Exam 4 Flashcards
Language Structure:
What is grammar?
- rules, the structure that governs language
Language Structure:
What is syntax?
- organization of a sentence
Language Structure:
What are semantics?
- the meaning of a sentence
Language Structure:
What is phonology?
- the sounds of a language
Language Structure:
What is orthography?
- the letters or script of a language
Language Development:
What is language acquisition? Where does it begin?
- learn language
- ## begins in the womb (ears start functioning and can hear sound patterns)
Language Development:
Describe DeCasper and Spence’s study
- pregnant women read to unborn child
- babies could chose to hear same story read by mother or a different story (chose based on rate of sucking pacifier)
- indicates babies knew difference between one story and another - so language learning even in babies
Language Development:
What is the critical period hypothesis? What evidence supports it?
- certain skills have to be learned at a certain point in time or they cannot be learned at all
- critical period for language development is puberty
- evidence: Genie - never taught language and at 13yrs could learn words but couldn’t put them together to form a sentence
Language Development:
What is Chomsky’s Language Acquisition Device? How does it work?
- when exposed to language in the environment the “settings” for the particular language are keyed in
- we are equipped to learn language
- existing structure; we are also born with cog. concept of universal grammar
Language Development:
Describe Saffran et al’s study and their findings
- babies able to learn statistical patterns of sounds (esp. transitional probabilities which are likelihood of a particular sound following another sound)
- exposed to made up language (“bidaku, padoti, golabu, tupiro)”
- chose between hearing word or non-word: preferred nonword
- second exp chose between word and part-word: showed they understood where one word ends and next begins
Comparative Language:
What are four properties of human language that distinguish it from the communication patterns of other species?
- duality of patterning: units of meaning (words) are made up of units which are meaningless on their own (letters)
- arbitrary: words are arbitrary and are assigned meaning
- generative capacity: we can create new words whenever we want to
- recursion: take a sentence/thought & embed into another sentence (“nesting” ideas)
Comparative Language:
What have studies on animals indicated about animals’ ability to learn and use human language?
- Koko the gorilla: learned sign language but didn’t make grammatically correct sentences
- Kanzi the bonobo: understood what symbols meant
- show the animals can understand some human lang (at toddler level) but can’t further
Language Comprehension:
What is language comprehension?
- how we’re able to understand language
- know what spoken words mean and what words on a page mean
Language Comprehension:
What is the Wernicke’s area? What is Wernicke’s aphasia and its symptoms?
- left hem, temporal lobe
- area involved in lang comprehension
- Wernicke’s aphasia: “word salad” in which words come out but lack meaning, may also have difficulty understanding questions
Language Comprehension:
What is parsing?
- break input down into component words
- comprehension starts at word level
Language Comprehension:
What did Just and Carpenter (1980) find regarding word fixation? What do their findings tells us about word processing?
- measured how long eyes stayed on certain words
- longer on meaningful, unfamiliar, and first words
- also longer for words that take longer to say/read
- we don’t look at every single word but most of them, we may jump ahead but may need to backtrack
- how eye processes words while reading
Language Comprehension:
How are similar-sounding words stored in memory? What is neighborhood density?
- stored in same areas of memory
- “neighborhoods” are stores of sim. sounding words
- dense neighborhood has many words, so interference and competition in trying to figure out word (takes longer to figure out)
- when still hearing the word all the words in neighborhood become active
- as you hear more of the word some of the words in the neighborhood become inactive
Language Comprehension:
What do the results of Allopenna et al tell us about word comprehension?
- subjects focused on objects on computer screen and given sentence (request)
- where were people’s eyes looking when asked for “beaker” : equally likely to be looking at beaker or beetle
- start trying to find out what it means as we’re hearing it
Language Comprehension:
How do the results of Aaronson and Scarborough (1977) and Graf and Torrey (1966) demonstrate the importance of phrase boundaries in language comprehension?
- Aaronson and Scarborough: looked at how long people spend in between words; longer gaps between phrase boundaries
- Graf and Torrey: gave subjects sentences one line at and then tested comprehension; better comprehension when setnences broken up by phrase boundaries
- we process in terms of individual phrases not word by word
Language Comprehension:
How can a sentence like “they are cooking apples” have an ambiguous structure?
