Chapter 11 Flashcards
language
a system of communication using sounds or symbols enables us to express our feelings, thoughts, ideas, and experiences
generative
many ways to construct sentences
hierarchal
- small components can be combined to form larger units
- e.g. words can be combined to create phrases, which in turn can create sentences
- language is hierarchal
rule-based structure
mental system of rules for producing correct words, phrases and sentences in a language
components of sentences
- semantics
- syntax
- morphemes
- lexicons
- phonemes
- lexical semantics
semantics
meaning of language
syntax
grammar/rules for sentence formation
morphemes
smallest unit of meaning in a language, stem-words, affixes
lexicons
words in memory (mental dictionary)
phonemes
speech sounds
lexical semantics
meaning of words
language is universal
- deaf children invent their own sign language
- all humans with normal capacities develop a language and learn to follow its rules
- language development is similar across cultures
- all have nouns, verbs, negatives, questions, past and present tense
behavioural approach to language
- B. F. Skinner proposed that language is learned through reinforcement
- children learn language by being rewarded for using correct language and punished (or not rewarded) for using incorrect language
chomsky’s approach to language
- proposed that human language is coded in the genes
- humans are genetically programmed to acquire and use language because the underlying basis of all language is similar
- saw studying language as a way to study the properties of the mind
psycholinguistics
- the psychological study of language
- the goal of psycholinguistics is to discover the psychological processes by which humans acquire and process language
areas of interest in psycholinguistics
- comprehension
- representation
- speech production
- acquisition
comprehension
understanding of spoken and written languages
representation
construction of language in the mind and integrating information from a story
speech production
mental processes involved with speech
acquisition
language learning
word frequency
frequency that a word is used in a language
word frequency effect
- faster to respond to high frequency words relative to low frequency words
- influences how we process the word
- e.g. home (high frequency) vs. hike (low frequency)
- suggestion that more time is required for processing low-frequency words
lexical decision task
- decide as quickly as possible whether strings of letters are words or nonwords
- illustrates the processing differences between high- and low-frequency words
- demonstrated slower responding to low-frequency words
speech segmentation
is the perception of words in speech
why we can segment speech?
- our ability to segment speech occurs because of:
1. word frequency
2. context words appear
3. knowledge of statistical regularity of language
4. knowledge pf word meaning
lexical ambiguity
- words with an ambiguous/more than one meaning
- e.g. rose: “she held a rose” is a noun and indicates a flower vs. “they all rose” is a verb and indicates standing up
- different meaning of an ambiguous word are activated upon its presentation
- selection of meaning is based on context
lexical priming
- occurs when a word is followed by another word with a similar meaning
- priming that involves the meaning of words
- e.g. rose would prime flower, because their meanings are related
tanenhaus et al., and lexical priming
- use two conditions:
1. the noun-noun condition
2. verb-noun condition - concluded from these results that all of an ambiguous word’s meanings are activated immediately after the word is heard
meaning dominance
- a meaning of a word might be more frequent than another meaning
- dominant meaning is accessed quicker than a nondominant meaning
biased dominance
- when one meaning of an ambiguous word occurs more frequently than another
- e.g. “tin” as in metal is a more frequent meaning of the word tin vs. “tin” as in container/can
balanced dominance
- multiple meanings of a word are equally likely
- e.g. equally likely that cast refers to “plaster cast” or “acting cast”
role of context in meaning
if context indicates the nonfrequent meaning → both meanings are activated → slow responding
understanding sentences
- sentences create context, which makes it possible to:
1. deal with the variability of word pronunciations
2. perceive individual words in a continuous stream of speech
3. determine the meanings of ambiguous words
parsing
- mental grouping of words into phrases
- the way a sentence is parsed determines its meaning
garden path sentences
- a sentence in which the meaning that seems to be implied at the beginning of the sentence turns out to be incorrect, based on information that is presented later in the sentence
- elicits temporary ambiguity because a number of meanings are possible, depending on how the sentence unfolds
scene context
- contents in a scene can help one with parsing
- e.g. place the apple, on the towel in the box example
eye tracking
- reveals that, while listening we predict what the next word will be
- e.g. a boy is pictured sitting in a room with a ball, train and cake; someone says “the boy will eat” and people will tend to look at the cake before they what the word “cake” finish the sentence
