Psycholinguistics of English
Osnova sekce
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This course introduces students to psycholinguistics, the study of the psychological and neurological processes underlying human language. We will examine how people acquire, comprehend, produce, and represent language in the mind and brain. The main focus will be on the mental lexicon (or mental dictionary) - a language user’s cognitive storage of internalized knowledge of the properties of words. Lexical access refers to the retrieval of words from the mental lexicon, and this includes both word recognition as well as production processes. This course provides an introduction to how lexical memory works, how words are organized and how their semantic and formal knowledge is represented. The main focus will be on orthographic, phonological, and semantic aspects of words. In addition, we will discuss challenges posed by multiple languages memorized by a language user (the “bilingual/ multilingual mental lexicon”). Students will learn about various empirical techniques, which are used to investigate the organizational structure of the mental lexicon, ranging from experimental psychology to computer modeling. The aim of this course is to familiarize students with current issues and experimental approaches to the organization and function of the mental lexicon in first and second/foreign language users.
In the summer semester of 2026, this course will be offered as a project-based course. This means that it will be a mix of regular classes, online classes, and empirical projects conducted by the participants. Please have a close look at the syllabus below to see when we will meet in class or online.Class Meetings
Tuesday, 9:10, room 111.
Online classes will take place on Teams.
Link to Teams channel "Psycholinguistics of English, Luef"
Psycholinguistics of English, Luef | elearning - AJD | Microsoft Teams
If you are having trouble accessing the Teams channel (e.g., if you are an exchange student or from a different faculty), please send me an email before class, so I can forward an invitation to you.
Go here to find the explanation of the experiment you participated in:
Recap: Meeting in "Language Network Analysis, Luef" 11 May | Meeting | Microsoft Teams
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Lesson
Date
Note
Topic
1
17.2.
In class
Introduction to language and psychology: Cognitive representations of words
2
24.2.
In class
Models of word perception and production
3
3.3.
Assignment
Words in the mind...
4
10.3.
In class
Lexical competition in mono- and multilinguals
5
17.3.
Assignment
Participate in word recognition experiment
6
24.3.
In class
Experimental approaches to the mental lexicon
7
31.3.
Humanities Week
8
7.4.
Online (Teams)
Program your experiment in PsychoPy
9
14.4.
Project work:
No class
- - Plan sociolinguistic project
- - Gather data (corpus, record yourself)
- - Analyze data
- - Prepare presentation
10
21.4.
Project work:
No class
11
28.4.
Project work:
No class
12
5.5.
In class
Project presentations
13
12.5.
Online Project presentations
14
19.5.
Cancelled
Write up project report
Selected literature
Aitchison, J. (2012). Words in the mind: An introduction to the mental lexicon. London: John Wiley & Sons.
Bybee, J. (2000). The phonology of the lexicon: Evidence from lexical diffusion. In S. Kemmer & M. Barlow (Eds.), Usage-based models of language (pp. 65-86). California: CSLI Publications.
Charles-Luce, J., & Luce, P. A. (1990). Similarity neighbourhoods of words in young children’s lexicon. Journal of Child Language, 17(1), 205-215.
Dell, G. S. (1986). A spreading-activation theory of retrieval in sentence production. Psychologial Review, 93(3), 283-321.
Dóczi, B. (2020). An overview of conceptual models and theories of lexical representation in the mental lexicon. In S. Webb (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of vocabulary studies (pp. 46-65). London, New York: Routledge.
Fay, D., & Cutler, A. (1977). Malapropisms and the structure of the mental lexicon. Linguistic Inquiry, 8(3), 505-520.
Levelt, W. J. M. (1999). Models of word production. Trends in Cognitive Science, 3(6), 223-232.
Luce, P. A., & Pisoni, D. B. (1998). Recognizing spoken words: The neighborhood activation model. Ear and Hearing, 19, 1-36.
Luef, E. M. (2022). Growth algorithms in the phonological networks of second language learners. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 151(12), e26-44. doi:10.1037/xge0001248
Marslen-Wilson, W. D., & Zwitserlood, P. (1989). Accessing spoken words: The importance of word onsets. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human perception and performance, 15, 576.
McClelland, J. L., & Elman, J. L. (1986). The TRACE model of speech perception. Cognitive Psychology, 18, 1-86.
