Language Flashcards
What is language?
A shared system of symbols and rules that enable us to communicate
Through semantics and syntax
Language is involved in thinking, storage of information, expression of emotions etc
- Big influence on cognitive psychology
What did Hockett proposed?
13 linguistic universals thats common to all languages
- Have to learn, no built in connections between words and what they refer
- Communicate with time
- Novel activity
What are the basic assumptions about language?
- Humans have inborn, unique capability to develop language
- Humans have the ability to process an infinite number of sentences on the basis of limited set of grammatical rules that are universal
- Animals dont communicate?
Universal grammar challenge
- Unclear which rules are included
- Language develops fast
- Differences between languages
Evolutionary challenge
The emergence of language in one single step instead of in successive, slight modification is unlikely
Competence
Internalized knowledge of language and its rules that fluent speakers of a language have
Ideal knowledge
Performance
Actual language behaviour a speaker generates
Includes errors and irregularities
- Effect on others
- What psychologist focus on
- Dysfluencies
How do you study cognitive functions of language?*
- You manipulate aspects of language to see its effect on performance
- Conclusions about the underlying cognitive processes based on the performance measures
- Systematic approach
Linguistic relativity hypothesis
The language you know shapes the way you think about events in the world around you
- Language, perception and culture influences thoughts about the world
- There are different hypothesis on how language might affect thought
Categorization studies*
- How language affects thoughts
- Higher accuracy in differentiating and remembering stimuli if language has different words for the stimuli than if not
Dani people: Only dark and light, could distinguish focal colors
What is syntax?
Words to meaningful strings
- To figure out meaning
- Focus on descriptiveness
- Arrangements of words matters
- Phrase order
When something happened
Is there a relevance between sounds and meaning?
- Video from the lecture
- Context matters
- Dialects influence what you here
- Competence vs Performance
How is language organized?
- Phonemes
Basic level - Morphemes
Smallest unit that has meaning - Words
- Phrases
- Sentences
Polysemy
Many words can have several meanings and not all are equal
- Which meaning is the intended one?
How do we form sentences?
We plan and execute sentences through interaction of a set of processes
- Tailor our sentences
- Influenced by memory , knowledge and previous sentences
- More complex sentences, more taxing on WM
- We pause, delay and rearrange while we are taking
What are some different ways we can manipulate aspects of language?*
- Word frequency
Processing speed - Homophones
Role of phonology - Homographs
Role of context
Polysemy - Pseudo words
- Non-words
What are some tasks you can have in studies of language cognitive psychology?*
Naming task
- Name the presented word
Lexical decision task
Priming task
- Naming or lexical decision preceded by other (un)-related word
Priming within trials - Language*
- Making a lexical decision between two words
- Faster responses when words are semantically related than when not
- Meaning and words has a close relationship
Stroop color word task*
Name print color of words while ignoring the meaning of the words
1. Control
2. Congruent
3. Incongruent
“Mind-fuck”
Classical Stroop Effect
- The response time between congruent and incongruent task
Interference
Proposition
Representation of the meaning that can be stored and retrieved from memory
- Not only semantic meanings
- There are 5 dimensions of propositions
- Connectionist model
Robin Has Wings
Priming in item recognition
- Presented with a study list of a few sentences
- Primed to one word - Trial 1
- Target word with recognition task - Trial 2
- Faster responses if prime and target from same proposition than from other propositions
- Faster responses if prime and target from same sentence than from other sentences
- Indirect evidence that we store sentences together
Seems to have structure as well