The Competition Model Brian MacWhinney- CMU

1. The Competition ModelBrian MacWhinney- CMU Elizabeth Bates Csaba Pléh Michèle Kail Janet McDonald Antonella Devescovi Klaus-Michael Köpcke Kerry Kilborn Takehiro Ito Ovid Tzeng Judit Osman-Sági Jeffrey Sokolov Beverly Wulfeck Vera Kempe Arturo Hernandez Ping Li Yoshinori Sasaki Empirical Results Published in: MacWhinney, B., & Bates, E. (Eds.) The crosslinguistic study of sentence processing. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989. 15 articles since then

2. 1. The Input • A. Lexical Functionalism -- constructions • B. Input-driven Learning -- cues, frequencies • Cue validity predicts cue strength [p(function)|form] - comprehension [p(form)|function] - production

3. 2. The Learner • Distributed representations -> transfer • Emergent modularity • Neuronal commitment, automaticity • Capacity • Functional neural circuits • Perspective-taking

4. 3. The Context • Classroom context • Negative feedback is positive feedback • Instructional format interacts with learner characteristics • Role of computerized instruction • Setting up input contexts • Role of lexical richness • Learner must learn how to learn

5. 1A. Lexical Functionalism Form (cue, device) Function (role, meaning)

6. Competition between devicesCompetition between interpretations Agent Marking Patient Marking competition hidden Patient Function Agent Function competition

7. Cue validity -> cue strengthCues -> Interpretations ComprehensionMeanings -> Devices Production pre agr init nom the hidden act top per giv def

8. Some cues The tiger pushes the bear. The bear the tiger pushes. Pushes the tiger the bear. The dogs the eraser push. The dogs the eraser pushes. The cat push the dogs. Il gatto spingono i cani.

9. The dog was chased by the cat. • Comprehension - Interpretations compete Agent: The dog vs. the cat Patient: The dog vs. the cat • Production - Devices compete Dog placement: preverbal, postverbal, by-clause Cat placement: preverbal, postverbal, by-clause

10. Cue interactions • Peaceful coexistence • Cue coalitions • Competition between interpretations during comprehension • Competition between devices during production • Change from category leakage and reinterpretation

11. Cues vary across languages English: The pig loves the farmer SV > VO > Agreement German: Das Schwein liebt den Bauer. Den Bauer liebt das Schwein Case > Agreement > Animacy>Word Order Spanish: El cerdo quiere al campesino. Al campesino le quiere el cerdo. "Case" > Agreement > Clitic > Animacy > Word Order

12. Exotic Patterns Navajo: *Yas lééchaa’í yi-stin. snow dog him-frooze. Lééchaaa’ yas bi-stin dog snow him-frooze 7-level hierachy of Animacy -- switch reference

13. Basic results • Reliable Cues Dominate • Cue Strengths Summate • Competition Cells show most variability

14. Ungrammaticality • Continuity for pockets of grammaticality • Hungarian possessive for accusative • Croatian neutralized case in masculine • Japanese “wa” marking • Slowdown for grammatical sentences in Russian, Hungarian, Spanish without the “preferred cue” • Cue summation for pronominal processing

15. English Word Order

16. Italian Agreement

17. English Children

18. Hungarian Children

19. Italian Children

20. Cue validity (low levels) • Task frequency F(task T) / F(all tasks) • Simple availability (relative availability of a cue for a given task) F(times when cue A is present) The cat chases the dog. • Contrast availability F(cue A present ^ cue A contrasts) The cat chases the dogs.