Turnbull, R., & Peperkamp, S. (2017). What governs a language’s lexicon? Determining the organizing principles of phonological neighbourhood networks. In H. Cherifi, S. Gaito, W. Quattrociocchi, & A. Sala (Eds.), Complex networks and their applications V (pp. 83-94). Cham, Switzerland: Springer.
Ullman, M. T. (2007). The biocognition of the mental lexicon. In M. G. Gaskell, G. T. M. Altmann, P. Bloom, A. Caramazza, & P. Levelt (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of psycholinguistics (pp. 267-288). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Vitevitch, M. S. (2012). What do foreign neighbors say about the mental lexicon? Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 15(1), 167-172.
Weber, A., & Scharenborg, O. (2012). Models of spoken-word recognition. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science, 3, 387-401.
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- Attendance and participation: The success of this course relies on your participation. Whether you are working in group activities, individual workshops, or class discussions (on- and offline), you must be present and active.
- Groups of students will conduct small-scale psycholinguistic projects/ experiments and present them at the end of the semester.
- A project report is to be submitted by the end of the semester.
GRADING
Attendance, active participation = 20%
Assignments, homework = 30%
Project work & presentation = 30%
Final project report = 20%
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Groups of 2-4 students conceptualize a psycholinguistic project, develop a hypothesis, gather appropriate data, analyze the data, and write up their methods and findings in a project report. Essentially, projects are experiments. You are supposed to come up with an experiment (based on a hypothesis), run it, analyze the data, and describe your results.
Projects will be presented at the end of the semester. A template for the project report can be found below. I have also attached a list of possible topic areas.
If you are having difficulties coming up with a topic, or if you would like to discuss your ideas with me, send me an email and we will arrange a meeting.
PRESENTATIONS
The length should be about 20 minutes, depending on the number of group members. Each person should talk for about 10 minutes. It is important that you go into some detail on
- how you developed your hypothesis (from reading, personal experience etc.)
- how you conceptualized the data collection (with what goals in mind)
- how you collected the data, if applicable: how were participants selected and recruited
- how you analyzed the data, including how you constructed figures/ graphs
- what your findings show, embed them in previous, similar research
- state in a few sentences how your project could potentially be expanded based on interesting insights you have gained
Please let me know your topic/ experimental idea by April 10, 2026.
Submission deadline of the project report is the end of the semester.
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This is the article your classmate mentioned on Tuesday - chickens can perceive "sound shapes" similar to humans. The so-called "bouba-kiki" effect.
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Please read the appended chapter of Aitchison's book "Words in the mind" and answer the following questions:
- How is the mental lexicon defined?
- Name some rules that govern storage of words in the mental lexicon.
- What are word associations and how can they be tested in an experiment?
- Describe coordination, collocation, superordination, and synonymy in your own words. Find at least one example for each (your own - different from the ones in the text).
- What are semantic fields?
Answer length of 3-4 sentences is sufficient.
Send me your answers in an email by March 9, 2026.
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This is an experiment on word recognition in English as a second language and German as a second language. Please choose the correct experiment based on your knowledge of the two languages: if you know English as a second language but no or little German, please go to EXPERIMENT 1: ENGLISH and proceed from there.
If you know German at a proficiency level of approximately B1 or higher, please go to EXPERIMENT 2: GERMAN and proceed from there.
For each experiment there are two links posted: one takes you to an online lexical decision task, the other one is a link to a GoogleForm that contains the consent information for the experiment and also a vocabulary task in the respective language. Please complete both tasks (in the right order) for your chosen experiment. But remember to choose only one experiment.
You will receive detailed instructions on the tasks once you have clicked on the links. Please use headphones.
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EXPERIMENT 1: ENGLISH
This is the right experiment for you if you know English as a second language at intermediate to advanced level but you have no or little knowledge of German as a second language (levels A1 or A2).
- Start with this link that takes you to a lexical decision task:
https://run.pavlovia.org/emluef/Triling_word_recogn_Eng_SS26
2. This link takes you to the GoogleForm to be filled in AFTER the experiment:
Please complete both tasks and use your real name to identify yourself (in order to get credit for participation).
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EXPERIMENT 2: GERMAN
Please choose this experiment if you know German at a level of B1 or higher.
- Start with this link that takes you to a lexical decision task:
https://run.pavlovia.org/emluef/Trilingual_Eng_Ger_SS26
2. This link takes you to the GoogleForm to be filled in AFTER the experiment:
Please complete both tasks and use your real name to identify yourself (in order to get credit for participation).
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If you have any questions, please send me an email.