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Ps > Language Phonology and Semantics > Flashcards

Language Phonology and Semantics Flashcards

1
Q

What is language, broadly defined?

A

a set of rules used to communicate, which can be spoken, written, or signed

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2
Q

What distinguishes human language from animal communication?

A

Human language is a complex skill that allows for the communication of abstract ideas, planning for the future, and sharing internal thoughts, which animals do not demonstrate in the same way.

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3
Q

What are Hockett’s universal characteristics of language?

A
  1. Semanticity - Language conveys meaning.
  2. Arbitrariness - Signals do not resemble what they represent.
  3. Flexibility and Naming - Referents can be labeled and changed.
  4. Duality of Patterning - Signals can be broken down into smaller units.
  5. Productivity - Infinite new meaningful utterances can be created from a finite number of signals.
  6. Displacement - Communication about things not present is possible.
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4
Q

What are the different ways language can be studied?

A
  1. phonology: study of sounds
  2. morphology: study of words and parts of words
  3. semantics: study of meaning
  4. syntax: rules of language
  5. pragmatics: how we use language
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5
Q

What is a phoneme?

A

the smallest unit of sound that makes a difference to meaning
- “cat” vs. “bat,” the sounds /k/, /a/, /t/, and /b/ are each phonemes

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6
Q

What is a morpheme?

A
  • smallest meaningful unit of speech
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7
Q

What is the “lack of invariance problem”?

A

phonemes can sound different depending on the context they are in, such as accent, speed, and facial expression
- the physical production of sounds can differ (e.g., the sound wave for “cola” vs. “can”), even though they may sound similar to the listener

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8
Q

What does coarticulation refer to in phonology?

A

phonemes are nearly always articulated together, affecting how they are perceived in speech

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9
Q

What is the segmentation problem in speech perception?

A

the challenge of identifying where one morpheme or word begins and another ends in spoken language, as there are no clear breaks between words in the acoustic signal

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10
Q

Why is it difficult to segment speech into words?

A

In natural speech, we do not pause between words, making it hard to determine the boundaries between them

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11
Q

What is the McGurk effect?

A

a phenomenon where visual information (lip movements) influences auditory perception, leading to a different perceived phoneme than what is actually heard (e.g., seeing “ga” while hearing “ba” can lead to perceiving “da”)

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12
Q

What happens to the frequencies of phonemes during the McGurk effect?

A

the frequency of the perceived phoneme (e.g., “da”) is an average of the frequencies of the visual (“ga”) and auditory (“ba”) stimuli

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13
Q

What distinguishes voiced phonemes from unvoiced phonemes?

A

voiced phonemes: when the vocal cords vibrate (e.g., /b/)
unvoiced phonemes: when the vocal cords do not vibrate (e.g., /p/).

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14
Q

What is Voice Onset Time (VOT)?

A

the time it takes for the vocal cords to start vibrating after a phoneme is produced

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15
Q

How do we differentiate sounds based on voicing?

A

use the presence or absence of vocal cord vibration to distinguish between voiced and unvoiced phonemes (all vowels are voiced)

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16
Q

What is categorical perception in phonology?

A

listeners perceive sounds as belonging to distinct categories, such as /ba/ and /pa/, which differ only in VOT

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17
Q

Describe the identification task used to study categorical perception.

A

VOT is varied in equal intervals, and participants are asked, “What sound do you hear?” to determine if they hear “ba” or “pa.”

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18
Q

What do we expect to see in the results of a stimulus detection task involving phonemes?

A

As the stimulus is increased, we expect more people to detect the sounds, indicating that they perceive speech sounds similarly to other physical stimuli

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19
Q

How do the results of phoneme perception differ from other sounds?

A

the perception of phonemes does not follow a linear increase; there is a crossover point where listeners categorize sounds into “ba” or “pa” based on typicality

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20
Q

What is the significance of the phonemic point (crossover) in phoneme categorization?

A

where listeners switch from perceiving one phoneme to another, illustrating that phonemes are treated as categories rather than a continuous spectrum

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21
Q

What is a free morpheme?

A

has meaning on its own

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22
Q

What is a bound morpheme?

A

contributes to word meaning but isn’t a word by itself
- apples contain 2 morphemes one free one (apple) and one bound “s”

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23
Q

What is the mental lexicon?

A

he mental dictionary in long-term memory (LTM) that stores words, their meanings, and their relations to other words

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24
Q

What factors influence lexical access?

A

depends on both bottom-up and top-down processing

25
Q

How do high-frequency words compare to low-frequency words in terms of response time?

