first section Flashcards by zenaya drager

which 6 hockett’s design features we touched on in class (and their meanings)

Semanticity:
Language can communicate meaning, and specific signals can be assigned meaning

Arbitrariness:
There is no necessary relationship between
objects in the world and symbols that a
language uses

Productivity:
Language can be used to say things that have
never been said before and yet are understandable to the receiver.

Learnability:
Users of one language can learn to use a
different language

displacement
The communication system can be used to refer to
things remote in time and space

Duality of patterning
Only combinations of otherwise meaningless units are meaningful

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out of spanish whistling, baby talking, dog talking which one is a real langauge

spanish whistling

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phonetics are ___ sounds and phones are ___ sounds

raw, speech

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a ___ is the smallest unit of meaning

morpheme

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what order of subject, object, verb does english have

SVO

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chompsky thought Language is ____-based, and our knowledge of syntax can be captured in a finite number of ____ rules

rule, syntactic

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the study on semantic

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week 1 study looked at semantic priming in (what lang/age group)

bilingual todllers

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Nativist view on language:

Nativist view: Our genes provide us with capacity for language. it is unique to humans

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Anti-nativist view on language:

Language is not an innate instinct, but a by-product of our cognitive abilities

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what is Chomsky’s Language Acquisition Device (LAD)

Only humans possess a language acquisition device that enables us to have innate, “hard-wired” abilities to acquire human language, and other animals lack.

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does the LAD mean infants are born with the language they are going to speak

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piaget beleived language/cognition determines language/cognition

cognition, language

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sapir-whorf beleived language/cognition determines language/cognition

language, cognition

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chompsky beleived language/cognition determines language/cognition

language is seperate from cognition, which is why animals can do a whole bunch of this stuff

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vygotsky beleived language/cognition determines language/cognition

thinks cognition and language are seperate before you learn to speak, but after socialization cognition and language are interdependent

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what are the 3 versions of the sapir-whorf hypothesis and their meanings

The Strong Version (Linguistic determinism)
- Language determines thought.

The Weaker Version (Linguistic Relativity)
- Language affects only perception.

The Weakest Version
- Language affects processing on certain tasks where linguistic encoding is important.

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in the vocabulary differentiation study where a language didn’t differentiate numbers after 3, what version of spearwhorf does this align with

strong version

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Linguistic typicality effect: meaning and example

one engages more neural recourses to access an atypical member than a typical member of a category.

For example, when talking about birds, you easily access to ‘pigeon’, but harder to ‘penguin’

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t/f you have more automatic processing with typical categories

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t/f there’s the same amount of differentiation in chinese and english between typical and atypical trials

false. english has more differentiation, the brain is being used more for atypical

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a study showed that italian speakers grouped together words that belonged to the same gender category (like in french). when the same 2 categories were shown in pictures instead of words, there was no distinction between the groups. what version of spearwhorf does this support and why

supports the weakest version
* when languagge encoding is there you see the effect, when it is not (and pictures are used) its not shown

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english is a manner/path language, while greek is a manner/path language

manner, path

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the engl/greek manner/path study didnt show differentiation when it was done with a non-linguistic task. what version does this support

supports the weakest version
* when language encoding is there you see the effect, when it is not, its not shown (i tihnk)

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chinese/US kids know about 20 more numbers more at a given age

chinese. # system more simple

Bornstein (1975) found pre- lingual babies (4-mo-old) were more sensitive to colours lying in the “boundary” colour categories than central ones.

false

within the colour coding and colour memory study with different shades of blue, native russian speakers were faster cross-cat/within-cat with "none" and "spatial" but switched for ____

within-cat verbal

t/f linguistics effects colour coding and memory

false? theres some evidence but it is possibly too basic to be influenced by language

Influence on language is greatest when activating the ____ system

linguistic

vascular flow is an indicator of:

brain activity

the "when" techniques: (2)

MEG EEG/ERP

the "where" techniques: (2)

fMRI NIRS

out of EEG/ERP, MEG, fMRI, NIRS which are inexpensive, moderate, expensive

inexpensive: EEG/ERP moderate: NIRS expensive: MEG, fMRI

EEG is direct/indirect, high/low spatial resolution

direct, low

MEG measures ___ produced by electrical currents in the brain

magnetic fields

MEG is direct/indirect, high/low spatial resolution

direct, okay

fMRI measures ___ activities in the brain

blood oxygen

fMRI is direct/indirect, high/low spatial resolution

indirect, very high

fNIRS uses ___ to measure ___ levels in the brain

light, blood-oxygen

fNIRS is direct/indirect, high/low spatial resolution

indirect, high-ish

describe what fNIRS looks like/what some pros are

looks like a cap but measures same thing as MRI can wear it while exercising, very good for child/infant studies

