29399 - Psycholinguistics (1) (LM)

Learning outcomes

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

Course contents

Psycholinguistics (1) (LM) (6 CFU) aims to provide the student with a theoretical and applicative overview of language in psychology and in particular according to the approach 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 topics related to to applicative research on language taking into account interdisciplinary perspectives aimed at the study of language as interactional practice (e.g., pragmatic and communicative aspects of language, language as joint activity).

The lessons will aim to provide the theoretical basis and the main experimental evidence in order to promote a fruitful collective discussion on the issues addressed.

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

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 published list (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 attend both the Psycholinguistic (1) (LM) (6 CFU) and the Psycholinguistic course (2) (LM) (6 CFU) exams, see supplementary information on the course page.

 

Previous knowledge in psycholinguistics is not required.

Readings/Bibliography

Exam bibiliografy 6 cfu

for both attending and not attending students:

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

Edizione 2011 - Capitoli 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.

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

Exam bibiliografy 9 cfu

for both attending and not attending students:

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

Edizione 2011 - Capitoli 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.

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

3) 3 PAPERS of your choice, more specifically:

Two from this list of theorical 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 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.

Furthermore, for non-attending students, the professor is available to provide optional supplementary literature.

Teaching methods

Lectures with the help of Power Point presentations in which the debate on the individual problems addressed will be promoted.

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

The Power Point presentation 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 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.

Students with disabilities and Specific Learning Disorders (SLD)

Students with disabilities or Specific Learning Disorders have the right to special accommodations according to their condition, following an assessment by the Service for Students with Disabilities and SLD. Please do not contact the teacher but get in touch with the Service directly to schedule an appointment. It will be the responsibility of the Service to determine the appropriate adaptations. For more information, visit the page:

https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/en/for-students

Teaching tools

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

Office hours

See the website of Luisa Lugli