30770 - Psycholinguistics (2) (2nd cycle)

Learning outcomes

The learning objective of this course is to understand how cognitive processes interact with language processes. Applications of psycholinguistics in different fields will be examined.

Course contents

In order to attend the Psycholinguistic (2) LM course (30 hours of lessons - 6 cfu) it is necessary to attend to Psicolinguistica (1) LM (30 hours of lessons - 6 cfu).

The aim is to deepen some representative themes of the main problems and perspectives that characterize contemporary experimental research in psychology on language, taking advantage of the skills acquired in the first module (Psycholinguistics 1).

The applied nature of the course will aim at address the issue of the experimental research on language.

At the beginning of the course the teacher will present the main topic as being representative of the main issues and views that characterize the contemporary research in cognitive psychology on language. Students will be required to read a paper and comment and discuss it in class under the supervision of the professor. Given the nature of the course, the attendance becomes very important for the preparation of the exam.

The goal is to deepen a current topic of debate in the scientific community and to collectively co-construct a critical elaboration of this topic.

Psycholinguistics (2) (LM) (6 CFU) will start on the IV period for a total of 30 hours of lessons.

Readings/Bibliography

The Bibliography differs according to whether the student is attending or not attending, specifically:

- Attending students: In addition to the bibliography required for the Psicolinguistica (1) LM exam, students who have also attended Psicolinguistica (2) LM have to study the paper they presented during the course and 2 other papers discussed during the course

- Not attending students: In addition to the bibliography required for the Psicolinguistica (1) LM exam, students who have not attended Psicolinguistica (2) LM must study 5 articles, more specifically:

- the three following articles:

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: A new psychology. Italian Journal of Psychology, 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.

- two papers from the following list:

1. Adornetti, I., Chiera, A., Ferretti, F. (2018). Embodied cognition e origine del linguaggio: il ruolo cruciale del gesto. Lebenswelt, 13, 43-56
2. Buccino, G., Mezzadri, M. (2013). La teoria dell’embodiment e il processo di apprendimento e insegnamento di una lingua. Enthymema, VIII, 5-20
3. Carlo et al (2021). Il ruolo della costruzione di scenari nella spiegazione dei disturbi macrolinguistici della schizofrenia. Rivista Internazionale di Filosofia e Psicologia, 12 (1), pp. 88-105. DOI: 10.4453/rifp.2021.0007
4. Casas-Mas, A., Pozo, J.I., Montero, I. (2022). Oral Tradition as Context for Learning Music From 4E Cognition Compared With Literacy Cultures. Case Studies of Flamenco Guitar Apprenticeship. Frontiers in Psychology 13:733615
5. Chiricò, D. (2019). La voce. Prima opera d’arte dell’umanità. Reti, saperi, linguaggi, 2/2019 a. 8 (16) pp. 279-294
6. Clark, K.M. (2024). Embodied Imagination: Lakoff and Johnson’s Experientialist View of Conceptual Understanding. Review of General Psychology, Vol. 0(0) 1–18
7. Foroni, F. (2015).Do we embody second language? Evidence for “partial” simulation during processing of second language. Brain and Cognition, 99, 8-16
8. Sterling, H., Louwerse, M. (2013). Language statistics and individual differences in processing primary Metaphors. Cognitive Linguistics, 24(4), 667 – 687
9. Odendahl (2021). Embodied Cognition, affects and language comprehension. Theoretical basis and (literary-)didactic perspectives of a physicallyemotionally grounded model of understanding. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 20, 483–499
10. Parisi, F., Pennisi, P. (2014). Abiti d’azione e concetti attraverso la metafora peirciana della fotografia composita: il nesso con l’embodied cognition. RIFL / SFL, 300-311
11. Pexman et al. (2022) Social semantics: the organization and grounding of abstract concepts. Philosophical Transactions R. Soc. B, 378: 20210363. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2021.0363
12. Pisano, F., Marangolo, P. (2020). Looking at ancillary systems for verb recovery: Evidence from non-invasive brain stimulation. Brain and Cognition, 139, 1-8
13. Repetto, C., Rodella, C., Conca, F., Santi, G.C., Catricalà, E. (2023). The Italian Sensorimotor Norms: Perception and action strength measures for 959 words. Behavior Research Methods, 55, 4035–4047
14. Mark Sadoski, M., Lawrence, B. (2023). Abstract Vocabulary Development: Embodied Theory and Practice, Educational Psychology Review, 35:84, 1-19
15. Van Dijk, M., Kroesbergen Elmablom, E.H., Leseman, P.M. (2018). Bilingualism and Creativity: Towards a Situated Cognition Approach. Journal of Creativity Behavior, 53, 178–188
16. Zhou, Y. & Tse, C.S. (2020) The Taste of Emotion: Metaphoric Association Between Taste Words and Emotion/Emotion-Laden Words. Frontiers in Psychology, 11:986. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00986

The articles can be found online from the Unibo library portal. To download them remotely from 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 have problems finding the article, are invited to contact the professor.
Students who are interested in other specific subjects (for degree thesis or research projects, etc.), are asked to contact the professor.

Teaching methods

Lectures with power point presentations and shared discussion of the articles presented by the students, moderated and integrated by the professor.

During each lecture, specific research studies in the psycholinguistics filed will be presented and discussed.

The Power Point presentation will be available on Virtuale

Assessment methods

The final exam will be an oral exam.

Those who have chosen to take the 12 credits exam will have to take the first part (Psycholinguistics 1 - 6 credits) in written mode (multiple choice test) and the second part (Psycholinguistics 2 - 6 credits) in oral mode.

To take the Psycholinguistics exam (1) (first part - 6 credits) one, please refer to the exams published on Almaesami.

To take the Psycholinguistics exam (2) (second part - 6 credits), please contact the professor by email (l.lugli@unibo.it).

The exam aims at verifying:

1. the competence of the acquired contents

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

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

They will be evaluated with marks of excellence:

• the students' acquisition of an organic vision of the topics addressed in class together with their critical use

They will be evaluated with discrete marks:

• a mnemonic knowledge of the subject,
• a capacity for synthesis and analysis

They will be evaluated with insufficient marks:

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

The exam offers a further opportunity for discussion with the teacher, a comparison that the student is invited to look for during the lessons, intervening in person with the request for clarification or with proposals for further information.

Foreign students who feel more confortable to take the exam in English, are kindly asked to contact the professor in order to arrange the examination procedure.

Teaching tools

Participation (also online) in experimental sessions for the deepening of experimental paradigms

Office hours

See the website of Luisa Lugli