- some words can be used as verb or adjective (ex. cooking)
- inflection can give away the meaning of a sentence
Language Comprehension:
What are garden path sentences?
- as words are coming in, you are building on meaning so that initial interpretation has to be updated
- ex. the old train vs. the old train the young
Language Comprehension:
How do the results of Tyler and Marlsen-Wilson (1977) answer whether a sentence’s syntax is processed separately from its semantics?
- subjects read sentences and had to choose appropriate verb; either ambiguous sentence or unambiguous
- slower response time for unambiguous inappropriate verb, fastest for ambiguous appro.
- we use semantics to figure out what should come next w/ help of knowledge of syntax
- we work w/ syntax and semantics at the same time
Language Comprehension:
Describe Singer’s study and how it indicates that people make inference beyond info they’re provided with
- subjects told specific info and asked question
- in one condition given all info, other cond left out piece of info to see if they would infer
- RT for inference same as RT for control cond
- slower response time when more info was removed
Language Comprehension:
What is message subtext? What does it include?
- goes beyond language suing cues from the person delivering the message
- includes sarcasm, exaggeration and idioms (cultural phrases that go beyond literal meaning)
Language Production:
What is Broca’s area? What is Broca’s aphasia and its symptoms?
- frontal lobe, left hem
- language production
- Broca’s aphasia: difficulty speaking, writing, no problem with meaning but trouble getting words out
Language Production:
What are the three processes of speech production? (CFA)
- Conceptualization: figure out meaning you want to convey
- Formulation: use syntactical structure and pull in words to help convey the meaning
- Articulation: speech planning, control mouth and breath for words to come out
Language Production:
What is Garrett’s model of speech production? (FPS)
- expansion of formulation level
- functional level: figure out diff parts of speech (ex. subject, verb, object)
- positional level: figure out position/order of words
- sound level: figure out individual sounds of the words
Language Production:
What is the tip-of-the-tongue state speech error?
- functional level
- word that you know but cannot retrieve it from memory when you need it
Language Production:
What is the word substitution speech error?
- functional level
- instead of saying word we want we say a diff word that is related in meaning
Language Production:
What is the word blend speech error?
- functional level
- 2 diff words that might be appropriate in that spot in sentence but come out together/blended instead of picking one
Language Production:
What is the morpheme exchange speech error?
- positional level
- positional level
- morpheme (meaning unit) of the word swaps but ending stays same
- ex. I sampled some randomly- “randomed some samply”
Language Production:
What is the word swap/exchange speech error?
- positional level
- 2 words swap location-wise in sentence
- usually same parts of speech (ex. noun and noun)
Language Production:
What is the phrase blend speech error?
- positional level
- 2 diff phrases get mixed together
Language Production:
What is the phoneme deletion speech error?
- sound level
- sound missing, should be there but isn’t
- ex. “black” turns into “back”
Language Production:
What is the affix deletion speech error?
- sound level
- affffix = end word
- drop final sound of word
- usually the part which indicates if things are plural or past-tense
Language Production:
What is the phoneme exchange (spoonerism) speech error?
- sound level
- swap beginnings of two words
Language Production:
What is the phoneme preservation speech error?
- sound level
- earlier sounds in sentence show up after they should done
Language Production:
What is the phoneme anticipation speech error?
- sound level
- sound in sentence shows up earlier than it should
Language Production:
Describe Baars at al’s study
- induced speech errors, subjects read list of word pairs starting w/ same letters (d and b) except flip order on last pair (b and d)
- Exp. 1: more likely to make spoonerism if ending would be lexical (real) words in context
- Exp. 2: nonlexical, no context; little diff in whether swap would be non-lexical or lexical
Language Production:
How is writing diff from speech?
- time to plan prepare
- tend to use more complex elements in writing
- we write alone
Language Production:
What are the three stages of writing ? (PTR)
- Planning: figure out message you want to communicate, more time than speech
- Translation: take ideas from planning stage and put them on paper
- Reviewing: read what you’ve written to spot errors and make sure message will be communicated to reader
Bilingualism and Second-Language Learning:
What is meant by L1 and L2?
