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Psychology 1B > 4 PSYCHOLOGY OF LANGUAGE - TEXTBOOK > Flashcards

4 PSYCHOLOGY OF LANGUAGE - TEXTBOOK Flashcards

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1
Q

What is language?

A

A system for communicating with others using signals that convey meaning and are combined according to grammatical rules

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2
Q

What three processes does the act of speech involve?

A

Conceptualization, formulation, articulation

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3
Q

In what three ways is human language different from monkeys?

A

Complex, words referring intangible things, language influences organization of knowledge in the brain

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4
Q

What is lexicalization?

A

The process whereby the thoughts underlying the words are turned into sounds

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5
Q

What is the smallest unit of sound that is recognizable as speech rather than random noise?

A

Phoneme

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6
Q

What are examples of phonemes?

A

Ba’, ‘pa’

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7
Q

How many phonemes are there in English?

A

About 40

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8
Q

What makes something a phoneme?

A

Use as speech signal - not physical properties

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9
Q

What is the term for the set of rules that indicate how phonemes can be combined to produce speech?

A

Phonological rules

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10
Q

What is an example of a phonological rule in English?

A

-ed’ to signify past tense

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11
Q

What are phonemes combined to create?

A

Morphemes

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12
Q

What are morphemes?

A

The smallest meaningful units of language

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13
Q

What is an example of a morpheme?

A

Cat+s, cat signifies animal and s signifies plural

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14
Q

What is grammar?

A

A set of rules that specify how the units of language can be combined to produce meaningful messages

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15
Q

What are the two categories of grammatical rules?

A

Rules of morphology and rules of syntax

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16
Q

What are morphological rules?

A

A set of rules that indicate how morphemes can be combined to create words

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17
Q

What are syntactical rules?

A

Rules that indicate how words can be combined to form phrases and sentences

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18
Q

What does the success of a conversation depend on?

A

Alignment of speaker and listener

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19
Q

What is alignment (in terms of conversation)?

A

The process whereby speakers share a reciprocal arrangement to exchange information

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20
Q

What four automatic mechanisms result in alignment of speakers?

A

Priming, inference, routine expressions, speech monitoring and repair

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21
Q

What is inference?

A

When speakers generate deeper conceptual understanding based on what has been said

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22
Q

What are routine expressions?

A

Unambiguous conventions that facilitate language

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23
Q

What is speech monitoring and repair?

A

When speakers interact to understand what others are saying by seeking clarification

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24
Q

Describe the rate of language acquisition in children.

A

Rapid

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25
Q

What develops faster, passive or active understanding of language?

A

Passive

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26
Q

What is fast mapping?

A

Children map a word onto an underlying concept after only a single exposure

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27
Q

At what age can infants distinguish all contrasting sounds in human language?

A

Birth to 4 months

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28
Q

At what age do infants begin to babble speech sounds?

A

4-6 months

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29
Q

What is the average size of vocabulary when starting school?

A

10,000 words

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30
Q

What is the average size of vocabulary when starting secondary school?

A

40,000 words

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31
Q

What is the average size of vocabulary when at university?

A

200,000 words

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32
Q

What is telegraphic speech?

A

Speech that is devoid of function morphemes and consists mostly of content words

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33
Q

What do young children have a tendency to do when learning grammatical rules?

A

Overgeneralize (e.g. you eated)

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34
Q

How do children acquire language according to a behaviourist theory?

A

Acquired through simple principles of operant conditioning - reinforcement, shaping and extinction

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35
Q

What are three limits of the behaviourist theory?

A

Parents don’t spend much time teaching grammar, children generate more grammatical sentences than they hear, overgeneralization errors are not duplications of heard language

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36
Q

What is the nativist view of language development?

A

Language is an innate, biological capacity

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37
Q

What is a language acquisition device (LAD)?

A

A collection of processes that facilitate language learning

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38
Q

What is genetic dysphasia?

A

A syndrome characterised by an inability to learn the grammatical structure of language despite having otherwise normal intelligence

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39
Q

What is the effect of puberty on language learning?

A

Language acquisition becomes difficult after puberty

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40
Q

What is the most common criticism of the nativist view of language development?

A

Doesn’t explain how language actually develops

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41
Q

What is the interactionist explanation of language development?

A

Language development depends on biological and cognitive mechanisms and meaningful social interactions

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42
Q

What do interactionists believe about parental influence on language acquisition?