____ mechanism: (BOLD):

fNIRS/fMRI Blood Oxygenation Level Dependent

a "BOLD" signal would signify an increase in:

blood flow, blood volume, more oxygenated blood

t/f its more likely that right handed ppl will get right lateralized brain

false. left

Can one develop language with one hemisphere?

yes

t/f Lower overall performance for left hemispherectomy, compared to right hemispherectomy

true

in terms of hemispherectomies, what is the crowding hypothesis

since RH takes over language functions, it will be less able to carry out spatial perception tasks

main example of double dissociation

broca/wernicke

in this class dorsal means: ventral means:

upper lower

dorsal part of the brain is responsible for ___ production

syntax

ventral part of the brain is responsible for understanding ___ to ___

speech, meaning

if you have a thicker dorsal pathway in the brain you're more likely to do better on:

task accuracy

subject/object relative tasks are considered ___ heavy

syntax

in the study where native speakers of dutch listen to native/non-native speech, they were fine with the accented speech making ___ mistakes but not ____

syntactic semantic

t/f people automatically think visual learners are smarter than hands on

t/f multi-media learning is shown to have the best outcomes

t/f learning in your preferred learning style will lead to better academic outcomes

t/f physical exercise enhances learning

Children are less attentive after consuming sugary drinks or snacks.

t/f Learning two languages gives cognitive advantages at school

medium

Girls and boys have different cognitive abilities, so they are good at different subjects.

. In a bilingual's brain, two languages compete for mental resources.

Learning two languages simultaneously puts babies at risk of having delayed and possibly impaired language development.

brain maturity maxed at __

by age ___ the motor/sensory cortex is already pretty developed

explain the bilingual disadvantage study run with fNIRS

tested babies 6/9months on attention tasks. trained them to look at a ball congruent- valid trials (the hint is consistent with where the ball will show up) incongruent- invalid trials- needs more attention resources to re-orient brain from the false hint

t/f there is no difference even from infancy in terms of attention networks in the brain

t/f chomsky believed humans possess a universal LAD that is the same for all languages

false. Different languages may have different tunings of the switches

why does it take so long for a child tp acquire grammar? (2 hyp)

contunuity hyp: when we are born we have the skills needed, just not able to access them maturation hyp: children dont have immidiate access but as we grow we can access these skills

how do deaf children support the LAD theories

deaf children still develop pronouns the same way as hearing children. even though its supposedly easier. if LAD didnt exist, deaf children would learn pronouns faster because its more intuative

Chimpanzees understand intentions and goals: but cannot understand that pointing is an intention to ____

communicate

Set of observation about common structural patterns across a sample of 30 languages found __ universals

when Greenberg was looking at linguistic universals what was a finding

its very rare in languages that the object is put first

____: Simplified languages that were created for communication between speakers of different languages who were forced into prolonged contact

pidgin

___: When a pidgin language has its native speakers.

creole

why does pidgins and creoles give us evidence for linguistic universal proposal?

They emerge in modern humans! ex. Nicaraguan sign language is a creole

t/f specific language impairment causes a decreased IQ

the KE family from England has the FOXP2 gene. this is primarilly driven by problems with ___ processes

phonological

t/f there is a single gene that explains apraxia

false. multiple

t/f autism often co-occurs with language issues

what is an arguement against LAD

some rules are just more learnable for us the way we organize things are similar because its most efficient for us

empiricist perspective thinks language development is ___ in nature

statistical

what is the empiricist view of language acquisition? generally relies on ____ learning

no innate language-specific knowledge is required to explain language acquisition. associative

Statistical learning:

the ability to extract statistical regularities from the world around them to learn about the environment.

explain the basis of saffran's statistical learning study

8-month olds listen to three-syllable ‘words’ that: - EXP1: babies heard before (words) and not (non-words) - EXP2: babies heard before (words) and ‘partwords’ asked "are these words you've heard before?"

general results of the statistical learning study

with more novel words, you will listen longer/be more attentive * babies can differentiate between the words they've heard before and the unfamiliar words based on how long they listened * even babies have statistical learning ability

what does Marcus mean by saying he thinks learning is rule-based

marcus thinks babies don't just learn the word, they learn the rules/syntax associated with it

describe Statistical Rule Learning Marcus study:

