available on-line to chat. 
 
Language Processing - Spring 2010  
 
Grading
Assignment Points Percentage of final grade
Homework  
Discussion posts 360 36%
Exercises 140 14%
Take home midterm 200 20%
Take home final  300 30%
 
Straight-scale with no curve: 
A = 93 - 100 C+ = 77 - 79
A- = 90 - 92 C = 73 - 78
B+ = 87 - 89 C- = 70 - 72
B = 83 - 86 D+ = 67 - 69
B- = 80 - 82  D = 63 - 68, etc
 
Homework Assignments
Homework assignments will largely consist of posting comments and questions about readings to an online
discussion board on Blackboard and replying to other students' posts. In writing posts, students are
encouraged to relate course content to their own experiences and interests, and to think about relations among
course topics and links to other fields. Each post should be a full paragraph (at least 150 words). In the case of
questions, the text should provide a context for the question, consider possible answers, or argue why the
question is important. Further guidelines and an example entry will be available on Blackboard. Postings may
receive full credit (15 pts) or no credit (e.g., for lack of clarity, not providing some context or justification for a
question, for inconsiderate responses to others' posts, irrelevant content). Interesting questions submitted by
students may be used in exams. Homework assignments are due on Tuesdays by 11 pm. No credit will be
given for late homework assignments. There will be 14 Discussion Boards (1 per week, not counting Spring
Break) across the semester. Students are expected to post 1-2 times each week for a total of 24 posts. Of
these, at least 6 posts should be responses to posts by other students. Exercises will be posted on Blackboard
or conducted in class. Unless otherwise specified, homework assignments will only be accepted via
Blackboard. 
 
Exams
Exams will be conducted via Blackboard and posted at least 5 days before they are due. They will be
composed of multiple choice, short answer, and essay questions. They will be open-book and open-notes, but
must be completed without the aid of any other person. The standard for earning points on exams will be very
high because they are open book. The mid-term will be due by 10 pm on Saturday, Feb. 27 so that the
grades can be included in intra-semester reports to the Dean. The final exam is scheduled for Saturday, May
15, 7:00–10:00 pm, so it will be due by 10 pm on Saturday, May 15. 
 
Any re-grading requests for the midterm must be submitted to the TA via email no later than 14 days after the
assignment is returned to prevent a flood of requests at the end of the semester. Include a brief note indicating
what is being disputed and why. 
 
Extra credit
Students may earn up to 30 points (3% increase in points towards final grade) by posting more than 24 times
on the Blackboard Discussion boards (although no more than 2 posts per week will count towards extra credit)
and writing short critiques of psycholinguistic articles (pre-approved by instructor or TA). Each extra post that
receives full credit will be worth 5 points. Short critiques are worth up to 10 points each. Students may also
submit ideas for extra credit assignments via email up before April 7.
 
Religious Holidays
Religious holy days sometimes conflict with class and examination schedules. It is the policy of The University
of Texas at Austin that you must notify each of your instructors at least fourteen days prior to the classes
Language Processing - Spring 2010  
 
scheduled on dates you will be absent to observe a religious holy day. If you miss an examination, work
assignment, or other project due to the observance of a religious holy day you will be given an opportunity to
complete the work missed within a reasonable time after the absence.
 
Emergencies, absences, late exams, and other problems
If a student becomes ill or has some other crisis that seriously affects the student’s ability to attend class or
complete assignments, the student should contact the instructor as soon as possible via email. The earlier
the instructor knows that there is a problem, the more likely it is that arrangements can be made to minimize
the impact on academic performance. Please be considerate to other students and stay home if you have
something contagious. Note that there are many resources available via the Dean of Students:
http://deanofstudents.utexas.edu/emergency/quickref/index.php
http://deanofstudents.utexas.edu/emergency/
 
Unless excused or other arrangements are made, late exams will be penalized 5% of the maximum possible
points for submissions within the first 12 hours of the deadline, 10% penalty for those within the first 24 hours
after the deadline, and then a penalty of an additional 10% of total points possible for each 24-hour period
following the deadline. Exams will not be accepted 5 days after the due date. 
 