A

Parents tailor verbal interactions with children in ways that simplify language acquisition

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43
Q

How do deaf children that haven’t been taught sign language communicate?

A

They develop their own system of hand signals

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44
Q

Which area of the brain is involved in language production?

A

Broca’s area

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45
Q

Which area of the brain is involved in language comprehension?

A

Wernicke’s area

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46
Q

What is asphasia?

A

Difficulty in producing or comprehending language

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47
Q

What causes asphasia?

A

Damage to Broca’s or Wernicke’s area

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48
Q

What happens if the brain does not receive adequate language input?

A

Specialization of Broca’s/Wernicke’s can become permanently disrupted, impairing language

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49
Q

Can other species learn human sign language?

A

Yes - apes and chimps

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50
Q

Compare ape vocabulary with a child’s vocabulary.

A

Apes can learn 100s of words whereas 4 year-olds know 10,000

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51
Q

What type of words are apes able to master?

A

Names of concrete objects and actions, their conceptual repertoire is smaller

52
Q

What is the grammatical ability of apes like?

A

Apes can only understand simple grammar

53
Q

Can apes produce novel constructions of language?

A

Yes

54
Q

How is reading and writing different to speaking and listening?

A

Reading and writing is not spontaneously acquired - requires learning through education

55
Q

What is the lexicon?

A

Our mental dictionary

56
Q

What is a grapheme?

A

Unit of written language that corresponds to a phoneme

57
Q

What is the dual-route model of reading?

A

There are two routes for turning words into sounds - direct lexical route and indirect sublexical route

58
Q

What is the direct lexical route?

A

Where the grapheme maps directly onto the phoneme

59
Q

What is the indirect sublexical route?

A

Where the grapheme maps directly onto the pronunciation - does not involve lexicon

60
Q

What is dyslexia?

A

A disorder involving difficulty with reading and writing

61
Q

What is surface dyslexia?

A

Where people are unable to read irregular words

62
Q

Which route is impaired in surface dyslexia?

A

Direct lexical route

63
Q

What is phonological dyslexia?

A

Where people are unable to read pronounceable non-words

64
Q

Which route is impaired in phonological dyslexia?

A

Indirect sublexical route

65
Q

What is semantics?

A

Meaning of a word

66
Q

What is semantic priming?

A

When the meaning of a word influences the processing of other words that are conceptually related

67
Q

What is deep dyslexia?

A

Where readers are unable to retrieve the meaning of words

68
Q

What is the linguistic determinism hypothesis?

A

Language shapes the nature of thought

69
Q

What is the most commonly cited example supporting linguistic determinism?

A

The Inuit in Canada - different words for snow means the Inuit perceive snow differently

70
Q

What is the linguistic relativity hypothesis?

A

Language may influence the way we think and perceive

71
Q

What three concepts have been studied to investigate the influence of language on thought?

A

Colour processing, time judgements and numerical cognition

72
Q

What is a concept?

A

A mental representation that groups or categorizes shared features of related objects, events or other stimuli

73
Q

What are concepts fundamental to?

A

Our ability to think and make sense of the world

74
Q

What is category-specific deficit?

A

A neurological syndrome characterised by the inability to recognize objects that belong to a particular category while the ability to recognize objects outside the category is undisturbed

75
Q

What causes category-specific deficits?

A

Brain trauma in left hemisphere shortly after birth

76
Q

What leads to a difficulty identifying humans?

A

Damage to front of left temporal lobe

77
Q

What leads to a difficulty identifying animals?

A

Damage to lower left temporal lobe

78
Q

What leads to a difficulty identifying tools?

A

Damage where temporal and occipital lobes meet

79
Q

How did early psychological rules describe concepts?

A

Rules that specify the necessary and sufficient conditions for membership in a particular category

80
Q

What is a necessary condition?

A

Something that must be true of an object in order for it to belong to a category

81
Q

What is a sufficient condition?

A

If a specific something is true of an object, it proves it belongs to a certain category

82
Q

What is the family resemblance theory of categories?

A

Members of a category have features that appear to be characteristic of category members but may not be possessed by every member

83
Q

What is the prototype theory of categories?

A

Our psychological categorization is organized around the properties of the most typical member - the best example

84
Q

How do people make category judgements based on the prototype theory?

A

By comparing new instances to the category’s prototype

85
Q

What is the exemplar theory of categories?

A

Category judgements are made by comparing a new instance with stored memories of other instances of the category

86
Q

Which hemisphere is primarily involved in forming prototypes?

