Cognitive Psychology - Speech and Language

Question 1

Define language

Answer 1

A system of visual/vocal symbols that have meaning to user and recipient

Question 2

Define linguistics

Answer 2

The study of the rules of language

Question 3

Define psycholinguistics

Answer 3

The study of the role of cognition in language acquisition, production and comprehension, including how verbal behaviour develops

Question 4

Which model looks at turning ideas into air and back again?

Answer 4

Communication model

Question 5

What produces speech?

Answer 5

A set of muscles in the face, mouth and throat

Question 6

What’s a phoneme?

Answer 6

The smallest unit of speech sound (not letters) e.g., pin (p+i+n) and ship (sh+i+p)

Question 7

What’s a group of phonemes?

Answer 7

The smallest unit of speech that influences meaning e.g., bet > bit, dig > gig

Question 8

What are the 3 parts to making consonants?

Answer 8

Voice, place, manner

Question 9

What is voice? (making consonants)

Answer 9

Whether/when vocal cords vibrate

Question 10

What is place? (making consonants)

Answer 10

Where in the vocal tract the constriction takes place

Question 11

What is manner? (making consonants)

Answer 11

How the air moves out of the vocal tract/what sort of constriction takes place

Question 12

Give examples of voice

Answer 12

Zip/Sip, Bat/Pat, Dip/Tip

Question 13

Give examples of place

Answer 13

Pat/Tat/Cat, Bot/Dot/Got

Question 14

Give examples of manner

Answer 14

Nose/Doze (nasal/stop), Dip/Zip (stop/fricative)

Question 15

What is Voice Onset Time (VOT)

Answer 15

When lips open relative to when vocal chords start vibrating

Question 16

Do ‘Pa’ and ;Ba’ differ in Voice Onset Time (VOT)?

Answer 16

Yes

Question 17

How do ‘Pa’ and ‘Ba’ differ in VOT?

Answer 17

‘Pa’ VOT tends to be about 50 ms slower than ‘Ba’

Question 18

What is the hypothesised and actual perception of phonemes ‘ba’ and ‘pa’

Answer 18

-Hypothetically, we would expect a gradual shift from ‘ba’ to ‘pa’. Actual perception is categorical.

-Hypothetically, adults should be able to discriminate between each VOT. There is actually an abrupt shift typically at about 20-25 ms.

Question 19

What are the 2 consequences of categorical perception?

Answer 19

1) We are good at perceiving changes across category boundaries
2) We are bad at perceiving changes within category boundaries

Question 20

What are the 3 parts to making vowels?

Answer 20

1) Height
2) Backness
3) Roundedness

Question 21

What is height? (making vowels)

Answer 21

The vertical position of tongue in the mouth

Question 22

What is backness? (making vowels) Give 2 examples

Answer 22

How far back in the mouth the tongue is.
1) “ee” = front
2) “oo” = back

Question 23

What is roundedness? (making vowels)

Answer 23

The shape of the lips. Correlated with tongue position in many languages.

Question 24

What are formants?

Answer 24

Peaks of the acoustic signal/distinctive frequency components we need to distinguish vowels

Question 25

What formants are needed to identify a vowel?

Answer 25

The first 2 formants (F1 and F2) are often sufficient to identify a vowel

Question 26

Give 2 key points about The McGurk Effect

Answer 26

1) McGurk effect is an example of how 1 sensory modality can influence another (hearing)

2) Speech production is a multi-modal process; not only based on auditory but also visual cues