21. Cue validity (high levels) • Simple reliability Reliable if always leads to right functional choice F(cue A present ^ cue A contrasts ^ cue A correct) / F (cue A present^cue A contrasts) • Conflict reliability In certain contexts, one cue will be more reliable F(cue A conflicts with other cue ^ cue A wins) / F(cue A conflicts with any cue) • SA -> CA -> SR -> CR transition

22. Cue validity vs. cue strength • Cue validity is based on (tedious) counts of texts • Cue strength is first assessed through ANOVA analyses in Competition Model experiments • Cue strength is then modeled using MLE

23. MLE models of cue strength • P (first noun) = ∏ S i (first) /∏ S j (others) • Two choice case P (first noun) = ∏ S i (first) /∏ S i (first) + ∏ S j (second) Models vary number of parameters and can be additive or multiplicative

24. Pronouns - an online example MacDonald and MacWhinney (1989) Just before dawn, Lisa was fishing with Ron in the boat, and she caught a big trout right away. and lots of big trout were biting. • Priming of referent at 500 msec for unambiguous gender. • Slowdown in processing of probes right at 0msec delay when there is a gender contrast only.

25. Pronouns - implicit causality McDonald and MacWhinney (1994) Probes presented at 4 Delay Times: D1 D2 D3 D4 * 100 * pro * 200 * end * Gary amazed Ellen time after time, because he was so talented.N1 V N2 filler , because PRO predicate.Probes: referent Gary non-referent Ellen distractor Frank verb amazed Joel admires Susan because she is so fabulous.

26. Results and Competition 1. Slowdown in processing of probes at pronoun when there is a contrast. 2. Facilitation from pronoun onwards when first noun advantage agrees with implicit causality. 3. Activation of N2 right at the pronoun for E-S verbs! 4. Standard Competition Model cue summations and competitions, all right when they should occur.

27. 2. The Learner • Distributed representations -> transfer • Emergent modularity • Neuronal commitment, automaticity • Capacity • Functional neural circuits • Perspective-taking The black dog is going to the market with his owner.

28. Parasitic Learning -- Kroll Translation route “turtle” “tortuga”

29. The Revised Hierarchical ModelKroll & Stewart, 1994

30. Transfer • Principle: Everything that “can transfer” will. • Connectionism predicts transfer • Word order can transfer • Phonology can transfer • Meaning can transfer • Morphological markings cannot • Early bilinguals as mixed

31. Transfer beyond the word • I want to go to school. • Yo querer ir a escuela. • I would like to go to school. • (I) would-like to-go to the-school. • xx quer-rí-a ir a la-escuela. • Do you want to eat at my house? • You want not want at me eat, huh? • Translation with feedback may not be so bad. • http://psyling.psy.cmu.edu/traducir/

32. Problems with Transfer • Lexical concepts “sibling” in Dutch = brother or sister • Broadness of application of translation equivalents glass in English, vidrio or vaso in Spanish car - “achterbak” or “kofferbak” tree -“stam” or “boomstronk” body - “romp” snout - “slurf”

33. More Problems with Transfer • Grammatical expression of certain aspects of experience The boy had fallen from the tree and his dog was hovering over him • Semantic boundaries differ across languages prepositions (Ijaz, 1986) Germans under-emphasize contact and over-emphasize movement for “on” German “auf” means “up”

34. Emergent modularity • Growing modules • Farah and McClelland • Jacobs, Jordan, Barto • Kim et al. fMRI study

35. Capacity restrictions • Detectability • Complexity (for production) • Assignability (memory load) • Online load minimization • One good cue is enough (Russian, Spanish) • Waiting for a reliable cue: Russian, Hungarian • No use waiting for cue that will not be reliable, German die Frau küßt der ...

36. DutchL1 EnglishL2

37. JapaneseL1 EnglishL2

38. EnglishL1 DutchL2

39. DutchL1 EnglishL2

40. Aphasics - Word Order

41. Aphasics - Agreement

42. Case in Croatian Normals

43. Case in Croatian Aphasics

44. Word Order in Production

45. Some generalizations • Children learn the most valid cues first. • Aphasics preserve the most valid cues. They also rigidify on the strongest devices • L2 learners attempt transfer, but then learn cues. They gradually reach L1 levels of cue strength. • Connectionism predicts transfer.

46. 3. The Context Providing negative evidence

47. Word learning - Merriman

48. Recovery in syntax

49. Complex cases

50. MacDonald et al.