Language Flashcards
1
Q
language
A
- flexible system that uses symbols to express meaning
- social behaviour
- helps us remember things and think about complex issues
2
Q
do animals have language?
A
- uncertain
- they definitely communicate (ie. moth mating chemical, bee dance, etc.), but is it really language?
3
Q
psycholinguistics
A
branch of psych devoted to the study of verbal behaviour
4
Q
auditory system recognizes the ____ underlying speech, not just the ____
A
patterns, not just the sounds
5
Q
Which hemisphere plays a larger role in analyzing speech?
A
the left hemisphere (Berlin, Zatorre, Ahad)
6
Q
phonemes
A
- smallest unit of sound
- ex. /p/ + /i/ + /n/ in “pin”
7
Q
voice-onset time
A
the delay between the initial sound of a consonant and the vibration of the vocal cords
8
Q
what doe Ganog’s phoneme experiment (/g/ + ift or /g/ + iss) suggest?
A
that we recognize speech sounds in pieces larger than individual phonemes
9
Q
morphemes
A
- the smallest unit of meaning in language
- ex. /fast/ + /est/
10
Q
importance of context
A
- enables us to recognize sounds, even if pronunciation is sloppy, hesitated, etc.
- affects our perception of words through top-down processing
- ie. at beach and hear “I scream”, we will perceive “ice cream”
11
Q
syntax
A
- the rules of English grammar
- involves many types of memory and brain mechanisms
12
Q
syntactical rule
A
grammatical rule of a particular language for combining words to form phrases, clauses, and sentences
13
Q
syntactical cues are signalled by
A
- word order
- word class
- function and content words
- affixes
- word meanings
- prosody
14
Q
word class
A
grammatical categories (ie. noun, pronoun, verb, adjective)
15
Q
function words
A
a preposition, article, or other word that conveys little of the meaning of a sentence but is important in specifying its grammatical structure
16
Q
content word
A
a noun, verb, adjective, or adverb that conveys meaning
17
Q
affix
A
- sound or group of letters that is added to the beginning of a word (prefix) or the end of the word (suffix)
- adding them to nonsense words can make them easier to recall because then they seem more like real words
18
Q
semantics
A
- the meanings and the study of the meanings represented by words
- defined by memories associated with the words (ie. to know the meaning of “tree” is being able to imagine a tree and knowing facts about trees)
19
Q
prosody
A
use of changes in intonation and emphasis to convey meaning in speech besides that specified by the particular words; an important means of communication of emotion
20
Q
deep structure
A
- Chomsky suggested this
- essential meaning of a sentence
21
Q
surface structure
A
- Chomsky suggested this
- grammatical features of the sentence needed to convey its meaning
22
Q
slips of the tongue are…
A
problems transferring deep structure into surface structure (ie. “May I sew you to your sheet?” instead of “May I show you to your seat?”)
23
Q
script
A
- the characteristics (events, rules, etc.) typical of a particular situation; assists the comprehension of verbal discourse
- ex. “I learned a lot about the bars in town yesterday” implies that the person drank a lot at various bars
24
Q
Broca’s aphasia
A
- severe difficulty in speech production and word articulation (especially function words), caused by damage to Broca’s area in the left frontal cortex
- can also impede understanding of things like word order (as shown by Schwartz et al.)
