language Flashcards
language
a system using sounds and symbols that enables us to express our feelings, thoughts, and ideas
Language is:
- hierarchical (basic components combine to form larger structures - phonemes, morphemes, prosody)
- rule-based (syntactic rules - grammar and phonology)
- universal (more than 5000 languages, all humans have language, similar development across culture)
- exclusive (humans are the only species to have language)
broca’s area (function)
language production
Wernicke’s area (function)
language comprehension
Which side of the brain is bigger and dominant for language production?
the left side
If your left hemisphere is larger, can you produce more language?
No > asymmetry also exists for non-linguistic species
What is required for speaking?
precise control of breathing and vocal cords. chimps and other primates do not have the physical ability to vocalize as humans do
What is the hypoglossal nerve?
A nerve that exits the skull through the hypoglossal canal and that controls the movements of the tongue needed for speech
what did humans possess before symbolic language?
Musical ability/communication
Name 4 factors that support the “musilanguage hypothesis”
- syntax of music is simpler, less rules
- modern language is musical
- newborns prefer baby talk
- newborns prefer rhythm and tone of moms voice
What can restricting hand movements lead to?
a reduction of the fluency of speech
How long ago did humans begin using language?
- 40-80 thousand years ago
- the earliest evidence is the “Ochre Plaque”
Music is grounded in….and language is grounded in….
emotion, meaning
music - emotion - meaning
language - meaning - emotion
left hemisphere (functions)
labels, abstraction, categories
right hemisphere
ambiguity, context, metaphor
Gazzaniga and LeDoux (1978) study on split brain patients > outcome
Right hand (left hemisphere) choses the shovel, left hand (right hemisphere) chooses the chicken foot - when the participant is asked to explain why his left hand (right hemisphere) is pointing to the shovel he says “I need the shovel to clean the chicken pen” - the left hemisphere talks over the meaning known by the right hemisphere
psycholinguistics
psychological study of language
lexicon
mental dictionary (the words we know)
semantics
the meaning of language
lexical semantics
the meaning of specific words
word frequency effect
faster responses to common/high frequency words (i.e., we respond faster to words like “home” than words like “hike”)
word perception is guided by……
transitional probabilities
lexical ambiguity
words with multiple meanings/the presence of 2 or more possible meanings within a single word (i.e., bug: insect, listening device, annoying someone)
lexical ambiguity is resolved through ____ and ____.
context, frequency (meaning dominance)
meaning dominance
the relative frequency of the meanings of ambiguous words (“set” is more often associated with a grouping of items than a tennis match)
syntactic ambiguity
the presence of 2 or more possible meanings within a single sentence or sequence of words
sentences have 2 layers of structure….
- surface structure = the words we see (shot)
- deep structure = the syntactic structure of those words (verb)
Parsing
the process of determining a deep structure from a surface structure - occurs when an individual hears a string of words and needs to group these into phrases in their minds
Garden path sentence (temporary ambiguity) is….
When something initially seems to mean one thing but eventually means something else.
3 constraints to parsing…
- word meaning
- story context
- scene context
situation model
Imagined simulation of sentences helps to create meaning (“the runner jumped over the hurdle”)
syntactic priming
Hearing a statement with a particular syntactic construction increases the chances that a sentence will be produced with the same construction (parallel structure - facilitates conversation)
DeCasper and Fifer (1980) study on newborns revealed
- babies prefer their mother’s voice
- Newborns can discriminate voices
- babies preferred the story that was read to them during pregnancy
Babies show more left hemisphere activity when ____ compared to backward speech
hearing
Infants can discriminate vowels at which age?
3 months
Infants can discriminate between dialects (of the same language) at which age?
2-4 months
babies are more sensitive to ____ than adults
phonotactic contrast
