Conference Proceedings by Molood Sadat (Farnoosh) Safavi, PhD
Diglossia, defined as the variety of two or more languages that co-exist in a society, has always... more Diglossia, defined as the variety of two or more languages that co-exist in a society, has always been a point of discussion and interest from various points of view. From a pure linguistic aspect, the two forms of language use can vary in phonological, morphosyntactic and discourse level. These differences ranging from strong to weak can influence the way language is applied to different contexts. As a sociolinguistic situation, one can relate it to power, prestige, and literacy [1]. The choice of a language or variety to be used in specific conditions can be considered a decision influenced by different motivational factors and often conflicting norms and values prevailing in the society [2]. With this respect, a big challenge arises when a diglossic language is being taught as a second or foreign language where the learner needs to study two different versions of namely the same language that makes the learning process very demanding. Besides, the cognitive basis underlying this phenomenon has been studied in Languages like Arabic [3], and the neurocognitive modeling of the two language varieties has been investigated through experimental approaches such as event-related brain potentials [4]. The code-switching between languages can also bring difficulties in the course of translation and simultaneous interpretation. In this symposium, we are going to focus on the computational linguistic aspects of Persian as a strong diaglossic language. Persian is an understudied language from cognitive and computational perspective. Therefore, a wide corpus study needs to be done addressing both formal and colloquial versions at the same time. To this aim, some computational aspects such as lexical mapping, machine translation, discourse and dialogue systems will be discussed in the following talks to find out the open areas of research, problems and possible solutions in future.
[1] Schiffman, H. (1997). Diglossia as a sociolinguistic situation. The handbook of sociolinguistics, 205-216.
[2] Nercissians, E. (2001). Bilingualism and diglossia: patterns of language use by ethnic minorities in Tehran. International journal of the sociology of language, 59-70.
[3] Ibrahim, R. (2009). The cognitive basis of diglossia in Arabic: Evidence from a repetition priming study within and between languages. Psychology research and behavior management, 2, 93.
[4] Khamis-Dakwar, R., & Froud, K. (2014, October). Neurocognitive modeling of the two language varieties in Arabic Diglossia. In Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics XXVI: Papers from the annual symposium on Arabic Linguistics. New York, 2012 (Vol. 2). John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Processing cost is known to increase with dependency distance (Gibson 2000). However, the expecta... more Processing cost is known to increase with dependency distance (Gibson 2000). However, the expectation-based account (Hale 2001, Levy 2008) predicts that delaying the appearance of a verb renders it more predictable and therefore easier to process. We tested the predictions of these two opposing accounts using complex predicates in Persian. One type of Complex predicate is a Noun-Verb configuration in which the verb is highly predictable given the noun. We delayed the appearance of the verb by interposing a relative clause (Expt 1, 42 subjects), or a single long PP (Expt 2, 43 subjects); the precritical region (the phrase before the verb) in both the short and long conditions was a short PP. Locality accounts such as Gibson (2000) predict a slowdown at the verb (real verb) due to increased Noun-Verb distance, whereas expectation accounts predict that distance should not adversely affect the processing time at the verb (because the conditional probability of the verb given the preceding context is close to 1---this was established with an offline sentence completion study). As a control, we included a simple predicate (Noun-Verb) configuration; the same distance manipulation was applied here as for complex predicates. In the control, locality accounts predict a slowdown in the long distance condition, but expectation accounts predict a speedup due to the increasing probability of the verb appearing given left context. Thus, we had a 2x2 design (high vs low predictability; short vs long distance).
In Expt 1, we found a main effect of distance (t=4.24): reading time (RT) was longer in the long-distance conditions; a nested comparison showed that this effect was due to the low-predictable (simple predicate) conditions. In addition, both the high-predictable conditions were read faster than the low-predictable conditions (t=3.49). Expt 2, which had a long intervening PP, showed an even stronger main effect of distance (t=6.04) than in Expt 1: the RT in long conditions was slower than in short conditions; the locality effects were equally strong in the high and low predictable cases. As in Expt 1, we saw faster RTs in the high-predictable conditions. A combined analysis of the two experiments revealed a main effect of prediction (t=3.55) and a main of distance (t=4.30) as well as a marginal 3-way interaction between experiment, distance and prediction (t=-1.94).
