Language Flashcards
system of communication using sounds or symbols that can express feelings, thoughts, ideas, and experiences
language
3 Characteristics of language
- Hierarchical
- Rule-based
- Creative/Generative
Characteristic of language in which components are combined to form larger units (letters -> words -> sentences)
Hierarchical
Characteristic of language that states that there are specific ways that components can be arranged
rule-based
The characteristic of language in which language can generate novel content - Generativity or ____________:
creativity
all words a person understands; their entire vocabulary
lexicon
smallest units of language that has meaning or grammatical function
morphemes
Play-er-s
(Action; person doing action; multiple people doing action)
play, er, and s, are all morphemes
shortest segments of speech that, if changed, changes the meaning of the word
phonemes (think speech -> sound -> phonological)
Eg: pay vs. pat -> if the y and t change at the end of “pa”, it becomes a completely different word
Discovering psychological process by which humans acquire and process language.
Psycholinguistics
4 aspects/focuses of Psycholinguistics:
CSRA:
- Comprehension
- Speech Production
- Representation
- Acquisition
we automatically fill in missing phonemes based on context; this is known as the _________ (3) (effect)
phonemic restoration effect
Letters are easier to recognize when they are contained in a word, as compared to when they appear alone or in a non-word.
Eg: easier + quicker to identify that the letter “k” is in the word fork than if the letter “k” was in: mjku
This is known as the ________ (2) effect.
word superiority effect
(words are superior to gibberish in where you can most easily find letters in them ig)
Task that involves reading a list of pairs of words and/or non-words and identifying whether or not each pair is made up of real words or not
lexical decision task
Effect within the lexical decision task in which participants respond more rapidly to high-frequency words than low.
word-frequency effect
Context, understanding of meaning, understanding of sound and syntactic rules, and statistical learning all affect the process of breaking down a continuous stream of language into smaller units or: (2)
speech segmentation
process of breaking down a continuous stream of spoken language into smaller units, like words or phrases so the listener can understand it
- eg: “Iwantapples” -> “I want apples”
Speech segmentation
4 factors dictating speech segmentation:
(CUUS)
1. Context
2. Understanding of meaning
3. Understanding of sound and syntactic rules
4. Statistical learning
When the meaning of a word is primed
- eg: people respond to the word “flower” more quickly following the word “rose” (used as a noun/the flower)
lexical priming
The fact that words can have more than one meaning and context can sometimes clear up ambiguity.
lexical ambiguity
Some meanings of words are used more frequently than others
meaning dominance
2 aspects of meaning dominance:
- Balanced dominance
- Biased dominance
Type of meaning dominance that occurs when words have two or more meanings with about the same dominance
eg: “cast” can refer to actors in a play OR to plaster, both of which are equally likely
balanced dominance
Type of meaning dominance that occurs when words have two or more meanings but one is more likely
eg: “bat” - most people think of the animal first, rather than the sports equipment
biased dominance
Accessing the meaning of ambiguous words while reading a sentence is determined by the word’s ________ and the ________ created by the sentence.
Dominance
Context
Sentences that begin by appearing to mean one thing but then end up meaning something else; the initial words are ambiguous but the meaning is made clear by the end of the sentence.
Eg: “The man who hunts ducks out on weekends.”
Garden path sentences
another word for analyzing
parsing
parsed sentence
separated/analyzed sentence
Model of parsing which sentences are assumed to be largely parsed based on HEURISTICS (mental shortcuts/rules to make a decision): (5)
Garden Path Model of Parsing
Common heuristic in parsing in which readers assume that new words encountered in a sentence are part of the current proposition UNLESS/UNTIL evidence suggests otherwise.
- every next word of a sentence are part of how the sentence is going until you bump into a word that says otherwise: (4)
(principle)
principle of late closure
Propositions
sections of a sentence
(Eg: after the musician played the piano; proposition 1: after the musician played; proposition 2: the piano
process your brain uses to figure out the structure and meaning of a sentence as you hear or read it; involves identifying how words in the sentence fit together grammatically to make sense; punctuation can help with this process
parsing
using semantics and syntax to clarify ambiguity in parsing is known as the _________ (2) approach
constraint-based
Constraint-based approaches of parsing involve using both ________ and ________ to clarify ambiguity.
semantics
syntax
define:
semantics
syntax
semantics - meaning
syntax - rules of language
Constraint-based parsing approaches depend on:
semantics and syntax
and context or representations in active memory (priming)
making conclusions about information that is not always explicitly stated is making a(n):
inference
3 Types of Inferences:
AIC
1. Anaphoric
2. Instrumental
3. Causal
connecting objects to people to make an inference
“The instructor began a lecture. He then turned the lights off.”
- who turned the lights off?
- we can infer it was the instructor who’s starting a lecture on a presentation with a bright screen or whatever or maybe he just like the dim atmosphere for lecturing idk
anaphoric inference
assuming a scenario involved tools or methods to make an inference
“I flew home last night”
- how did they fly?
- we can infer it was by a plane
instrumental inferences
assuming events in one clause were caused by events in previous sentence to make an inference
“I flew home last night. I’m tired.”
- Why is the person tired?
- We can infer it’s because of their flight the night before.
Casual inferences
“Integrated mental representations of a described state of affairs”
- mental representations
- of events, characters, stories, settings, etc. described in a situation or story
Situation models
mental representations when hearing or reading a story
situation models
Representation of the text in one’s mind so that information from one part of the text can be related to information in another part
- holding info in your mind to connect it to the coming info
coherence
concept referring to the mental representations of what a story or SITUATION is all about (typically developed from the point of view of the protagonist)
situation models
Situation models can be ________ (2) in nature as they can contain information about the timing of events, spatial-based representations relevant to the story world, inferences, etc.
Multi-dimensional
Why are situation models necessary? (4)
- to integrate info across sentences
- explain translation
- account for effects of domain expertise in comprehension
- explain similarities in comprehension across modalities (different groups and individuals may share common situation models)
Basically: CTDC
1. Coherence
2. Translation
3. Domain Expertise (extreme difference)
4. Comprehension similarities (similar)
___________ (2) study: participants presented with sentences and pictures at various orientations. Participants responded quicker to pictures that matched the orientation/shape of what was described in the sentence initially heard.
- Pictures: 2 nails - one is on its side, the other is tip down
- Sentence: “She hammered a nail into the floor.”
- participants will most likely respond to the nail with the tip/point facing down a lot quicker than to the nail lying on its side.
situation models
through the situational model study with pictures of different orientations and sentences describing different ways the objects in the picture are used or perceived, we can conclude that mental representations of sentences are not JUST created by what’s said, but by the general __________ surrounding it
context
ERP
Event Related Potential
(Brain volt/activity when something happens)
P600
Type of ERP - brain spike - people experience when they hear grammatical errors or music being played out of key
The notion/hypothesis that language influences thought and perception.
(Eg: only 2 words for types of blues in Russian; harder for them to identify certain blue differences if they’re labelled the same?)
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
language influences thought
