Chapter 12: Language

Question 1

larynx

Answer 1

the portion of the upper respiratory tract that lies between the trachea and the pharynx

Question 2

formants

Answer 2

one of several frequencies that represent the natural resonances of different components of the vocal tract

Question 3

source-filter model

Answer 3

a generally accepted model for the production of speech sound stimuli that entails vocal-fold vibrations as a source and the vocal tract as a dynamic filter

Question 4

voiced

Answer 4

pertaining to the speech sound stimulus characterized by laryngeal harmonics - typically a vowel sound

Question 5

phones

Answer 5

one of about 200 different sound stimuli the human vocal apparatus can produce. A subset of these is used in any given spoken language (approximately 40 in English)

Question 6

phonemes

Answer 6

the basic perceptual unit that distinguished one utterance from another in a given language

Question 7

vowel

Answer 7

typically a voiced (tonal) element of speech that forms the nucleus of syllables

Question 8

consonant

Answer 8

typically an unvoiced (atonal) element of speech that begins and/ or ends syllables.

Question 9

tonal

Answer 9

pertaining to a sound stimulus that, by virtue of its periodic repetition, produces the perception of a tone

Question 10

grammar

Answer 10

the system of rules implicit in a language

Question 11

syntax

Answer 11

the way in which words are combined to form sentences or phrases.

Question 12

McGurk effect

Answer 12

the misperception of speech sounds due to conflicting visual stimuli.

Question 13

connectionist

Answer 13

pertaining to the connectivity of neural networks whose connection weights vary according to experience

Question 14

neural network

Answer 14

typically refers to artificial networks of interconnected nodes whose connections change in strength as a means of solving problems. Can also be used as a synonym for a neural circuit.

Question 15

aphasia

Answer 15

a language deficit that arises from damage to one of the cortical language areas, typically in the left hemisphere

Question 16

Broca’s aphasia

Answer 16

also called motor aphasia or production aphasia. a language deficit arising from damage to Broca’s area in the frontal lobe and characterized by difficultly in the production of speech.

Question 17

Broca’s area

Answer 17

an area in the ventral posterior region of the left frontal lobe that helps mediate language expression; named after the nineteenth-century anatomist and neurologist Paul Broca. Compare Wernicke’s area.

Question 18

Wernicke’s area

Answer 18

an area of the cortex in the superior and posterior region of the left temporal lobe that helps mediate language comprehension; named after the 19th century neurologist and psychiatrist Carl Wernicke. Compare Broca’s area

Question 19

Wernicke’s aphasia

Answer 19

also called receptive aphasia or sensory aphasia. a language deficit arising from damage to Wernicke’s area in the posterior temporal lobe and characterized by an inability to link objects or ideas and the words that signify them to subjectively comprehend this relationship. Compare Broca’s aphasia

Question 20

split-brain patients

Answer 20

an individual whose corpus callosum has been surgically interrupted as a treatment for epilepsy functionality separating the left and right hemispheres/

Question 21

prosodic

Answer 21

pertaining to the inflection is speech, often associated with emotion

Question 22

aprosodia

Answer 22

the inability to inflect speech with the usual emotional color that the right hemisphere typically contributes. Characterized by a monotonic or “robotic” speech pattern.