7-month old babies listened to a 2-minute recording of three repetitions of each of 16 three-syllable ‘sentences that: 1) ‘sentences’ that consisted entirely of NEW words, such as “wo fe wo” or “wo fe fe” (following the ABA/ABB grammars) 2) ‘sentences’ that do not follow these grammars

Statistical Rule Learning Marcus study results:

babies listened to consistent sentences for far less time, novel sentences they'd listen to for longer

what are some major differences with Gervain an his study as oppossed to marcus and saffran (3)

babies he tested were 1-6days of age didn't have a learning stage for them thinks rule-based learning mechanisms are innate

gervain/marcus used ABA/ABB, and gervain/marcus used ABB ABC

marcus, gervain

gervain is more of a nativist/empiricist

nativsit

what were the general findings of gervain's study. (also what areas of brain)

Newborns discriminate simple structures based on immediate repetitions, without ‘statistical’ exposure left frontal/temporal

ststistical learning generally refers to learning from ___

exposure

are we aligned with nativist/statistical learning now

we dont know. need more research

what is fast mapping

The ability that young children quickly associate new words with objects with minimal exposure

At __-___ months, human infants know the meanings of many common nouns

6–9

(PLP): _________ or Looking-While-Listening procedure

* preferential looking paradigm

at what age do infants start to learn vocab more rapidly

14m

infant “Vocabulary spurt” “word explosion” happens at what age

18-21m

chinese is a ___ driven langauge. this would be considered an individual difference in vocab

verb

Whole-object assumption:

babies will attach a word label with something as a whole instead of just a part of it

give an example of taxonomic/thematic relations

we think dog/cat (taxonomically related) are more related rather than dog/bone (thematic)

children have a taxonomic/thematic preference

taxonomic

When children grow older, their preference follows a ____- ____-____ U-shape. 66

‘Taxonomic- thematic-taxonomic’

look at the blick! this study is an example of ___ ____

fast mapping

simultaneous bilingualism: early sequential bilingualism: late bilingualism:

L1 and L2 learned at the same time. L1 learned first, but L2 learned relatively early in childhood. L2 learned later, in adolescence or after.

heritage language

A minority language (either immigrant or indigenous) that is learned by its speakers at home as children.

t/f simultaneous bilinguals have lower language skills

around age ___ the sequential bilinguals catch up on the majority language BUT heritage language drops if they're not hearing it every day

whats the main bilingual cog. advantage

Bilinguals showed an advantage by reacting faster on attention network tests than monolinguals; plus, bilinguals were also more efficient in alerting and executive control.

cognitive advantage test: ___ test

flanker

what is the flanker test and how did it result in showing cog. advantage

Task: tell me the direction of the centre arrow (left or right) via keypress bilinguals have smaller conflict effect, and faster reaction across trials

what is the Cognitive advantage: Costa et al 2009 study

looked at spanish monolingual or Spanish-Catalan bilingual. showed diff arrows/keys on keyboard Manipulation: percentage of congruent vs incongruent trials (pct of congruent trials: 92% or 8%; 75%; and 50%)

in the Costa et al 2009 study, in the 92% congruent version, was the cog. advantage

is there cog. advantage for low and high monitoring tasks?

low, no. for high, we are not too sure

whats important to note about the bilingual (dis)advantage study (3)

both networks in the study were language-related if you have a stronger subnetwork language proficiency, this comes at the cost of your whole brain network proficiency bilinguals will have a stronger language subnetwork but other subnetworks might be weaker

in the cross-language facilitation study, which cue (idedntical, related, unrelated) caused more of interference and why

related because its in the same category so harder to distinguish

the unrelated-indentical trials were ___ and the unrelated-semantically related trials were ___

pos, neg

__________: lexical entries that share similar phonological and/or print forms in two languages (e.g., English dental–Spanish dental).

cognates

along with the semantic, the ___ trials were hitting the -n400 mark

unrelated

in the cross-language transfer study, pseudoword was the ___ variable and "word" was the ___

independent, dependent

t/f if you're a bilingual, being good at spanish word reading will mean you are also good at english words meaning

t/f cognates always facilitate better bilingual learning

false. this is only true if you speak the language where the cognates are being presented. if not, the words would not be cognates to you

Bilingualism is associated with ___ sensitivity during the English task

STG: superior temporal gyrus

the "blick" study was testing ____ exclusivity

mutual

babies are now developing retention/exclusivity and children are now developing retention/exclusisvity

retention, exclusivity