Chapter 11-Language Pt. 2 Flashcards

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1
Q

Interactionist approach to parsing

A

-semantics and syntax both influence processing as one reads a sentence

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2
Q

Understanding Sentences: Story Context (Tanenhaus and Trueswell)

A
  • the context of a scene
  • linguistic and non linguistic information used simultaneously
  • measured eye movement
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3
Q

Tanenhaus and Trueswell experimental results

A

Ambiguous sentence: place the apple on the towel in the box

Don’t know whether to follow the syntax of the sentence or their own knowledge-results in more eye movement

Unambiguous sentence: place the apple that’s on the towel in the box

Resulted in less eye movement because it is not ambiguous. Two apples are present and the sentence specifies which one

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4
Q

Coherence

A

Representation of the text in one’s mind so that information from one part of the text can be related to information in another part of the text

Most coherence is created by inference

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5
Q

Inference

A

Readers create information during reading that is not explicitly stated in the text

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6
Q

Anaphoric inference

A

Connecting objects/people

  • inferences that connect an object or person in one sentence to an object or person in another sentence
  • using name then referring in second sentence as “she”
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7
Q

Instrumental inference

A

Inferences about tools or methods

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8
Q

Causal inference

A

Events in one clause caused by events in previous sentence

E.g. Sharon took an aspirin. Her headache went away

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9
Q

Situation model

A

Mental representation of what a text is about

  • represent events as if experiencing the situation
  • point of view of protagonist
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10
Q

Morrow et al

A

Situation model

Reported that verifying whether two objects were in the same room was easier when the two objects were in the room where the protagonist was

Gave participants a story where they had to read sentence then push a button. Test is you have two objects: are they in the same room or different rooms as protagonist?

Goal room-room where protagonist is
Source room-room of objects

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11
Q

Morrow et al conclusions

A

Increase in distance of objects from goal room results in increase in RT

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12
Q

Blocked versus unblocked story

A

Reader takes the viewpoint of the protagonist so the blocked story results in higher RT because it prevents you from seeing the situation clearly

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13
Q

Standfield and Zwann’s orientation experiment

A

Subject heard sentences and were asked to indicate whether the picture was the object mentioned in the sentence (didn’t care about orientation)

  1. He hammered the nail into the wall
  2. He hammered the nail into the floor

Subjects responded “yes” more rapidly for the orientation that was more consistent with the sentence. Suggests we create representations of situations in addition to using syntax

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14
Q

Physiology of simulations

A

Approximately the same areas of the cortex are activated by actual movements and by reading related action words

The activation is more extensive for actual movements (Hauks experiment)

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15
Q

Metusalem et al experiment for concert scenario

A

The key result is that N400 response to an event related word like guitar is smaller than the response to an event unrelated word like barn. This suggests that even though guitar doesn’t fit the sentence, up the worsens knowledge that guitars are associated with concerts is activated. Gives more evidence that when people read sentences they create a situational representation

Recall N400 is inconsistency in meaning

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16
Q

Conversations

A

Two or more people talking together

Dynamic and rapid

17
Q

Semantic coordination

A

Improves conversation

Uses Given-New contract: speaker constructs sentences so they include:

  • given information
  • new information
  • new can then become given information
18
Q

Syntactic coordination

A

Improves conversation

Involves using similar grammatical constructions

19
Q

Syntactic priming

A

Production of a specific grammatical construction by one person increases chances other person will use that construction

Reduces computational load in conversation

20
Q

Syntactical priming example

A

The subject (right) picks from the cards on the table, a card that matches the statement read by the confederate (left). The subject then takes a card from the pile of response cards and describes the picture on the response card to the confederate. Key part of experiment is whether the subject on the right will match the syntactic construction used by the subject on the left

21
Q

Other skills necessary for people to engage in effective conversation:

A

Theory of mind: being able to understand what others feel, think or believe

Non verbal communication: being able to interpret and react to the person’s gestures, facial expressions, tones of voice or other cues to meaning

22
Q

Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

A

Language influences thought

23
Q

Roberson and coworkers

A

Two cultures had differences in how participants assigned names (categories) to colour chips

Results in categorical perception

24
Q

Categorical perception

A

Stimuli in same categories are more difficult to discriminate from one another than stimuli in two different categories

25
Q

Winawer and coworkers

A

Two cultures had differences in how participants responses to blue squares based on how they were categorized

Russian speakers: difference between “different categories” and “same categories” is large

English speakers: difference between the categories is small because they generalize both categories just as blue

26
Q

Music and language

A

Music creates emotion through sounds that have no meaning

Language creates emotions using meaningful words

Language combines words and music combines tones to create structured sequences that unfold over time

27
Q

Prosody

A

The pattern of intonation and rhythm in spoken language

Often creates emotion in spoken language

28
Q

Patel and coworkers

A

Studied a group of stroke patients who had Broca’s aphasia-difficulty in understanding sentences with complex syntax

Had language syntax and musical syntax tasks

Musical syntax task: “In key” chord replaced with either the “nearby” key or “distant” key conditions

Aphasic participants did better for musical syntax than for language syntax whereas normal control did better for language syntax