language

Question 1

language

Answer 1

a system using sounds and symbols that enables us to express our feelings, thoughts, and ideas

Question 2

Language is:

Answer 2

1. hierarchical (basic components combine to form larger structures - phonemes, morphemes, prosody)
2. rule-based (syntactic rules - grammar and phonology)
3. universal (more than 5000 languages, all humans have language, similar development across culture)
4. exclusive (humans are the only species to have language)

Question 3

broca’s area (function)

Answer 3

language production

Question 4

Wernicke’s area (function)

Answer 4

language comprehension

Question 5

Which side of the brain is bigger and dominant for language production?

Answer 5

the left side

Question 6

If your left hemisphere is larger, can you produce more language?

Answer 6

No > asymmetry also exists for non-linguistic species

Question 7

What is required for speaking?

Answer 7

precise control of breathing and vocal cords. chimps and other primates do not have the physical ability to vocalize as humans do

Question 8

What is the hypoglossal nerve?

Answer 8

A nerve that exits the skull through the hypoglossal canal and that controls the movements of the tongue needed for speech

Question 9

what did humans possess before symbolic language?

Answer 9

Musical ability/communication

Question 10

Name 4 factors that support the “musilanguage hypothesis”

Answer 10

1. syntax of music is simpler, less rules
2. modern language is musical
3. newborns prefer baby talk
4. newborns prefer rhythm and tone of moms voice

Question 11

What can restricting hand movements lead to?

Answer 11

a reduction of the fluency of speech

Question 12

How long ago did humans begin using language?

Answer 12

• 40-80 thousand years ago
• the earliest evidence is the “Ochre Plaque”

Question 13

Music is grounded in….and language is grounded in….

Answer 13

emotion, meaning

music - emotion - meaning

language - meaning - emotion

Question 14

left hemisphere (functions)

Answer 14

labels, abstraction, categories

Question 15

right hemisphere

Answer 15

ambiguity, context, metaphor

Question 16

Gazzaniga and LeDoux (1978) study on split brain patients > outcome

Answer 16

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

Question 17

psycholinguistics

Answer 17

psychological study of language

Question 18

lexicon

Answer 18

mental dictionary (the words we know)

Question 19

semantics

Answer 19

the meaning of language

Question 20

lexical semantics

Answer 20

the meaning of specific words

Question 21

word frequency effect

Answer 21

faster responses to common/high frequency words (i.e., we respond faster to words like “home” than words like “hike”)

Question 22

word perception is guided by……

Answer 22

transitional probabilities

Question 23

lexical ambiguity

Answer 23

words with multiple meanings/the presence of 2 or more possible meanings within a single word (i.e., bug: insect, listening device, annoying someone)

Question 24

lexical ambiguity is resolved through ____ and ____.

Answer 24

context, frequency (meaning dominance)

Question 25

meaning dominance

Answer 25

the relative frequency of the meanings of ambiguous words (“set” is more often associated with a grouping of items than a tennis match)

Question 26

syntactic ambiguity

Answer 26

the presence of 2 or more possible meanings within a single sentence or sequence of words

Question 27

sentences have 2 layers of structure….

Answer 27

1. surface structure = the words we see (shot)
2. deep structure = the syntactic structure of those words (verb)

Question 28

Parsing

Answer 28

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

Question 29

Garden path sentence (temporary ambiguity) is….

Answer 29

When something initially seems to mean one thing but eventually means something else.

Question 30

3 constraints to parsing…

Answer 30

1. word meaning
2. story context
3. scene context

Question 31

situation model

Answer 31

Imagined simulation of sentences helps to create meaning (“the runner jumped over the hurdle”)

Question 32

syntactic priming

Answer 32

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)

Question 33

DeCasper and Fifer (1980) study on newborns revealed

Answer 33

1. babies prefer their mother’s voice
2. Newborns can discriminate voices
3. babies preferred the story that was read to them during pregnancy

Question 34

Babies show more left hemisphere activity when ____ compared to backward speech

Answer 34

hearing

Question 35

Infants can discriminate vowels at which age?

Answer 35

3 months

Question 36

Infants can discriminate between dialects (of the same language) at which age?

Answer 36

2-4 months

Question 37

babies are more sensitive to ____ than adults

Answer 37

phonotactic contrast