Chapter 11: Language Flashcards
A system of communication using sound or symbols which enables us to express emotions, thoughts, ideas, and experiences
Language
Why is the simple definition of language given not adequate?
Doesn’t consider animal communication or body language
What are the two key components of language?
Hierarchical and rule-based
Why is language hierarchical?
Consists of small components arranged in a way that makes a larger unit
Why is language rule-based?
Some of the smaller components follow rules that must be obeyed in order to create meaning
Give an example describing how language is a universal need
Deaf children living in communities that don’t have sign language invent one themselves
Describe how languages are “unique but the same”
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
What was Chomsky’s perspective on language?
Proposed that language is encoded into human genes
Cognitive aspect that relates to the mind
What was Skinner’s perspective on language?
Posits that language can be explained in terms of reinforcements
Nothing to do with the mind
The field of psychology that concerns itself with the study of language and how it related to psychology.
Psycholinguistics
What are the four major concerns of psycholinguistics?
Comprehension, representation, speech production, acquisition
All the words we know/mental dictionary
Lexicon
The meaning of words and language
Semantics
Describe the word frequency effect
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)
The lexical decision task is a way to demonstrate which effect?
The word frequency effect
Describe the lexical decision task
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
How are differences in pronunciation navigated?
Using the context around the word and fill in the blank based on previous knowledge
The perception of individual words even though there are often no pauses between words.
Speech segmentation
How is speech segmentation achieved?
Statistical probability (without realizing)
What four factors are related to our ability to understand spoken words?
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
Words that have multiple meanings
Lexical ambiguity
How do we navigate lexical ambiguity?
Look for context surrounding the word
Occurs when a word is followed by another word with a similar meaning.
Lexical priming
Describe Tanenhaus’ lexical priming task
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
Relative frequency of meaning influences what meaning you will assume
Meaning dominance
When one word’s meaning is more commonly used than other
Biased dominance
When a word’s meaning is equally as likely as another meaning
Balanced dominance
A strategy where we group words together in a sentence to give meaning
Parsing
Sentence that begins to mean one thing, then ends up meaning something else
Garden path sentences
What do garden path sentences illustrate?
Temporal ambiguity
Organization of previous sentences may interfere with the following sentences
Temporal ambiguity
Describe the garden-path model of parsing
As people read a sentence their grouping of words is influenced by heuristics
A rule that can be applied rapidly to make a decision/ Mental shortcut that works most of the time
Heuristic
According to the constraint-based approach, which other factors influence parsing besides syntax?
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
When a word in a sentence is the subject of both the main clause and the embedded clause
Subject-relative construction
When a word in a sentence is the subject of only as the main clause and not the embedded clause
Object-relative construction
What our interpretations of a text means using our knowledge without information provided by the text.
Inferences
What are the two roles of inference?
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
What are three types of inference?
Anaphoric inference
Instrument inference
Causal inference
Inferring things such as “he” or “she” or “that” to a previous sentence.
Anaphoric inference
Inferring certain objects that are likely being used in a story, without prior mention of it
Instrument inference
When you infer something happens because of a previous clause in a sentence
Causal inference
The mechanism that simulates movement, objects, characteristics, and actions in a story
Situation model
How did Stanfield and Zwaan’s experiment support the situation model?
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
Describe the given-new contract
Preface a sentence with information someone already knows
Follow it up with new information
How does common ground guide conversations?
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.
Describe the referential communication task
Task where two people have a conversation and exchange information that involves reference
What three things does creating common ground result in?
Entrainment
Syntactic coordination
Syntactic priming
Synchronization between two partners
Entrainment
Coordination of similar grammatical construction
Syntactic coordination
Hearing a statement with a particular construction before you form your own increases the chances you use it yourself
Syntactic priming
The ability to understand what others feel, think, or believe
Theory of mind
How does theory of mind relate to conversations?
Helps us determine meaning
Pattern of intonation and rhythm in a spoken language
Prosody
How the notes of a melody are organized around the note associated with the composition’s key
Tonic
What difficulty does Broca’s aphasia produce?
Difficulty in understanding sentences with complex syntax
How does the response of a patient with Broca’s aphasia impact our understanding of language and music?
Can detect musical cords that are off key but not syntax in sentences
Music and Language are connected, but different
Problems with music perception, including discrimination between melodies and recognizing common tunes
Congenital amusia
How does the response of a patient with congenital amusia impact our understanding of language and music?
A patient with congenital amusia’s language abilities are not affected
Music and Language are connected, but different
