L3.5 - Language

Question 1

How does frequency affect semantically related words?

Answer 1

the most frequent ones are more strongly active

Question 2

Where are concepts represented?

Answer 2

temporal lobe (broadly)

Question 3

Embodiment

Answer 3

action-related words re partially represented in motor cortices, in a somatotropin way

Question 4

Stroop effect

Answer 4

takes us longer to name physical word colour if word is a colour name

Question 5

Lexiform

Answer 5

made up of words forms, creates a mental dictionary

Question 6

Visual word form area (VWFA)

Answer 6

~ identifies letters and recognises visual word forms
~ reacts to both words and pseudo words (sub-lexical processing stage)
~ near the fusiform gyrus

Question 7

Word superiority effect

Answer 7

letter search is easier within words and pseudo words than within random sequences of letters or single letters

Question 8

What effects the responsiveness of the VWFA?

Answer 8

~ visual modality
~ reacts to letters (not pseudo letters)
~ reacts to orthographic regularities (sub-lexical)
~ reacts to invariable properties of words

Question 9

What doesn’t effects the responsiveness of the VWFA?

Answer 9

~ invariance in location in the retina

~ invariance in shallow properties e.g. font, capital letters

Question 10

Orthography

Answer 10

the conventional spelling system of a language

Question 11

ERPs

Answer 11

averages of electro-encephalon-gram (EEG) which consists of the electrical activity recorded from the scalp

Question 12

How are EEGs converted to ERPs?

Answer 12

1. recorded
2. amplified
3. signal averaged

Question 13

Semantic violatons

Answer 13

listening to a sentence and one word swapped creating a meaning violation (n400), the bigger the violation the bigger the ‘wave’
~ central distribution 300-500ms

Question 14

Grammatical violations

Answer 14

istening to a sentence and one verb is conjugated incorrectly creating a grammatical violation (LAN effect), the bigger the violation the bigger the ‘wave’
~ Left anterior negativity (LAN) 300-500ms
~ also works with g, correct but complex sentences

Question 15

Comparison of n400 and LAN

Answer 15

~ both have negative polarity
~ similar latency (300-500ms)
~ different scalp distribution (central vs left anterior)

Question 16

Grammatical re-analysis, repair and ambiguity

Answer 16

~ p600
~ 500-800ms
~ central-parietal distribution
~ takes a lot of energy to solve ambiguity
~ +ve polarity

Question 17

Lexical neighbours

Answer 17

differ only in 1 letter or phoneme

e.g. male, pale

Question 18

Co-occuring words

Answer 18

words that often occur together in a sentence

e.g. blue, sky

Question 19

Semantically associated words

Answer 19

words that have a similar meaning behind them

e.g. rain, sun