A

Left

87
Q

Which hemisphere is primarily involved in recognizing exemplars?

A

Right

88
Q

What is the base rate?

A

The actual likelihood of something happening

89
Q

What are humans good at estimating?

A

Frequencies

90
Q

What are humans bad at estimating?

A

Probabilities

91
Q

What is rational choice theory?

A

We make decisions by determining the likelihood of something occurring and then multiplying the likelihood by the perceived value of the outcome

92
Q

What are three mindbugs that affect our estimation of probability and frequency?

A

Availability bias, representativeness heuristic, conjunction fallacy

93
Q

What is availability bias?

A

Items that are more readily available in memory are judged as having occurred more frequently

94
Q

What are heuristics?

A

Fast and efficient strategies that may facilitate decision making but do not guarantee that a solution will be reached

95
Q

What are heuristics nicknamed?

A

Mental shortcuts, ‘rules of thumb’

96
Q

What is an algorithm?

A

A well-defined sequence of procedures or rules that guarantees a solution to a problem

97
Q

What is conjunction fallacy?

A

People think that two events are more likely to occur together than either individual event whereas probability of being true actually decreases with every event that is added on

98
Q

What is the representative heuristic?

A

A mental shortcut that involves making a probability judgement by comparing an object or event to a prototype

99
Q

What are framing effects?

A

People give different answers to the same problem depending on how the problem is phrased - framed

100
Q

What is the sunk-cost fallacy?

A

Framing effect - decision about current situation based on what has been previously invested

101
Q

What is the prospect theory of decision making?

A

People choose to take on risk when evaluating potential losses and avoid risks evaluating potential gains

102
Q

What are the two stages of decision making according to prospect theory?

A

Simplify information, personal choice about what offers best value

103
Q

What is the certainty effect?

A

People give more weight to certain outcomes when making decisions

104
Q

What is the frequency format hypothesis?

A

Our minds have evolved to notice how frequently things occur rather than probability

105
Q

What are the two systems involved in thinking ‘fast and slow’?

A

System 1 and System 2

106
Q

What is thinking system 1?

A

System that operates automatically and quickly, with little or no effort and no sense of voluntary control

107
Q

What is thinking system 2?

A

System that allocates attention to more taxing mental activities and is often associated with a subjective experience of making choices

108
Q

How does prefrontal lobe damage affect decision making?

A

Can create inability to judge risk or decide importance of tasks

109
Q

What are the two major types of problem that complicate our lives?

A

Ill-defined and well-defined problems

110
Q

What is an ill-defined problem?

A

One that doesn’t have a clear goal or solution

111
Q

What is a well-defined problem?

A

One with clearly specified goals and solution paths

112
Q

What is means-ends analysis?

A

A process of searching for the means or steps to reduce the difference between the current situation and the desired goal

113
Q

How can the differences between the current and desired state be reduced?

A

Direct means, generating a subgoal, finding a similar problem that has a known solution

114
Q

What is analogical problem solving?

A

Solving a problem by finding a similar problem with a known solution and applying that solution to the current problem

115
Q

What else is sometimes required over and above analogical problem solving to solve difficult problems?

A

Creativity and insight

116
Q

How do flashes of insight occur?

A

Likely that insight is unconscious incremental process of activating information in memory until an awareness threshold has been reached and we experience a sudden flash of insight

117
Q

Why is insight rare?

A

Problem solving suffers from framing effects

118
Q

What is functional fixedness?

A

The tendency perceive the functions of objects as fixed and interferes with our ability to think of novel uses for objects

119
Q

What is reasoning?

A

A mental activity that consists of organizing information or beliefs into a series of steps to reach conclusions

120
Q

What are the two types of reasoning?

A

Practical and theoretical reasoning

121
Q

What is practical reasoning?

A

Working out what to do, or reasoning directed towards action

122
Q

What is an example of practical reasoning?

A

Means-ends analysis

123
Q

What is theoretical reasoning?

A

Reasoning directed towards arriving at a belief, using a series of inferences to arrive at belief

124
Q

Which type of reasoning are we more adept in?

A

Practical reasoning

125
Q

What is the belief bias?

A

The tendency for people’s acceptance of conclusions to be based on how believable the conclusions are instead of logical validity

126
Q

What is syllogistic reasoning?

A

Determining if a conclusion follows from two statements assumed to be true

127
Q

What is the influence of prior beliefs on reasoning?

A

Prior beliefs can impair our ability to logically reason about arguments

Psychology 1B (4 decks)

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