Students with Disabilities 
Students who require special accommodations need to provide the instructor with a letter that documents the
disability from the Services for Students with Disabilities area of the Office of the Dean of Students (471-6259-
voice or 471-4641 - TTY). This letter should be presented to the instructor at the beginning of the semester (by
January 31) and accommodations should be discussed at that time. No accommodations will be made for
students without this letter. Five business days before an exam the student should remind the instructor of any
testing accommodations that will be needed. For more information see
http://deanofstudents.utexas.edu/ssd/providing.php
 
Academic Integrity
"The core values of the University of Texas at Austin are learning, discovery, freedom, leadership, individual
opportunity, and responsibility. Each member of the University is expected to uphold these values through
integrity, honesty, trust, fairness, and respect toward peers and community."
http://registrar.utexas.edu/catalogs/gi09-10/ch01/index.html
 
All students are assumed to have read the Honor Code and consented to be bound by it. Violations of the
Honor Code are taken extremely seriously and the instructor will recommend that violators receive a failing
grade for the course (not just the assignment). Specific violations include (but are not limited to):
  - Use or provision of prohibited assistance during exams.
  - Collaboration on assignments that are intended to be completed individually.
  - Plagiarism, defined as the use of the ideas without attribution. 
All assignments in this course are to be completed without the assistance of any other person or group unless
otherwise indicated. If you have any questions, please ask. 
 
Courtesy
Do not carry on unrelated conversations during class. You may think that you are being subtle when you pass
notes, but it’s usually obvious. The instructor reserves the right to confiscate any such communications. Please
turn off or silence cell phones during class. If you must have one on vibrate, sit near the door, and answer the
phone outside of the classroom. In general, avoid entering or leaving class during a lecture, but if it is
anticipated and unavoidable, take a seat near the door. If you bring a laptop to class, try to sit near the back so
other students will not be distracted by reading your notes or watching you slay dragons.
Dissemination of course materials
Lecture notes, homework assignments, exams, and announcements will be posted on Blackboard. The
instructor will post lecture notes promptly AFTER lecture (so surprises will not be given away). Alert the TA as
Language Processing - Spring 2010  
 
soon as possible if you cannot access Blackboard. Note that notification of scheduled downtime and
unexpected disruptions are posted on the Blackboard login page.
 
Summary of Course Requirements
Students are expected to: 
1) attend classes, ask clarification questions, and contribute to discussions; 
2) read the textbook and supplemental readings;
3) complete homework assignments and exams and submit them by their due dates; 
4) show reasonable courtesy to the instructor and other students, on-line and in class.
 
Rough Schedule
Day Date
Disc.
post Topic Questions Textbook 
T 19-Jan  Introduction  
Th 21-Jan  Brain & Language How can language processing go wrong? Ch.1, Ch.13
T 26-Jan 1   
Th 28-Jan  Animal Communication How many words can a dog understand?  17-27 (Ch.2)
T 2-Feb 2  What can primates say? 
Th 4-Feb  Language & Cognition Does your language shape the way you think? Ch.14
T 9-Feb 3  Why does it seem like we think in words? 
Th 11-Feb  Language production Are speech errors Freudian slips? Ch.8
T 16-Feb 4  Why are people's names so difficult to remember? 
Th 18-Feb  Language production Why don't we speak more fluently? 
T 23-Feb 5  What can we do to increase fluency? 
Th 25-Feb  Word Meaning  Ch.5
Sa 27-Feb   Take home midterm due    
T 2-Mar 6   
Th 4-Mar  Speech perception
Why do old people understand you better face-to face
than over the phone? Ch.4
T 9-Mar 7 Spoken word recognition  249-263 (Ch.10)
Th 11-Mar    
T 16-Mar   Spring Break    
Th 18-Mar   Spring Break    
T 23-Mar 8 Sentence Comprehension How are inferences manipulated in advertising? Ch.6
Th 25-Mar   How do we understand figurative language? 
T 30-Mar 9 Discourse Comprehension How do we understand stories? Ch.7
Th 1-Apr   How can I better remember what I read? 
T 6-Apr 10 Dialogue Why is it easier to understand friends than strangers? Ch.9
Th 8-Apr    
T 13-Apr 11 Signed languages
How is processing a signed language like processing
a spoken language? 27-33 (Ch.2)
Th 15-Apr    
T 20-Apr 12 Reading Why is it hard to learn to spell/read? 
Th 22-Apr    
T 27-Apr 13 Bilingualism How do you fit two languages in one head? 310-321 (Ch.11)
Th 29-Apr    
T 4-May 14 Review  
Th 6-May    
Sa 15-May   Take home final due    

Seminars in Cognitive and Perceptual Systems. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. May be repeated for credit when the topics vary. Prerequisite: Graduate standing and consent of instructor.

Students may not enroll in Psychology 418 more than twice. Survey of statistics, including central tendency, variability and inference, and scientific methodology used in psychological research. Three lecture hours and two discussion hours a week for one semester. Prerequisite: Psychology 301 with a grade of at least C, a major in psychology, and credit for one of the following: Mathematics 302, 303D, 305G, 408C, 408D, 408K (or 308K), 408L (or 308L), 408M (or 308M), 316.

Seminars in Cognitive or Perceptual Systems. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. May be repeated for credit when the topics vary. Prerequisite: Graduate standing and consent of instructor.