Chapter 9

Question 1

Phoneme

Answer 1

A phoneme (pronounced “foe-neem”) is the basic unit of spoken language, such as the sounds a, k, and th. The English language has about 40 different phonemes

Question 2

morpheme

Answer 2

(pronounced “more-feem”) is the basic unit of meaning. For example, the word reactivated actually contains four morphemes: re-, active, -ate, and -ed. Each of those segments conveys meaning. Many morphemes can stand on their own (like giraffe). In contrast, some morphemes must be attached to other

Question 3

morphology

Answer 3

the term morphology refers to the study of morphemes; morphology, therefore, examines how we create words by combining morphemes.

Question 4

Syntax

Answer 4

Another major component of psycholinguistics is syntax. Syntax refers to the grammatical rules that govern how we organize words into sentences.

Question 5

Grammar

Answer 5

A more inclusive and familiar term, grammar, encompasses both morphology and syntax; it, therefore, examines both word structure and sentence structure

Question 6

Semantics

Answer 6

Semantics is the area of psycholinguistics that examines the meanings of words and sentences

Question 7

semantic memory

Answer 7

refers to our organized knowledge about the world. We have discussed semantic memory throughout earlier chapters of this book, but especially in Chapter 8. Language allows us to access information stored in our semantic memories. Indeed, this stored knowledge is a driving force in our ability to use language.

Question 8

Psycholinguistics

Answer 8

is an interdisciplinary field that examines how people use language to communicate ideas. Psycholinguists focus not only on the pro- cesses that allow us to produce or comprehend language, but also on the key principles

Question 9

Pragmatics

Answer 9

Pragmatics—another important term—refers to our knowledge of the social rules that underlie language use; pragmatics takes into account the listener’s perspective. For example, think about how you would define the word syntax to a 12-year-old child, as opposed to a college classmate. Pragmatics is the discipline within linguistics that focuses most on social interactions.

Question 10

The surface structure.

Answer 10

The surface structure is represented by the words that are actually spoken or written, Chomsky (1957, 2006).

Question 11

Deep structure

Answer 11

is the underlying, more abstract meaning of a sentence. Chomsky

Question 12

transformational rules

Answer 12

People use transformational rules to convert deep structure into a surface structure that they can speak or write. Chomsky

Question 13

ambiguous sentences

Answer 13

Chomsky (1957, 2006) also pointed out that two sentences may have identical surface structures but very different deep structures; these are called ambiguous sentences. For example, I live near the small town of York in rural upstate New York. One day I drove past the announcement board outside the York Town Hall, and the message said: “POP CAN DRIVE.” I was puzzled: Whose father is now allowed to drive, and why had he previously been prohibited from driving? To be honest, the alternate meaning (focusing on a community fundraiser) did not occur to me until the next day.

Question 14

The Cognitive functional approach

Answer 14

Emphasizes that the function of human language in everyday life is to communicate meaning to other individuals. As this name suggests, the cognitive–functional approach also emphasizes that our cognitive processes—such as attention and memory— are intertwined with language comprehension and language production.

Question 15

Negation and the Passive Voice

Answer 15

We retain more passive words easily, instead of negative words (no, not or similar).

Question 16

Incremental interpretation

Answer 16

refers to the observation that when processing language, we do not wait until an entire sentence is spoken (or read) before making judgments about what it means. Language unfolds bit-by-bit over time. Thus, the systems responsible for language comprehension provide you with the ability to continuously update your interpretation of an incoming message as it unfolds.

Question 17

On-line measures of sentence processing

Answer 17

designed to gauge the amount of dificulty one experiences as the linguistic signal unfolds unit-by-unit over time. Thus, researchers can assess which components of a sentence are more difficult to process than others.

Question 18

The self paced reading task

Answer 18

One example of an online language processing measure. In this task, participants see a series of dashes on a screen that mask each word of the sentence, as in (1) below. The sentence unfolds word by word as participants press the spacebar on a keyboard (as in 2–10 below).

Question 19

Lateralization

Answer 19

Each hemisphere of the brain has somewhat different functions.

Question 20

The mirror system

Answer 20

A network involving the brain’s motor cortex.

Question 21

dual-route approach to reading

Answer 21

specifies that:

skilled readers employ both (1) a direct-access route and (2) an indirect-access

Question 22

A direct-access route

Answer 22

You recognize words

directly through vision, without “sounding out” the words.