Thus, we find clear effects of locality in both experiments, and we also find evidence for expectation effects: the high-predictable verbs are read faster than the low-predictable verbs. The fact that we don't see facilitation with increased distance at the verb in spite of high predictability might be due to increased difficulty in prediction maintenance due to processing load. Recall that the locality effect in Expt 1 is driven only by low-predictable condition, while in Expt 2 both high and low are affected. In Expt 2, the intervener is a long, uninterrupted phrase whereas in Expt 1, the intervener consists of a short RC followed by a PP. Processing a single long intervening phrase may be harder than processing two different phrases, reminiscent of the sausage machine proposal of Frazier and Fodor (1978). The results suggest that complexity of intervening material is critical for prediction maintenance. Although we found evidence for both locality and expectation effects, a key prediction of the expectation account was not validated: delaying the appearance of a verb (predictable or not) did not facilitate processing.
Structural and Semantic Processing of Persian Idioms : a study based on ERPs, In Proceedings of 5th International Conference of Cognitive Science, Tehran, Iran, 2013
Thesis by Molood Sadat (Farnoosh) Safavi, PhD
Recent electrophysiological evidence shows that there are differences in structural and semantic ... more Recent electrophysiological evidence shows that there are differences in structural and semantic processing of different languages. In this research, we have studied the mental processing of idioms and non-idioms in 12 normal monolingual Persian-speaking individuals (6 males and 6 females) based on the Event-Related Brain Potentials technique. The subjects were all right-handed, university-educated and in 25-35 age range. The experimental stimuli consisted of three categories: (a) 60 idioms, (b) 60 non-idioms which were grammatically and semantically correct Persian sentences, and differed from the corresponding idioms in only one word (the target word), and (c) 60 fillers which were the sequences unrelated concrete words. All the stimuli included 3-5 words with the mean of 4.2. The idioms were matched in terms of their familiarity, frequency and predictability features, rated by two homogeneous groups (40 individuals in each). The results indicated a significant mean difference in N200 component of idioms and non-idioms. To be specific, the mean of peak amplitude in idioms was much higher than in non-idioms, showing semantic categorization and visual word recognition at this time. Also, peak amplitude of N400 semantic component had a significant mean difference in idioms compared with non-idiom, indicating that semantic processing. Furthermore, idioms elicited a higher P600 compared to non-idioms. According to these findings, we can conclude that semantic and syntactic processing of idioms are more demanding for the brain compared with the processing of non-idioms. Also, the finding showed no dominance of one hemisphere to the other which showed both hemispheres almost equally involve in processing of figurative language. Further studies are needed to be done in Persian language to see the effect of the linguistic materials and its special orthography on the way linguistic information is prossessed in the brain.
Key words: ERP, idiom, non-idiom, N400, P600
Test Adaptation by Molood Sadat (Farnoosh) Safavi, PhD
Safavi, M.S., Raaijmakers, S., Satoer, D. & Bastiaanse, R. (2015). The e-Token Test: Persian version. Groningen (NL): Groningen Expert Center for Language and Communication Disorders.
