Learning Check 7

Question 1

Few studies of language in nonhuman animals have revealed any form of creativity. One exception might be the phrase “devil bird” that was created by

Answer 1

Koko

Question 2

In the lexical decision task, participants are asked to

Answer 2

decide whether a string of letters is a word or a non-word

Question 3

Which property below is NOT one of the characteristics that makes human language unique?

Answer 3

Communication

Question 4

The idea that the grammatical structure of a sentence is the primary determinant of the way a sentence is parsed is part of the _____ approach to parsing.

Answer 4

syntax-first

Question 5

B.F. Skinner, the modern champion of behaviorism, proposed that language is learned through

Answer 5

reinforcement

Question 6

Yoda, a central character of the Star Wars movies created by George Lucas, has a distinctive way of speaking. His statement, “Afraid you will be,” violates which English language property?

Answer 6

Rules

Question 7

The word frequency effect refers to the fact that we respond more

Answer 7

slowly to low-frequency words than high-frequency words.

Question 8

For researchers to agree whether animals possess any quality or capacity for language, they must possess some quantity of features of language such as

Answer 8

intentionality

Question 9

When two people engage in a conversation, if one person produces a specific grammatical construction in her speech and then the other person does the same, this phenomenon is referred to as

Answer 9

syntactic priming

Question 10

Language consists of smaller components, like words, that can be combined to form larger ones, like phrases, to create sentences, which themselves can be components of a larger story. This property is known

Answer 10

hierarchical structure

Question 11

“Kitchen tables” consists of ____ morphemes.

Answer 11

three

Question 12

Consider the following sentences: “Captain Ahab wanted to kill the whale. He cursed at it.” These two sentences taken together provide an example of a(n)

Answer 12

anaphoric inference

Question 13

Tanenhaus and coworkers’ eye movement study presented participants with different pictures for interpreting the sentence, “Put the apple on the towel in the box.” Their results showed the importance of _____ in how we understand sentences in real-life situations.

Answer 13

environmental context

Question 14

In both the Premacks work with Sara and Savage-Rumbaugh’s work with Kanzi, primates used symbols. One major reason for this change in lexicon was because

Answer 14

behaviorists were critical of the use of American Sign Language due to its resemblance to operantly or instrumentally conditioned responses.

Question 15

You and a friend are discussing the possibility of other species using language. Your friend suggests that animals could speak if they grew up like other humans and with other humans who could speak. You know that this hypothesis is invalid given research by the

Answer 15

the Kellogg’s and Gua

Question 16

Noam Chompsky proposed that humans are unique in their use of language because

Answer 16

humans are genetically programmed to acquire and use language.

Question 17

A phoneme refers to

Answer 17

the shortest segment of speech that, if changed, changes the meaning of a word.

Question 18

Imagine you are interpreting a pair of sentences such as “The sidewalk was covered with ice” and “Ramona fell down.” The kind of inference we use to link these sentences together would most likely be a(n) _____ inference.

Answer 18

casual

Question 19

Many researchers (e.g., Noam Chompsky) argue that humans and nonhuman primates are unique in their ability to use language because of their biology (e.g., overall size and complexity of their brain). However, which of the following studies calls this into question? The work by

Answer 19

Pepperberg with Alex

Question 20

Ron is an avid reader. He has a large vocabulary because every time he comes across a word he doesn’t know, he looks it up in the dictionary. Ron encounters “wanderlust” in a novel, reaches for the dictionary, and finds out this word means “desire to travel.” The process of looking up unfamiliar words increases Ron’s

Answer 20

lexicon