Question 23

indirect-access route

Answer 23

as soon as you see a
word, you translate the ink marks on the page into some form of sound, before
you can access a word and its meaning

Question 24

The Indirect-Access Route.

Answer 24

we can make mistakes with two words that sound the same (Bear-Bare)

Question 25

Whole-word approach

Answer 25

Argues that readers can directly connect the written word as an entire unit with the meaning that this word represents

Question 26

The phonics approach

Answer 26

states that readers recognize words by trying to pronounce the individual letters in the word. If your grade school teachers told you to “sound it out” when you stumbled on a new word, they championed the phonics approach.

Question 27

whole-language approach

Answer 27

reading instruction should emphasize meaning, and it should be enjoyable, to increase children’s enthusiasm about learning to read

Question 28

discourse

Answer 28

that is, inter- related units of language that are larger than a sentence. Used daily.

Question 29

inferences

Answer 29

are conclusions that go beyond the isolated phrase or sentence

Question 30

theory of mind

Answer 30

In everyday life, we try to igure out the mental state of other people in our lives

Question 31

constructionist view of inferences

Answer 31

readers usually draw inferences about the causes of events and the rela- tionships between events.

Question 32

metacognition

Answer 32

which is your knowledge about your cognitive processes, as well as your control of these cognitive processes

Question 33

metacomprehension

Answer 33

a term that refers to your thoughts about comprehension

Question 34

People are able to process the meaning of a sentence best if it is

Answer 34

An affirmatively worded sentence in the active voice.

Question 35

When a reader encounters a potentially ambiguous word in a sentence:

Answer 35

Neural activation initially increases all common meanings of the word.

The reader usually pauses before moving his or her eyes to the next word.

People resolve the correct meaning by using contextual information (i.e., the rest of the sentence.)

Question 36

In which type of aphasia does the patient have difficulty producing fluent speech?

Answer 36

Broca’s aphasia

Question 37

In which type of aphasia does the patient have difficulty comprehending speech?

Answer 37

Wernicke’s aphasia.

Question 38

The typical result of damage to an area in the left cerebral hemisphere called Broca’s area is speech that is:

Answer 38

Hesitant, effortful, and grammatically simple.

Question 39

The typical result of damage to an area in the left cerebral hemisphere called Wernicke’s area is impairment in:

Answer 39

Producing unconfused speech, as well as in understanding speech.

Question 40

Although the left hemisphere of the brain performs most of the work in language processing for the vast majority of people, the right hemisphere plays an important role in:

Answer 40

linguistic tasks such as interpreting the emotional tone of a message.

Question 41

The “language-localizing task” identifies

Answer 41

The left hemisphere language areas for an individual.

Question 42

Recent research (Cassady, 2004) reveals that compared to people who score low, people who score high on test anxiety (as measured by a Cognitive Test Anxiety scale, for example):

Answer 42

Perform relatively poorly on multiple-choice tests.

Question 43

The famous sentence “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously”:

Answer 43

provides evidence that knowledge about grammatical rules is innate, not learned.

Question 44

) When a reader encounters a potentially ambiguous word in a sentence:

Answer 44

sentence context (or the rest of the sentence) does not change the way the word
is processed.

Question 45

On-line language processing measures:

Answer 45

a) provide information about how long it takes for people to process a new word
given previous words in a sentence.
b) rely on reaction time data to provide an index of processing difficulty.
c) can provide information about where in a sentence readers experienced
difficulty.

Question 46

The results of the Tanenhaus and his colleagues. (1995) experiment suggest that:

Answer 46

even visual context can change how people understand a sentence that contains
a syntactic ambiguity.

Question 47

Which of the following statements accurately characterizes the functioning of
Broca’s area?

Answer 47

a) There is no evidence that it is actually involved in language processing.
b) It is active during the Stroop task, mental imagery, and music processing.
c) It may be part of the executive attention network.

Question 48

The mirror system could be relevant in neurolinguistics because mirror neurons:

Answer 48

may be especially active when we listen to speech in a noisy setting.

Question 49

The indirect-access route in reading emphasizes that:

Answer 49

readers translate a printed word into sound before they can locate information
about its meaning.

Question 50

When someone is reading discourse, such as a novel, according to the constructionist
view of inferences he or she is:

Answer 50

a) inferring motivations, personalities, and emotions of the characters.
b) developing expectations of new plot developments.
c) forming expectations about the writer’s point of view.

Question 51

You would be most likely to draw an inference during reading:

Answer 51

if you have strong metacomprehension skills, rather than weak ones.