Papers by Molood Sadat (Farnoosh) Safavi, PhD
Structural Processing of Persian Idioms and Semantic: A Study Based on ERPs:Safavi , Molood Sadat; Raghibdoost, Shahla; Khorrami Banaraki , Anahita ,5TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OF COGNITIVE SCIENCE TEHRAN IRAN.2013
In dit proefschrift onderzochten wij twee concurrerende theorieen die op geheugen en verwachting ... more In dit proefschrift onderzochten wij twee concurrerende theorieen die op geheugen en verwachting gebaseerd zijn en over de verwerking van zinnen gaan tijdens het oplossen van afhankelijkheden met een lange afstand in het Perzisch. Volgens de op geheugen gebaseerde theorie zal de verwerking van het werkwoord moeilijker zijn wanneer het werkwoord later verschijnt in een constructie waarin het werkwoord afhankelijk is van een zelfstandig naamwoord. Daarentegen zal volgens de op verwachting gebaseerde theorie de latere verschijning van het werkwoord ervoor zorgen dat deze beter te voorspellen is, waardoor de verwerking ervan makkelijker is. Wij gebruikten complexe predikaten, de meest gebruikte soort werkwoorden in het Perzisch, en vergeleken deze met eenvoudige werkwoorden. In twee self-paced leestaken en eye-tracking experimenten lieten wij het werkwoord later verschijnen door een betrekkelijke bijzin of een lang voorzetselconstituent in the voegen. We gebruikten ook eenvoudige predik...
Frontiers in Psychology, 2016
Delaying the appearance of a verb in a noun-verb dependency tends to increase processing difficul... more Delaying the appearance of a verb in a noun-verb dependency tends to increase processing difficulty at the verb; one explanation for this locality effect is decay and/or interference of the noun in working memory. Surprisal, an expectation-based account, predicts that delaying the appearance of a verb either renders it no more predictable or more predictable, leading respectively to a prediction of no effect of distance or a facilitation. Recently, Husain et al. (2014) suggested that when the exact identity of the upcoming verb is predictable (strong predictability), increasing argument-verb distance leads to facilitation effects, which is consistent with surprisal; but when the exact identity of the upcoming verb is not predictable (weak predictability), locality effects are seen. We investigated Husain et al.'s proposal using Persian complex predicates (CPs), which consist of a non-verbal element-a noun in the current study-and a verb. In CPs, once the noun has been read, the exact identity of the verb is highly predictable (strong predictability); this was confirmed using a sentence completion study. In two self-paced reading (SPR) and two eye-tracking (ET) experiments, we delayed the appearance of the verb by interposing a relative clause (Experiments 1 and 3) or a long PP (Experiments 2 and 4). We also included a simple Noun-Verb predicate configuration with the same distance manipulation; here, the exact identity of the verb was not predictable (weak predictability). Thus, the design crossed Predictability Strength and Distance. We found that, consistent with surprisal, the verb in the strong predictability conditions was read faster than in the weak predictability conditions. Furthermore, greater verb-argument distance led to slower reading times; strong predictability did not neutralize or attenuate the locality effects. As regards the effect of distance on dependency resolution difficulty, these four experiments present evidence in favor of working memory accounts of argument-verb dependency resolution, and against the surprisal-based expectation account of Levy (2008). However, another expectation-based measure, entropy, which was computed using the offline sentence completion data, predicts reading times in Experiment 1 but not in the other experiments. Because participants tend to produce more ungrammatical continuations in the long-distance condition in Experiment 1, we suggest that forgetting due to memory overload leads to greater entropy at the verb.
