Language

Question 1

Language

Answer 1

System of communication using sounds or symbols that enables us to express our feelings, thoughts, ideas, and experiences

Question 2

Phonemes

Answer 2

Sounds that comprise a language

Smallest unit of language

Question 3

Morphemes

Answer 3

Smallest unit of language that have meaning
Often word and ending of word
Example: “cats” has 2 of these (“cat” and “s”)

Question 4

Lexicon

Answer 4

Knowledge of what words mean, how they sound, and how they are used in relation to other words

Question 5

Phonemic restoration study

Answer 5

Participants listened to a recording that contained the word legislatures
Cut out first “s” in legislatures and put in someone coughing (heard “legi-cough-latures”)
Participants didn’t even notice that the “s” was gone (put back in without even noticing; thought that cough had occurred after complete word was said)
Conclusion: people use context for perception (top-down processing)

Question 6

Context conditioned variation/coarticulation

Answer 6

Pattern of stresses and silences as people say particular words
Looks different for first “b” in “baby” than for second “b”
Emphasis is different, depending on what comes next

Question 7

Speech segmentation

Answer 7

Process of perceiving individual words in the continuous flow of the speech signal
We don’t actually make spaces in between words that we say

Question 8

Transitional probability

Answer 8

Related to speech segmentation problem
Probability that one is transitioning between 2 words vs. still saying the same word
Learn to do this by second year of life

Question 9

Oronyms

Answer 9

Words that can be pronounced similarly, but have different meanings (such as “bear the cross” and “teddy bear”)
Phrases containing these sound similar, but can be carved up in different places: must use context to figure out
Example: “a girl with kaleidoscope eyes” becomes “a girl with colitis goes by”

Question 10

Mad gab: factors that make it difficult to understand correct phrase

Answer 10

Oronyms: the given and answer phrase sound similar, but can be carved up in different places
Context conditioned variation: articulation is different for specific words in phrases, depending on what comes next (emphasis differs for phrases)

Question 11

Mad gab: how concept of speech segmentation applies

Answer 11

Phrases (given and answer) sound similar, but can be carved up in different places
Transitional probabilities are needed

Question 12

Word frequency effect

Answer 12

Some words are more frequently used (and, for, have) than others (antifungal, farsighted, proofread)
Respond more rapidly to high-frequency words than low-frequency words

Question 13

Lexical ambiguity

Answer 13

One word can have more than 1 meaning (ex-bug), so context is needed to determine definition

Question 14

Lexical decision task

Answer 14

Participants are given a list of words to read (real words and nonwords): must identify whether word is real or not
Faster to identify high frequency words as words than low frequency; same with primed words than words that aren’t related to primer

Question 15

Lexical priming

Answer 15

First time that you encounter a specific word, all the definitions will be activated
Quick to recognize any word related to any of the definitions

Question 16

Semantics

Answer 16

Meaning of words

Question 17

ERP study with semantics

Answer 17

Measured electrical activity in brain
Looked at N400: negative waveform at 400 milliseconds
Given 2 sentences: “the cat won’t eat” (okay semantically) or “the cat won’t bake” (not okay semantically)
Biggest separation of waves (okay sentence and semantically-errored sentence) at 400 milliseconds

Question 18

Syntax

Answer 18

Grammatical correctness of sentence

Question 19

ERP study with syntax

Answer 19

Looked at P600: positive waveform at 600 milliseconds
Given 2 sentences: “the cat won’t eat” and “the cat won’t eating”
Biggest separation of waves (okay sentence and syntactically-errored sentence) at 600 milliseconds

Question 20

What ERP studies show

Answer 20

Double dissociation of syntax and semantics

Question 21

Parsing

Answer 21

Process of mentally grouping words in a sentence into meaningful phrases

Question 22

Syntax-first approach to parsing

Answer 22

Parsing is determined by syntax

Semantics is used only if necessary (when a dead end is reached, semantics are used to clear up syntactic ambiguity)

Question 23

Principle of late closure

Answer 23

When hearing or reading a sentence, we tend to try to keep the phrase open as long as possible

Question 24

Garden path sentences

Answer 24

Sentence that leads the reader down one path that seems to be right, but turns out to be wrong
Example:
“While the woman cleaned the dog that was big and slobbery”- okay
“While the woman cleaned the dog that was big and slobbery ran”- not okay (people stare longest at ran, where the grammatical error began)
Solution: “While the woman cleaned, the dog that was big and slobbery ran”

Question 25

Interactionist approach to parsing

Answer 25

All information, both syntactic and semantic, is taken into account simultaneously as we read or listen to a sentence, so that any corrections that need to occur can take place as the sentence is unfolding
Semantics is used first, then context is used

Question 26

Eye tracking experiment with interactionist approach

Answer 26

Participants wear eye tracker and see pictures that represent a sentence that they are hearing
Hear “put the apple on the towel into the box”
One apple condition: eyes go from apple on towel to plain towel back to apple on towel to box (correction occurs midsentence)
Two apple condition: eyes go from apple to apple on towel to box (no correction is needed)

Question 27

Situation models

Answer 27

Mental representation of what a text is about
Example: when hearing “he hammered the nail into the wall”, nail is seen as horizontal, but when “he hammered the nail into the floor”, nail is seen as vertical (participants of experiment were faster to recognize picture of object in correct orientation as the object in the sentence than picture of object in incorrect orientation)

Question 28

Situation models: Melanie and TV scene

Answer 28

Participants were asked to imagine scene that they were reading
“A horror movie was on TV. Melanie watched a vampire stalk a victim…”
Blocked condition: “Melanie’s mother appeared in front of the TV. She told Melanie not to forget about her homework.”
Unblocked condition: “Melanie’s mother appeared behind the TV. She told Melanie not to forget about her homework.”
Participants in both conditions were asked if the vampire stalked the vicitim
Blocked condition participants took longer to respond than unblocked condition participants
Conclusion: participants put themselves in the position of Melanie

Question 29

fMRI Experiment

Answer 29

People were asked to both perform actions and read about actions
Perform actions: primary motor cortex (frontal lobe) was activated
Read action words: not exact matchup, but some similar areas of primary motor cortex activated
Example of spreading activation

Question 30

Semantic coordination: given-new contract

Answer 30

Conversations go more smoothly when the speakers have knowledge of the topic
Give information before presenting new information (“You remember Bob from class? I was out with him the other night…”)
Example: “We checked the picnic supplies. The beer was warm.” is more difficult to understand (violates rule) than “We got some beer out of the trunk. The beer was warm.”

Question 31

Syntactic coordination

Answer 31

We use similar grammatical structure to that of whom we hear

Question 32

Syntactic priming experiment

Answer 32

Participant and confederate on opposite sides of divider
Confederate reads statement (“The girl gave the boy a book”): participant must choose picture card that matches statement
Participant picks a card and describes it: matches grammatical structure (“the father bought his daughter a present”)
Different than if confederate said “The girl gave the book to the boy”: participant replies “The father brought a present for his daughter”