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Cognitive Psychology > 11 - Language > Flashcards

11 - Language Flashcards

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1
Q

what are the two aspects of language that allow for human creativity in language expression

A
  1. hierarchical nature

2. rule governed structure

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2
Q

what are the four main tasks of psycholinguistics

A

to understand

  1. comprehension - from sounds to meaning
  2. representation - how is language represented in the mind
  3. speech production
  4. acquisition
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3
Q

what is lexical semantics

A

the meaning of words

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4
Q

what is the word frequency effect

A

we respond faster to more frequent words in our language

  • found with lexical decisions
  • also with eye tracking (look at low freq. words for longer
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5
Q

how do we cope with the variability of pronunciation

A
  1. context - Pollack and Pickett; words are harder to understand when presented alone
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6
Q

2 things that assist in speech segmentation

A
  1. translational probabilities
  2. knowledge of semantics - knowing the semantic context of the term / what a word means will isolate it from the steam, I guess
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7
Q

what is lexical ambiguity

A

words wit > 1 meaning

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8
Q

explain Tanenhaus’ lexical priming task for measuring lexical ambiguity

A
  • lexical priming = semantic priming
  • ambiguous word like rose
  • primes ‘flower’ regardless of context at 0ms
  • but only primes flower if accurate semantically after 200 ms
  • no prime for flower if inconsistent with context at 200 ms
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9
Q

what is meaning dominance

A

the rel. freq. of the meanings of ambiguous words

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10
Q

explain the differences in reading speed between lexically ambiguous terms with a) biased dominance vs b) balanced dominance

A
  • balanced dominance slows reading - both terms are activated
  • biased at full speed
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11
Q

how does context influence the activation of lexically ambiguous word meanings

A

can either increase the consistency w the meaning dominance and so activate only the one, or vice versa and activate both, slowing reading speeds

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12
Q

what is parsing

A

considering how meaning is created by grouping words into phrases

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13
Q

what is a garden path sentence

A

a temporary ambiguity that leads you to create one mental model and then top change it once you reach the point where your model is no longer consistent

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14
Q

explain the garden path model of parsing

A

parsing is determined by processing mechanisms called heuristics - fast but can be wrong
- these rules are determined by syntax

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15
Q

what is the principle of late closure

A

when a person encounters a new word, they will assume that this word is part of the current phrase, so words are added to the new phrase for as long as possible

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16
Q

what is the constraint based approach to parsing

A

information over and above syntactic content plays a role in parsing that are used to make predictions about how the sentence will be parsed

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17
Q

what are the 4 factors above syntax considered inn constraint based processing

A
  1. meaning
  2. story context; the horse raced past the barn fell is easier in certain stories
  3. scene context
  4. memory load and prior experience w language
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18
Q

what is the visual world paradigm

A

eye track as people observe a visual scene and hear directions - apple on towel in box or sumn

  • ppl will look at objects that represent ambiguities
  • good for observing how people are processing ambiguous sentences as they are interpreted - they look at what they think the sentence means
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19
Q

provide an example of the influence of memory load and prior experience with language on sentence parsing

A
  • object relative vs subject relative clauses
  • SR; the senator who spotted the reporter shouted
  • OR; the senator who the reported spotted shouted
  • SR is easier to process, even though both are composed of 2 clauses
  • two reasons
    1. SR is more easily understood bc it demands less of the readers memory - we learn about who is doing the spotting early, so we dont have to hold people in memory to determine who is the one acting
    2. OR is also more complicated; in OR sentences, the subject in the main clause and the object of the embedded clause (ie the senator shouted = main, who the reported spotted = embedded, where the senator is the object in the second)
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20
Q

Explain Altmann and Kamide’s study on predictions in language

A
  • visual world paradigm as they heard sentences about a boy and a cake
  • the boy will move the cake or the boy will eat the cake
  • asked to reply if the sentence applied to the image, but this was irrelevant - they were looking for how they were processing the sentence
  • in the move condition, looking at the cake followed the word cake
  • in the eat condition, looking at the cake preceded the word cake - we used ‘eat’ to select the only relevant object
21
Q

what is an inference

A

determining what a text or sentence mean by using background knowledge to go beyond the information preceded

22
Q

what is a narrative

A

texts in which there is a story that progresses from one even to another

23
Q

what is a primary component of narrative

A

coherence - the mental representation of the story has clear relations

24
Q

what is an anaphoric reference

A

she did x or y - infer who she is based on several contextual cues

25
Q

what is instrument inference

A

inferring what a person is using or what they might be using it fr based on context
- Shakespeare sat at his desk to write y, might look like a wooden desk with a candle and a quill

26
Q

what is a causal inference

A

infer that the events described in one clause or sentence were caused by events that occurring in the previous sentence

27
Q

are all inferences as easy to make?