Delaying the appearance of a verb in a noun-verb dependency tends to increase processing difficul... more Delaying the appearance of a verb in a noun-verb dependency tends to increase processing difficulty at the verb; one explanation for this locality effect is decay and/or interference of the noun in working memory. Surprisal, an expectation-based account, predicts that delaying the appearance of a verb either renders it no more predictable or more predictable, leading respectively to a prediction of no effect of distance or a facilitation. Recently, Husain et al. (2014) suggested that when the exact identity of the upcoming verb is predictable (strong predictability), increasing argument-verb distance leads to facilitation effects, which is consistent with surprisal; but when the exact identity of the upcoming verb is not predictable (weak predictability), locality effects are seen. We investigated Husain et al.'s proposal using Persian complex predicates (CPs), which consist of a non-verbal element—a noun in the current study—and a verb. In CPs, once the noun has been read, the exact identity of the verb is highly predictable (strong predictability); this was confirmed using a sentence completion study. In two self-paced reading (SPR) and two eye-tracking (ET) experiments, we delayed the appearance of the verb by interposing a relative clause (Experiments 1 and 3) or a long PP (Experiments 2 and 4). We also included a simple Noun-Verb predicate configuration with the same distance manipulation; here, the exact identity of the verb was not predictable (weak predictability). Thus, the design crossed Predictability Strength and Distance. We found that, consistent with surprisal, the verb in the strong predictability conditions was read faster than in the weak predictability conditions. Furthermore, greater verb-argument distance led to slower reading times; strong predictability did not neutralize or attenuate the locality effects. As regards the effect of distance on dependency resolution difficulty, these four experiments present evidence in favor of working memory accounts of argument-verb dependency resolution, and against the surprisal-based expectation account of Levy (2008). However, another expectation-based measure, entropy, which was computed using the offline sentence completion data, predicts reading times in Experiment 1 but not in the other experiments. Because participants tend to produce more ungrammatical continuations in the long-distance condition in Experiment 1, we suggest that forgetting due to memory overload leads to greater entropy at the verb.
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Conference Proceedings by Molood Sadat (Farnoosh) Safavi, PhD
[1] Schiffman, H. (1997). Diglossia as a sociolinguistic situation. The handbook of sociolinguistics, 205-216.
[2] Nercissians, E. (2001). Bilingualism and diglossia: patterns of language use by ethnic minorities in Tehran. International journal of the sociology of language, 59-70.
[3] Ibrahim, R. (2009). The cognitive basis of diglossia in Arabic: Evidence from a repetition priming study within and between languages. Psychology research and behavior management, 2, 93.
[4] Khamis-Dakwar, R., & Froud, K. (2014, October). Neurocognitive modeling of the two language varieties in Arabic Diglossia. In Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics XXVI: Papers from the annual symposium on Arabic Linguistics. New York, 2012 (Vol. 2). John Benjamins Publishing Company.
In Expt 1, we found a main effect of distance (t=4.24): reading time (RT) was longer in the long-distance conditions; a nested comparison showed that this effect was due to the low-predictable (simple predicate) conditions. In addition, both the high-predictable conditions were read faster than the low-predictable conditions (t=3.49). Expt 2, which had a long intervening PP, showed an even stronger main effect of distance (t=6.04) than in Expt 1: the RT in long conditions was slower than in short conditions; the locality effects were equally strong in the high and low predictable cases. As in Expt 1, we saw faster RTs in the high-predictable conditions. A combined analysis of the two experiments revealed a main effect of prediction (t=3.55) and a main of distance (t=4.30) as well as a marginal 3-way interaction between experiment, distance and prediction (t=-1.94).
Thus, we find clear effects of locality in both experiments, and we also find evidence for expectation effects: the high-predictable verbs are read faster than the low-predictable verbs. The fact that we don't see facilitation with increased distance at the verb in spite of high predictability might be due to increased difficulty in prediction maintenance due to processing load. Recall that the locality effect in Expt 1 is driven only by low-predictable condition, while in Expt 2 both high and low are affected. In Expt 2, the intervener is a long, uninterrupted phrase whereas in Expt 1, the intervener consists of a short RC followed by a PP. Processing a single long intervening phrase may be harder than processing two different phrases, reminiscent of the sausage machine proposal of Frazier and Fodor (1978). The results suggest that complexity of intervening material is critical for prediction maintenance. Although we found evidence for both locality and expectation effects, a key prediction of the expectation account was not validated: delaying the appearance of a verb (predictable or not) did not facilitate processing.
Thesis by Molood Sadat (Farnoosh) Safavi, PhD
Key words: ERP, idiom, non-idiom, N400, P600
Test Adaptation by Molood Sadat (Farnoosh) Safavi, PhD
Papers by Molood Sadat (Farnoosh) Safavi, PhD