- L1 = native language, first language you learn to speak
- L2 = other language you learn
Bilingualism and Second-Language Learning:
Are the lexicons of a bilingual’s two languages stored separately or together?
- have some overlap but may not be stored together
Bilingualism and Second-Language Learning:
What are cognates?
- word that is similar/same across the two lang you know
Bilingualism and Second-Language Learning:
What is code-switching? When does it occur?
- bilingual speaking to another bilingual who speaks same langs
- while speaking switch to other language (for word, phrase, or rest of sentence)
Bilingualism and Second-Language Learning:
What are some advantages and disadvantages to being bilingual?
- disadvantage: bilingual toddlers are slower to acquire ind words
- advantage: kids get to school know more words than monolingual peers and better capacity for learning language; better understand lang is symbolic; greater capacity for inhibitory control
Bilingualism and Second-Language Learning:
What does it mean that bilinguals have greater inhibitory control? Why does this occur?
- inhibit the language you aren’t using when you’re talking to someone
- more practice at inhibition
Bilingualism and Second-Language Learning:
Describe Linck et al’s study
- effect of immersion on ability to inhibit first lang
- subjects: 25 students abroad in Spain, 20 students on campus in classroom setting
- translation recognition task: given word in English and word in Spanish, had to indicate if correct translation ve
- verbal fluency task: given category and come up w/ as many examples as possible
- immersed learners less distracted by distracters for translation task (not affected by lexical distracters while classroom group was); affected by semantic neighbors while classroom group wasn’t
- immersed better at producing more words in Spanish for verbal fluency, classroom better with English words
- data consistent w/ idea that immersed group was inhibiting English while in Spain
Language Applications:
What is dyslexia? What are the three types and their symptoms?
- dyslexia: deficit in reading comprehension or speed
- surface dyslexia: difficulty reading irregular words
- phonological dyslexia: difficulty sounding out words or non-words
- deep dyslexia: misreading words as semantically-related ones (ex. “sister” as “daughter”)
Language Applications:
What is dysgraphia? What are its two types and their symptoms?
- dysgraphia: difficulty writing
- surface level: spelling mistakes, writing letters incorrectly, letter spacing
- deep level: semantic errors, writing the wrong word, word spacing
Language Applications:
How does texting abbreviations and emoji compare w/ traditional speech and writing?
- slower to read abbreviations than the real words
- emojis: usually for nouns only, no established syntax, difficulties w/ interpretation
Language Applications:
What are some qualities of good writers? How do they differ from poor writers at each of the three stages of writing (planning, translation, reviewing)?
- Planning - good writers manipulate knowledge better, make suitable plans, more flexible in changing their plans; poor writers little planning and disorganized text
- Translation - good writers write in longer more complex sentences, think in larger chunks, focus on whether writing will be understood and memorable
- Reviewing: better at making broad changes to the meaning of their text
Language Applications:
What are some tips for writing well?
- practice
- start w/ outline but keep it broad
- focus on individual sections and their purpose to the overall piece
- don’t force yourself to write chronologically
- write for the reader
Skill Acquisition and Expertise:
What changes occur with developing expertise?
- practice speeds performance
- makes it more accurate
- task requires less mental effort to perform
Skill Acquisition and Expertise:
What are the three stages of skill acquisition?
- cognitive
- associative
- autonomous
Skill Acquisition and Expertise:
Describe the cognitive stage of skill acquisition in terms of the memory rep, performance, and attention demands
- memory rep: declarative
- performance: slow, inaccurate
- attention demands: high
Skill Acquisition and Expertise:
Describe the associative stage of skill acquisition in terms of the memory rep, performance, and attention demands
- memory rep: association made stronger
- performance: improving
- attention demands: medium
Skill Acquisition and Expertise:
Describe the autonomous stage of skill acquisition in terms of the memory rep, performance, and attention demands
- memory rep: nondeclarative
- performance: fast, accurate
- attention demands: low
Skill Acquisition and Expertise:
What is the power law, as applied to skill acquisition?
