The Listener Blue Print. Part 2 of 3.

Yesterday we discussed the initial exposure to the sound stimulus and phonemes. Today we are going to talk about how the brain turns the phonemes into words via our mental lexicon so let’s get to it…

Decoding of “words” meanings with the Mental Lexicon:

The following all happen interactively so they don’t necessarily happen in a specific order aside from the necessity of defining what each word is specifically as the initial activation. As such, let’s talk about words first.

As the words are being decoded from the sum of their phonemes and their place in the prosodic structure, they begin to take on their own morphological structure. “Words” are stored as single entries in what is known as the mental lexicon (a language user's mental database of words). Although they are stored as single entries, they are linked to a single stem word. For instance the words discount, discounting, counting, counter, discounts, etc… are all stored as their own individual word but are linked back to the stem work “count” for meaning. This is the generally accepted (based on empirical evidence) concept of how the language lexicon is set up.

As the person receives and further deciphers the words in sequence, “candidate” words that are compatible with an incoming speech signal (continually developed portions of each word based on the sum of the phonemes) are simultaneously and continuously activated to actively compete for recognition. Multiple possibilities are enacted and either thrown away or used depending on the arrival of more prosodic and content based information. As more information comes in, “candidate” words are discarded to eventually arrive at a single “most likely candidate” for the word that the speaker is most likely trying to convey.

The phoneme by phoneme concept is most overtly displayed by the activation of full words based on partial/non-words. For instance saying “facil” activates the word “facilitate”.

Once an actual word is recognized from the sum of its phonemes, its specific meaning will further depend on the combination of what object/sensation/concept it represents in real life, the context in which it is stated and most important the syntax in which it is used.

What syntax means literally is the order of the words or sequence in which the words are arriving in the mind of the recipient. This obviously is based on the temporal receipt of them and this temporal receipt (timing) determines in what order they are referenced against the mental lexicon … This is where the sentence/syntax decoding interactively comes into play. Syntax is incredibly important as is displayed by the classic example of “the dog bit the man” versus “the man bit the dog”… Obviously, there is a major difference between the two sentences.

Along with the syntax, the actual context of the communication will play a major role in determining the meaning of words and/or sentences. This refers to the communicator’s physical appearance, their nonverbal communication, the surroundings, the domicile (house, church, store, etc…), the culturally accepted “ways”, etc… Content/context is small label for a massively broad theme, but I think you get the point.

So… by combining:

1. The arrival sequence (syntax) of the words
2. The sum of the phonemes (the specific word or words), and
3. The prosodic structure
4. The context of the conversation (geographically, culturally, socially, etc...)

The mind will reference the four factors above with the listener’s lexical representation of each word (what it means and how it “should” fit in sequence with the other words) to develop actual, literal meaning for each word and by the end of the sentence being spoken, to the sentence itself.

Wow… You are now an expert on the mental lexicon and how interacts with speech to create literal meaning. To learn more about the neurology of listening, the mental lexicon and other information pertaining to effective communication, please visit my website The Communication Expert.