25
agrammatism
- language disturbance -> difficulty in the production and comprehension of grammar (like use of function words, word endings, and word order)
- often seen in broca's aphasia
26
wernicke's area
region of auditory association cortex located in the upper part of the left temporal lobe; involved in recognition of spoken words
27
Wernicke's aphasia
- disorder caused by damage to left temporal and parietal cortex, including Wernicke's area
- production of fluent but meaningless speech and defecits in speech comprehension
- aka receptive aphasia (because it also damages word recognition)
28
recognizing vs. comprehending
- recognizing: hearing a word several times
| - comprehending: perceptual task of understanding info by using info already in memory
29
pure word deafness
- ability to hear, speak, and usually write, without being able to comprehend the meaning of verbal speech
- caused by bilateral temporal lobe damage
- can still understand written speech or can understand lip-reading
30
isolation aphasia
- inability to comprehend speech or produce meaningful speech (but can recognize and repeat speech and learn new words)
- caused by damage to left temporal/parietal cortex except Wernicke's area
31
What have studies found about brain activity of patients with Broca's aphasia vs. wernicke's aphasia
- Broca's aphasia have low activity in left frontal lobe
| - Wernicke's aphasia have low activity in temporal/parietal area
32
autotopanomia
damage to association cortex of left parietal lobe causes inability to name body parts
33
fixation
- brief interval between saccadic eye movements during which the eye doesn't move; visual info is gathered during this time
- better readers have shorter fixation times
- long and/or unusual words have longer fixation times than short words
- function words have shorter fixation time than content words
34
phonetic reading
reading by decoding phonetic significance of letter strings - "sound reading" (usually inexperienced readers [or experienced readers reading an unfamiliar word])
35
whole-word reading
reading by recognizing a word as a whole - "sight reading" (usually experienced readers or familiar words)
36
phonology
the relation between the letters and the sounds they represent in a particular language
37
acquired dyslexia vs. developmental dyslexia
- acquired: caused by brain damage of people who already know how to read
- developmental: reading difficulties that appear while children are learning to read (may be due to inability to combine use of wernicke's area and broca's area - failure to integrate phonology and visual info)
38
surface dyslexia
- type of acquired dyslexia
- defecit in whole word reading
- people can read words phonetically but have difficulty reading irregularly spelled words by the whole-word method
39
phonological dyslexia
- type of acquired dyslexia
- can read by whole-word method but can't sound out words
- can easily read familiar words, but struggle with unfamiliar words because they can't sound them out
40
direct dyslexia
- type of acquired dyslexia
| - people can read words aloud, but don't understand them
41
semantic priming
facilitation effect on the recognition of words having meanings related to a word that was presented previously (ie. if you read the word bread, it'll be easier for you to recognize a fuzzy word saying butter, even if it only flashes on the screen briefly. ie. buttered popcorn)
42
mental model
generating a mental image of what the text is describing while you read it
43
language is innate?
many linguists believe that a child's brain contains a "language acquisition device" which embodies rules about universal grammar
44
theory about cognitive structures responsible for language
1. children who are learning language make hypotheses about the rules they should follow, and these hypotheses are either confirmed or denied by what they hear
2. innate language acquisition device guides these hypotheses (so there are some hypothetical rules they will never entertain)
3. language acquisition device makes reinforcement unnecessary - it provides motivation for language learning
4. there is a critical period for language learning (childhood)
45
learning hierarchal rules of grammar creates activity in which area?
Broca's area (Musso et al.)
46
language acquirement in utero
babies can hear muffled sounds in the womb, and can recognize their mother's voices when born
47
newborn language acquision
- using pacifier nipple to measure novelty of sounds
| - baby sucks at higher rate if sound is novel, at slower rate if it isn't (or once it has habituated to that sound)
48
first sound baby makes
crying - to get attention from caregivers
49
sounds baby makes at 1 month
cooing - oo sound prevalent, also mimics crying sounds
50
sounds baby makes at 6 months
babbling - mimicking sounds that occur in speech, though not real words
51
language learning at 10-12 months of age
babies begin to learn the meaning of words
52
language learning at 6 months of age
babies can distinguish different vowel sounds, and pay attention to those differences in other languages, but not their own (Kuhl et al.)
53
sounds baby makes at 1 year
starts to produce words (usually starts with soft "a" and stop consonants like "p" or "b" - "papa", "baba", then adds nasality "m" - "mama")
54
protowords
unique string of phonemes that an infant invents and uses as a word - ie. "na!" means "I want that"
55
sounds baby makes at 18-20 months
putting two words together (utterances)
56
child-directed speech
the speech of an adult directed at a child to facilitate learning of language by children (ie. short, simple, repetitive sentences)
57
inflection
changing the form of a word (by adding a suffix) to denote a grammatical feature such as tense or number
58
overgeneralization errors
errors in language that occur when learners produce incorrect words or statements based on other rules of language (ie. adding -ed to a word to indicate past tense [ie. he walked to the store] gets incorrectly used for exception verbs [ie. he runned to the store])
59
overextension
using a word to denote a larger class of items than is appropriate (ex. referring to the moon as a ball because they're both round)
60
underextension
the use of a word to denote a smaller class of items than is appropriate (ex. referring to only dalmatians as dogs)
