29399 - Psycholinguistics (1) (LM) (M-Z)

Learning outcomes

Students will be provided with an overview of the psycholinguistic research from the mid-twentieth century to the present. Particular attention will be devoted to cognitive processes involved in language comprehension and production.

Course contents

Psycholinguistics (1) (LM) (6 CFU) aims to provide the student with theoretical and applicative knowledge of research on language, in the wake of cognitive psychology.
The course will cover topics related to the study of language from a psycholinguistic perspective (e.g., development and origin of language, research methods, biological bases of language, language processing systems), and a more interdisciplinary perspective considering language as an interactional practice (e.g., pragmatic and communicative aspects of language, language as joint activity).

Lectures aim to provide the theoretical basis of research on language and present the main experimental evidences on the issues addressed in order to promote fruitful collective discussions.

Psycholinguistics (1) (LM) (6 CFU) will start on the III term for a total of 30 hours.

Students of all Master's Degree courses for which the study plan includes Psycholinguistic (9 credits) or Psychology of Language and Communication (9 CFU) (for example, Italian Language and Culture for Foreigners; Language, Society and Communication) will have to choose the Psycholinguistic course (1) (LM) (6 CFU), and integrate the exam bibliography of the 6 CFU course with some articles to choose from the list below (see specific information in the Reading/Bibliography section).

The students of the Master's Degree in Italian Studies and Linguistic Sciences who choose the Psycholinguistic (LM) course (12 CFU) must take both the Psycholinguistic (1) (LM) (6 CFU) and the Psycholinguistic (2) (LM) (6 CFU) exams, see supplementary information on the course page.

Students who have already taken a psycholinguistic course are invited to contact the Lecturer by email.

Previous knowledge in psycholinguistics is not required.

Readings/Bibliography

The exam bibliography is the same for attending and non-attending students.

Exam bibiliografy 6 cfu

1) Cacciari, C. (2011). Psicologia del linguaggio. Bologna: Il Mulino.

Chapters I. Studiare il linguaggio; II. La ricerca sperimentale sul linguaggio; III. L'origine e lo sviluppo del linguaggio; IV. Le basi del linguaggio; VI. Il sistema di elaborazione delle parole; VII. Dalle parole alle frasi, ai discorsi, ai testi.

Foreign students who feel more comfortable to study in English are kindly asked to contact the Lecturer.

2) Clark, H.H. (1996). Using language. Cambridge University Press.
Chapters: 1. Language use; 2. Joint activities; 3. Joint actions; 8. Grounding

Exam bibiliografy 9 cfu

1) Cacciari, C. (2011). Psicologia del linguaggio. Bologna: Il Mulino.

Chapters I. Studiare il linguaggio; II. La ricerca sperimentale sul linguaggio; III. L'origine e lo sviluppo del linguaggio; IV. Le basi del linguaggio; VI. Il sistema di elaborazione delle parole; VII. Dalle parole alle frasi, ai discorsi, ai testi.

Foreign students who feel more comfortable to study in English are kindly asked to contact the Lecturer.

2) Clark, H.H. (1996). Using language. Cambridge University Press.
Chapters: 1. Language use; 2. Joint activities; 3. Joint actions; 8. Grounding

3) 3 PAPERS of your choice from the following list:

Two from this list of theoretical papers:

1. Barsalou, L.W. (2009). Simulation, situated conceptualization, and prediction. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 364, pp. 1281–1289.
2. Caruana F., Borghi, A.M. (2013). Embodied Cognition: Una nuova psicologia. Giornale Italiano di Psicologia, XXXV, pp. 23-48.
3. Mahon, B.Z., Caramazza, A. (2008). A critical look to the embodied cognition hypothesis and a new proposal for grounding conceptual content. Journal of Physiology, 102, pp. 59-70.

One from this list of applied papers:

1. Chen, M., & Bargh, J. A. (1999). Consequences of automatic evaluation: Immediate behavioral predispositions to approach or avoid the stimulus. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25, 215–224.
2. Glenberg, A. M., & Kaschak, M. P. (2002). Grounding language in action. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 9, 558–565.
3. Lugli, L., Baroni, G., Gianelli, C., Borghi, A.M., Nicoletti, R. (2012). Self, Others, objects: How this triadic interaction modulates our behaviour. Memory & Cognition, 40, 1373-1386.
4. Scerrati, E., Baroni. G., Borghi. A.M., Galatolo, R., Lugli, L., Nicoletti, R. (2015). The modality-switch effect: visually and aurally presented prime sentences activate our senses. Frontiers in Psychology – Cognition. Volume 6:1668. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01668.

The papers can be found online from the Unibo library portal. To download them remotely on your computer, when you are not connected to the Unibo Wifi network, you need to access via the Unibo proxy service (link: http://www.biblioteche.unibo.it/portale/strumenti/proxy).

Students who face problems finding the articles, are invited to contact the Lecturer.

Students who are interested in specific Psycolinguistic topics (for degree thesis or research projects, etc.), are invited to contact the Lecturer.

Teaching methods

Frontal lectures with the help of PowerPoint slides. Debate will be promoted.

Furthermore, participation in experimental research on language (also online) will be proposed.

The PowerPoint presentations will be available on Virtuale.

Assessment methods

The final exam will be a multiple-choice test. The questions will concern the topics studied and their applications. The exam aims at verifying:

1. the competence of the acquired contents

2. the level of acquisition and critical-conceptual elaboration of the proposed contents

3. the ability to orientate between the main lines of research

Students will be evaluated with marks of excellence:

• if they acquire an organic vision of the topics addressed in the class together with a critical view

Students will be evaluated with discrete marks:

• if they acquire a mnemonic knowledge of the subject,
• if they show a capacity for synthesis and analysis

Students will be evaluated with insufficient marks:

• if they show knowledge gaps
• if they show lack of orientation in the bibliographic materials offered during the course

The exam offers a further opportunity for discussion with the Lecturer. Students are invited to promote discussions of presented topics in class, intervening in person with the request for clarification or with proposals for further in-depth analysis.

Students who have already taken a Psycholinguistic exam may, if they wish, opt for an oral interview in which they will have to present and discuss a paper on a topic covered during the course. Should students opt for the oral exam they are invited to contact the Lecturer.

Foreign students who feel more confortable to take the exam in English, are kindly invited to contact the Lecturer in order to set the exam procedure.

Teaching tools

PowerPoint slides

Participation (also online) in experimental sessions for an in-depth analysis of experimental paradigms

Office hours

See the website of Elisa Scerrati