A

no, some are much more cognitive demanding

  • think the inference from
    a) Sharon took a Tylenol, her back pain went away
    b) Sharon went on a bike ride, her back pain went away
28
Q

summarize the relevance of inferences

A

they create connections in texts that are essential for forming coherence in the text

  • these inferences require some degree of creativity
  • dynamic process that involves transformation of words and setences into a story
29
Q

what is a situation model

A

the perceptual/motor representation of a sentence formed in the mind of the listener

30
Q

how do we test the idea that people create situation models

A

by having participants read a sentence that describes a situation involving an object, then indicate fast if an image shows the object in the sentence
- faster response in objects are consistent with the SM

31
Q

Explain Metusalem’s 2012 ERP study on situation models

A

used the N400 which is an ERP component that is greater when an attended word is unexpected
- very large N400 responses to non-situational terms that complete a sentence like (x was going to a concert … he came out one the …)

32
Q

is the N400 response to situation-model-inconsistent words all or nothing
- how does this relate to semantic priming?

A

no, words that are [artially associated with the context but still unexpected (like guitar in a concert context) are activated thru semantic priming, so have a lower one than those which are unexpected AND unrelated

33
Q

are situation models consistent with embodied notions of concepts

A

YES - these brain areas involved in the movements in a story are also activated during reading of that story

34
Q

explain the ‘given-new contract’

A

speakers ought to formulate sentences so that have 2 types of info

  1. given information - shit that is presupposed by both speaker and listener
  2. new information
    - new information in past sentences can become given in future ones
    - given information can be explicit or implicit, and this determines processing speed as it means sometimes ppl will have to make inferences
35
Q

what is common ground

A

the mental knowledge and beliefs shared among conversational parties

  • people are learning info both about the world, and the knowledge of their conversational partner
  • backchannel responses between and in the middle of a sentence to indicate whether the common ground is being preserved
36
Q

what are the two main ways of studying common ground

A
  1. look at conversational transcripts

2. referential communication task

37
Q

what is the referential communication task

A

task where two people enhance information in a conversation, where the information involves reference
- people;e start to develop simple terms to refer to the objects they are trying to refer to, which is the establishment of common ground

38
Q

what is entrainment

A

the process of establishing common ground

39
Q

what is syntactical coordination

A

the entrainment of syntax between conversational partners

40
Q

how does syntactical coordination come about

A

through syntactic priming - hearing sentences with a given construction activates that construction which results inn a greater chance that you will use that construction while speaking

41
Q

explain branigans experiment on syntactic priming

A

ppl can’t see each other, PA works with the experiment, PB is not

  • PA makes a priming statement with one of two syn. forms
  • then had to pick up a response card with an image
  • will the response structure match the initial statement structure
  • yes on 78% of the trials!
42
Q

what is prosody

A

the pattern of intonation and rhythm in spoken language that creates emotion

43
Q

what is a main difference between music and language

A
  1. the emotionality in music is an outcome of combining meaningless units, while language has meaningful units (somewhere!)
44
Q

what is a main similarity between language and music?

A

they both combine elements to create structured sequences

45
Q

do we make predictions about music like we do with language ?/

A

yes

  • common expectation in music is the return the tonic, or the note a key is based around
  • or when a bad cord that doesn’t fit the melody is tossed in
  • effects a p600 response which is a positive response that occurs after a word - increase response by breaking syntax
  • found that this happened in music too.
46
Q

how do music and language interact in the brain?

A

look at patients with Broca’s aphasia

  • difficult understanding sentences with complex syntax
  • given a language task involving understanding syn. complex sentences, and a music task that involved detecting off key chords
  • patients performed poorly on both relative to controls, but musical cap. was less effected than language
  • But there are cases where musical interpretation are unaffected
47
Q

what is congentital amusia and does it interfere with language

A

severe problems with tasks like discriminating between simple melodies or recognizing common tones
- tend to have normal language abilities,

48
Q

what is the gist of the relationship between music and language int he brain

A

probably loosely related, but not directly - there are overlapping brain regions and also non overlapping ones, ext.

Cognitive Psychology (12 decks)

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