Chapter 11: Language

Question 1

A system of communication using sound or symbols which enables us to express emotions, thoughts, ideas, and experiences

Answer 1

Language

Question 2

Why is the simple definition of language given not adequate?

Answer 2

Doesn’t consider animal communication or body language

Question 3

What are the two key components of language?

Answer 3

Hierarchical and rule-based

Question 4

Why is language hierarchical?

Answer 4

Consists of small components arranged in a way that makes a larger unit

Question 5

Why is language rule-based?

Answer 5

Some of the smaller components follow rules that must be obeyed in order to create meaning

Question 6

Give an example describing how language is a universal need

Answer 6

Deaf children living in communities that don’t have sign language invent one themselves

Question 7

Describe how languages are “unique but the same”

Answer 7

Unique: they use different sounds and words, with different rules from each other

Same: they use nouns, verbs, make things negative, ask questions, refer to past and present

Question 8

What was Chomsky’s perspective on language?

Answer 8

Proposed that language is encoded into human genes

Cognitive aspect that relates to the mind

Question 9

What was Skinner’s perspective on language?

Answer 9

Posits that language can be explained in terms of reinforcements

Nothing to do with the mind

Question 10

The field of psychology that concerns itself with the study of language and how it related to psychology.

Answer 10

Psycholinguistics

Question 11

What are the four major concerns of psycholinguistics?

Answer 11

Comprehension, representation, speech production, acquisition

Question 12

All the words we know/mental dictionary

Answer 12

Lexicon

Question 13

The meaning of words and language

Answer 13

Semantics

Question 14

Describe the word frequency effect

Answer 14

We are more likely to respond faster to high-frequency words (words that appear more often in usage of a language) and more likely to respond slower to low-frequency words (words that appear less often in a language)

Question 15

The lexical decision task is a way to demonstrate which effect?

Answer 15

The word frequency effect

Question 16

Describe the lexical decision task

Answer 16

Decide as quickly as possible whether strings of letters are words or nonwords

Can couple this data with eye tracking data:
Longer Gaze and Fixation times on the low-frequency words, Shorter Gaze and Fixation times on the high-frequency words

Question 17

How are differences in pronunciation navigated?

Answer 17

Using the context around the word and fill in the blank based on previous knowledge

Question 18

The perception of individual words even though there are often no pauses between words.

Answer 18

Speech segmentation

Question 19

How is speech segmentation achieved?

Answer 19

Statistical probability (without realizing)

Question 20

What four factors are related to our ability to understand spoken words?

Answer 20

How frequently we have encountered a word in the past

The context where the word appears

Our knowledge of statistical regularities of our language

Our knowledge of word meanings

Question 21

Words that have multiple meanings

Answer 21

Lexical ambiguity

Question 22

How do we navigate lexical ambiguity?

Answer 22

Look for context surrounding the word

Question 23

Occurs when a word is followed by another word with a similar meaning.

Answer 23

Lexical priming

Question 24

Describe Tanenhaus’ lexical priming task

Answer 24

Presented two sentences with the word rose followed by a probe: Flower

Verb-Noun condition (V-N): They all rose

Noun-Noun condition (N-N): She held a rose

Found the priming effect for flower resulted in faster response times for the N-N condition

Question 25

Relative frequency of meaning influences what meaning you will assume

Answer 25

Meaning dominance

Question 26

When one word’s meaning is more commonly used than other

Answer 26

Biased dominance

Question 27

When a word’s meaning is equally as likely as another meaning

Answer 27

Balanced dominance

Question 28

A strategy where we group words together in a sentence to give meaning

Answer 28

Parsing

Question 29

Sentence that begins to mean one thing, then ends up meaning something else

Answer 29

Garden path sentences

Question 30

What do garden path sentences illustrate?

Answer 30

Temporal ambiguity

Question 31

Organization of previous sentences may interfere with the following sentences

Answer 31

Temporal ambiguity

Question 32

Describe the garden-path model of parsing

Answer 32

As people read a sentence their grouping of words is influenced by heuristics

Question 33

A rule that can be applied rapidly to make a decision/ Mental shortcut that works most of the time

Answer 33

Heuristic

Question 34

According to the constraint-based approach, which other factors influence parsing besides syntax?

Answer 34

Word meaning: If a word has multiple meanings that work in the same situation, it can change the parsing Story context: Lack of context in a story increases sentence ambiguity/parsing Scene context: Objects in a scene influence how we interpret a sentence Memory load and prior experience with language

Question 35

When a word in a sentence is the subject of both the main clause and the embedded clause

Answer 35

Subject-relative construction

Question 36

When a word in a sentence is the subject of only as the main clause and not the embedded clause

Answer 36

Object-relative construction

Question 37

What our interpretations of a text means using our knowledge without information provided by the text.

Answer 37

Inferences

Question 38

What are the two roles of inference?

Answer 38

Narrative: Creation of connections between parts of a story, how it progresses and how it references the past Coherence: Representations in the mind the creates relations between the text and the main topic of the story

Question 39

What are three types of inference?

Answer 39

Anaphoric inference Instrument inference Causal inference

Question 40

Inferring things such as “he” or “she” or “that” to a previous sentence.

Answer 40

Anaphoric inference

Question 41

Inferring certain objects that are likely being used in a story, without prior mention of it

Answer 41

Instrument inference

Question 42

When you infer something happens because of a previous clause in a sentence

Answer 42

Causal inference

Question 43

The mechanism that simulates movement, objects, characteristics, and actions in a story

Answer 43

Situation model

Question 44

How did Stanfield and Zwaan's experiment support the situation model?

Answer 44

Presented a sentence and then asked participants to indicate the object being depicted in the scenario. Showing different orientations of a nail when presented with the sentence: “He hammered the nail into the wall.” Participants responded more quickly when the picture matched the orientation they expected based on the story

Question 45

Describe the given-new contract

Answer 45

Preface a sentence with information someone already knows Follow it up with new information

Question 46

How does common ground guide conversations?

Answer 46

Having shared information, or teaching someone so they share the same information allows for conversations to go a lot smoother, as the other person will understand what’s going on.

Question 47

Describe the referential communication task

Answer 47

Task where two people have a conversation and exchange information that involves reference

Question 48

What three things does creating common ground result in?

Answer 48

Entrainment Syntactic coordination Syntactic priming

Question 49

Synchronization between two partners

Answer 49

Entrainment

Question 50

Coordination of similar grammatical construction

Answer 50

Syntactic coordination

Question 51

Hearing a statement with a particular construction before you form your own increases the chances you use it yourself

Answer 51

Syntactic priming

Question 52

The ability to understand what others feel, think, or believe

Answer 52

Theory of mind

Question 53

How does theory of mind relate to conversations?

Answer 53

Helps us determine meaning

Question 54

Pattern of intonation and rhythm in a spoken language

Answer 54

Prosody

Question 55

How the notes of a melody are organized around the note associated with the composition’s key

Answer 55

Tonic

Question 56

What difficulty does Broca's aphasia produce?

Answer 56

Difficulty in understanding sentences with complex syntax

Question 57

How does the response of a patient with Broca's aphasia impact our understanding of language and music?

Answer 57

Can detect musical cords that are off key but not syntax in sentences Music and Language are connected, but different

Question 58

Problems with music perception, including discrimination between melodies and recognizing common tunes

Answer 58

Congenital amusia

Question 59

How does the response of a patient with congenital amusia impact our understanding of language and music?

Answer 59

A patient with congenital amusia's language abilities are not affected Music and Language are connected, but different