A

People respond more quickly to high-frequency words than to low-frequency words

26
Q

How does context affect error detection in language?

A

People notice errors better when they are in a predictable context, such as in the sentences “She drove her rental gar home” and “Please wash the gar today.”

27
Q

What is the word superiority effect?

A

people are faster to identify visually presented words than letters in isolation
- process the letter K faster when presented WORK instead of _ _ _ K

28
Q

What is the phonemic restoration effect?

A

context can affect our perception of language, where participants do not notice a missing phoneme when context provides sufficient information

29
Q

Provide an example of the phonemic restoration effect

A

In the sentence “The state governors met with their respective legi*latures convening in the capital city,” participants did not notice the missing “s” sound replaced by a cough

30
Q

How does top-down processing help in understanding speech?

A

by allowing individuals to use context and prior knowledge to fill in missing information and make sense of ambiguous speech

31
Q

What is lexical ambiguity?

A

words that have more than one meaning, such as homophones (words that sound the same but have different meanings) and homographs (words that are spelled the same but have different meanings)

32
Q

How does context influence the meaning of ambiguous words?

A

allows for the disambiguation of ambiguous words by providing clues that help determine which meaning is intended based on surrounding information

33
Q

What was the main finding of Swinney’s (1979) study on lexical priming?

A

both meanings of a homophone (e.g., “bug”) can be activated simultaneously (bottom-up), even when the context suggests a specific meaning, but activation of the correct meaning (top-down) becomes more pronounced over time

34
Q

What is the difference between bottom-up and top-down processing in lexical access?

A

Bottom-up processing involves interpreting words based solely on the incoming sensory information, while top-down processing incorporates prior knowledge and context to aid in understanding

35
Q

What is discourse?

A

a set of language units larger than sentences

36
Q

What is the first step in reading?

A

lexical access, which involves mapping written symbols (orthography) to sounds (phonology)

37
Q

What are the three levels of discourse?

A
  1. Surface Level
  2. Proposition Level
  3. Situation Model Level
38
Q

What does the surface level of discourse focus on?

A

the exact wording of the text

39
Q

What is the proposition level in discourse?

A
  • maintains important information in a propositional network
  • summarizing the key ideas without the exact wording
40
Q

How does the situation model level differ from the other two levels?

A

provides an elaborated representation of the text, integrating and interpreting the information beyond the exact wording

41
Q

What is required for successful discourse processing?

A

requires that the comprehender establish coherence

42
Q

What is local coherence?

A

the connection between adjacent sentences and is particularly important for surface level representations

43
Q

What is global coherence?

A

connecting all of the sentences to a theme and is particularly important for situation models

44
Q

Why is coherence important in understanding stories?

A

helps the reader or listener integrate information and make sense of the narrative, facilitating comprehension and retention

45
Q

What does simple reference mean in terms of local coherence?

A
  • refers to something already mentioned
  • necessary for local coherence
46
Q

What is an anaphor?

A

a term that derives its meaning from another expression, typically referring back to a previously mentioned noun or phrase

47
Q

What is the term for the word that an anaphor refers to?

A

antecedent

48
Q

What is anaphoric inference?

A

inference that connects a reference to an object or person in one sentence to an object or person in a different sentence

49
Q

What is a bridging inference?

A

made when an explicit antecedent is not found, requiring the reader to connect ideas based on context
- “Herb unpacked some picnic supplies. The beer was warm” requires the reader to infer that the beer was among the picnic supplies

50
Q

Why does processing sentences that require a bridging inference take more time?

A

the reader must create connections between ideas that are not explicitly stated, requiring additional cognitive effort

51
Q

What are the two types of inference made with global coherence?

A
  • instrument
  • causal
52
Q

What is an instrument inference?

A

making inferences about which tool was used to perform an action

53
Q

What is a causal inference?

A

explains that events in one sentence were caused by events in a previous sentence

54
Q

How do situation models contribute to understanding narratives?

A

contain required and explanatory inferences we make about what we read

55
Q

What kind of information does a situation model include?

A

Temporal information (when events occur) and spatial information (where events occur)

56
Q

What do we actively monitor and update when there is a change in a narrative?

A

our situation models

57
Q

How is the updating of situation models reflected during reading?

A

increased reading time.

58
Q

n Zwaan’s 1996 study, what was the key finding regarding reading time for sentences with different temporal delays?

A

Participants took longer to respond to sentences with longer temporal delays (e.g., “An hour later” vs. “A day later”), indicating that they were updating their situation models in real-time

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