garden pathway model of parsings
- a model of parsing that emphasizes syntactic principles as a major determinant of parsing
heuristics
- a “rule of thumb” that provides a best-guess solution to a problem
- heuristics are fast but they sometimes result in the wrong decision
syntax-based principles
- principle of later closure: a person’s parsing mechanism assumes that a new word is part of the current phrase, so each new word is added to the current phrase for as long as possible
- we add words as we read to the current phrase
constraint-based approach to parsing
an approach to parsing that proposes that semantics, syntax, and other factors operate simultaneously to determine parsing
visual word paradigm
determining how subjects are processing information in a scene as they respond to specific instructions related to the scene
subject relative construction
the subject of the main clause is also the subject in the embedded clause
object-relative construction
the subject of the main clause is the object in the embedded clause
subject-relative construction example
- sentence: “the senator who spotted the reporter shouted”
- main clause: the senator shouted
- embedded clause: the senator spotted the reporter
- the senator is the subject in the main clause and embedded clause
- this sentence construction is easier to understand and more frequently encountered
object-relative construction example
- sentence: “the senator who the reporter spotted shouted”
- main clause: the senator shouted
- embedded clause: the reporter spotted the senator
- the senator is the subject in the main clause and the object in the embedded clause
- this sentence construction is difficult to understand and is less frequently encountered
story comprehension involves:
- inferences
- narrative
- coherence
- anaphoric
- instrument inference
- causal inference
inferences
coming to conclusions about information that is not explicitly stated in the text
narrative
text that progresses from each event
coherence
creating associations from one part of the text to another
anaphoric inference
inferring a connection between individual/object mentioned in one sentence and an individual/object in another sentence
instrument inference
inferring the tools/methods that occurs while reading/listening to text
causal inference
inferring events in one clause or sentence was impacted by events described in an earlier clause or sentence
situation models
- mental representation of events as if one is experiencing it
- simulates the perceptual and motor (movement) characteristics of the objects and actions in a story
- tested by having participants read a sentence that describes a situation involving an object and then indicate as quickly as possible whether a picture shows the object mentioned in the sentence
- e.g. nail example
- taking the POV of the protagonists
anderson and picher procedure (1978)
- read the same story from two different perspectives
- results states that you recall more ideas related the perspectives one adopts and that changing perspectives resulted in recalling more ideas
stanfield and zwaan (2001)
- faster to verify a picture was mentioned in the text if it matches the situation
- e.g. he hammered the nail into the wall
conversations
- two or more people talking together
- dynamic and rapid
given-new contract
- speaker constructs sentences so they include:
1. given information
2. new information
common ground
- knowledge, beliefs, and assumptions shared between two speakers
- referential communication task
referential communication task
- two people are exchanging information in a conversation, when this information involves reference—identifying something by naming or describing it
- a way of studying common ground
entrainment
- synchronization between two people conversing
- e.g. gestures, speaking rate, body position, pronunciation and grammatical construction
syntactic coordination
- when people use similar grammatical constructions when having a conversation
- synchronicity is beneficial because it builds rapport and familiarity
branigan et al., (2000) syntactic priming
- examined syntactic priming which is the influence of ones prior exposure on ones current response
- was done to determine whether one would adopt the sentence structure that they were exposed to earlier in the study
syntactic priming
grammatical construction by one person increases chances the other person will use that construction
theory of mind
- the ability to understand what others think, feel or believe
- also the ability to interpret and react to the person’s gestures, facial expressions, tone of voice, and other things that provide cues to meaning
music and language
- music has been called the “language of emotion,” and people often state that emotion is one of the main reasons they listen to music
- a connection between poor performance on the language task and poor performance on the music task
prosody
- the pattern of intonation and rhythm in spoken language
- creates emotion in language
congenital amusia
people have problems with music perception, including tasks such as discriminating between simple melodies or recognizing common tunes but can present normal language abilities