- steepest declines in time at the beginning, then less steep afterwards
- little bit of practice initially improves performance a lot, but after it takes much practice to improve
- skill remains long after practice but may require a “warm-up” period
Skill Acquisition and Expertise: Describe Kolers (1979) study and what was found
- subjects read “transformed” text
- initially slow but improved with practice
- performance improved during first round of practice which is consistent w/ power law
Skill Acquisition and Expertise: Describe Gray (2004) study and what was found
- single-task was batting a simulated ball, dual task was batting while responding to a tone
- secondary task was either “extraneous” (reported pitch of tone) or “skill-focused” (report direction of bat)
- Exp 1: experts not affected by extraneous task but novices were; experts worse w/ skill focused task while novices better
- Exp 2: more attention to secondary task led to poorer batting performance
- Exp 3: pressure reduced skill task errors but performance was worse; fewer errors w/ pitch task but more errors overall with skill task
Perception-Action Cycle:
What qualifies as a “movement”? As “action”?
- movement: voluntary displacement of a body part in physical space
- action: series of movements needed to accomplish a goal
Perception-Action Cycle:
What is the perception-action cycle?
- idea that perception and action operate as a cycle and interact with one another
- action directly impacts perception as well (may change it)
Perception-Action Cycle:
What is meant by biological motion?
- we understand how animate objects should move
Perception-Action Cycle:
What are point-light displays? When viewing them what info are we able to perceive?
- figure outlined by a few dots/lights
- we see dots/lights but brain fills in details to see person
- we can perceive: male/female, mental state, weight
Perception-Action Cycle:
What is apparent motion? What did Shiffrar and Freyd (1990) do and find?
- apparent motion: see individual frames and brain fills in motion in between frames
- study found that given enough time our brain defaults to biologically possible motion
- if too short time then brain goes for shortest path of motion
Perception-Action Cycle:
What are affordances?
- how an object permits one to interact with it
- we see objects for their affordances (uses)
Perception-Action Cycle:
What are mirror neurons?
- neurons that fire when performing a movement and when viewing someone else do the same exact movement
- Rizzolatti et al study looked at this with primates grasping objects
Perception-Action Cycle:
Describe Proffitt et al’s study
- perception changes based on how much effort we think we’ll need to exert
- Exp 1: estimate distance to cone, tended to underestimate distance but backpack group made higher estimates than contorl
- Exp 2: either matched walking speed on treadmill w/ VR or no optic flow motion in VR; no optic flow walked further in place
- Exp 3: estimate cone distance, treadmill walk, again estimate distance; no optic flow made higher estimates
Motor-Planning and Updating:
What 3 brain regions are responsible for programming and executing motor plans? (SPP)
- supplementary motor area: strings together multiple movements to create an action plan
- premotor cortex: sets up motor programs to accomplish a certain sequence of movements
- primary motor cortex: sets up motor programs to accomplish a certain sequence of movements
Motor-Planning and Updating:
What is the end-state comfort effect? How did Rosenbaum originally study it?
- we plan our movements so that we’re comfortable at the end of the movement
- originally studied with how people grabbed dowels
Motor-Planning and Updating:
Describe Cohen and Rosenbaum’s (2004) study on end-state comfort
- move plunger to different heights on shelf
- Exp. 1: plan ahead for how high to move plunger “anticipation of shelf height,” (move low grab high, vice versa).
- Exp 2: changed where subject stood relative to home platform; still end state comfort effect no matter where standing
- Exp. 3: target single location while home location varied; still end state comfort/ planning
Motor Applications:
What is the Alexander Technique?
- “mindful movement” : realizing how your own body moves and paying attention to how it feels when you move
Motor Applications:
Describe Cohen et al’s study with the Alexander Technique and Parkinson’s patients
- “lighten up” condition: less resistance for axial tone (amount of resistance when body turns w/ machine), less sway and best posture with quiet stance, step initiation had less jerky movements and better centered foot pressure
Motor Applications:
How can the mirror illusion be used to help stroke recovery? What did Michielsen et al find?
- group with mirror therapy had higher post test scores, better able to move their hand after therapy
- however the effects did not last once therapy was stopped
