Language Comprehension Flashcards
What is local structure in discourse?
relationships between individual sentences
What is global structure in discourse?
our knowledge of the structure corresponding to more general events/circumstances
How do references contribute to cohesion?
By creating a semantic relation between words and/or phrases
What is conjunctive cohesion?
expressing a relationship between phrases or sentences by using conjunctions
What is lexical cohesion?
when a tie is made between one sentence or phrase and another by virtue of the lexical relationships between certain words
when relating a current expression to one encountered earlier, the referring expression is called an ____, and the previous referent is called an _____.
anaphor, antecedent
explain the given/new strategy and its three stages
its a model of sentence integration where one (a) identifies new and given info, (b) finds memories on the given info, and (c) attaches the new info to the memory
Which are the 3 levels of memory for discourse?
- surface representation: exact words
- propositions: meaning behind words
- situational model: general picture of discourse
What is the spatial iconicity effect (Kurby & Zacks, 2013)?
semantic judgments for word pairs presented in a spatial arrangement congruent with their real-world arrangement (e.g., roof above basement) are faster than when presented in an incongruent arrangement (e.g., basement above roof)
What did Kurby and Zacks (2013) find regarding participant brain activation after reading auditory imagery clauses?
activation of the auditory cortex, Broca’s area, and Wernicke’s area
What did Kurby and Zacks (2013) find regarding participant brain activation after reading visual imagery clauses?
nothing
What did Kurby and Zacks (2013) find regarding participant brain activation after reading motor imagery clauses?
activation in the left PMC and secondary SMC
What was the main conclusion of Kurby and Zacks (2013)?
reading clauses high in auditory or motor imagery leads to increases in activity in modality-specific brain regions during discourse comprehension
What is stated by perceptual symbol theories (Zwaan et al., 2002)?
people activate and manipulate perceptual symbols during language comprehension
What is implied by amodal symbol theories (Zwaan et al., 2002)?
object orientation is not mentally represented during reading
Zwaan et al. (2002) found that participants were faster & more accurate to pair sentence and picture when the two matched (e.g. “the swan was in the lake” + image of swan in lake vs image of swan flying). What theory did these findings support?
perceptual symbol theory
In a second experiment, Zwaan et al. (2002) added a neutral condition where sentences didn’t imply anything about the sentence subject’s state (e.g. “he looked at the swan”). What did they find?
Same as exp. 1: neutral and mismatch conditions didn’t differ significantly in RT –> matching sentences+images facilitate responses, supportng perceptual symbol theory
How can we interpret the following (Zwaan et al., 2002): “the representation of meaning from linguistic input is a dynamic process involving malleable perceptual representations rather than the mechanical combination of discrete components of meaning”?
we form mental representations when comprehending language that are based on the context of the discourse
When is the mentalising network active?
when we try to infer someone’s mental state
What information did Yeshurun et al. (2017) find people use to interpret events?
the externally provided input & internal cognitive information
Which brain regions are activated similarly among people with the same story interpretation (Yeshurun et al., 2017)?
the DMN, the mirror neuron system, and high-level language comprehension regions
What do single-step models of language interpretation pose (Nieuwland & van Berkum, 2006)?
locally supplied ‘‘semantic’’ cues have no principled temporal or functional precedence over globally supplied ‘‘pragmatic’’ cues
What do two-step models of language interpretation pose (Nieuwland & van Berkum, 2006)?
local semantics cannot be overruled by global contextual factors initially
in their article “When Peanuts Fal in Love”, what ERPs did Nieuwland & Van Berkum (2006) measure and why?
they mesured the N400 because it indicates semantic processing of words and other semantically meaningful stimuli
What should happen to N400 ERPs according to single-step and two-step models of language interpretation, if a story contains multiple animacy violations (Nieuwland & Van Berkum, 2006)?
single-step: later animacy violations should have a DECREASED N400 response
two-step: later animacy violations should have THE SAME N400 response
What model did Nieuwland & Van Berkum’s (2006) study findings support, and what do they imply?
the single-step models - N400 responses decreased in magnitude later in the story. It implies that establishing a certain context (pragmatics) can overrule local lexical semantic information
their second experiment ruled out lexical repetition as a possible explanation