Models of Word Recognition and Production

Question 1

T or F? there are no gaps between spoken words?

Answer 1

T

Question 2

T or F? the same spoken word will sound the same across different contexts

Answer 2

F

Question 3

T or F? As you hear the sounds of words unfold over time, your brain is trying to predict what the word is before it ends

Answer 3

T

Question 4

what is a cohort of words?

Answer 4

a possible number of words that start with the same sound

Question 5

what is the problem of parallel activation?

Answer 5

the brain generating a number of different hypotheses in parallel of what the word is, after it hears the start of the word.. words become activated in parallel

Question 6

what is a lexicon?

Answer 6

a part of the brain that is devoted to representing your knowledge of words, a metaphorical mental dictionary

Question 7

what are the 3 linguistic modalities?

Answer 7

phonology, orthography and visuo-spatial/gestural

Question 8

what is the first/most fundamental part of language processing?

Answer 8

recognising the forms of words, either their spoken or written form

Question 9

what are lexical representations? (“lemmas”) stored?

Answer 9

our lexicons

Question 10

perceptual forms of words map onto what?

Answer 10

our lexical representations

Question 11

what do lexical representations do/represent?

Examples?

Answer 11

what underlies the form of the word

eg, its role, the way it can be used in a sentence, concepts (semantics) it maps onto

Question 12

how long do spoken words approx take to unfold?

Answer 12

500 milliseconds

Question 13

what two tests can provide some evidence for parallel activation of lexical competitors?

Answer 13

eye tracking and mouse tracking

Question 14

what does cross modal priming refer to?

Answer 14

how spoken input can affect the way we interact with and are primed for different written input (written words)

Question 15

what does cross modal priming measure? and how?

Answer 15

it measures which words are activated in the lexicon during the spread of activation and measures this by response time to recognition of a word fragments that do or do not prime associated words

Question 16

who introduced the TRACE model and when?

Answer 16

McClelland and Elman, 1986

Question 17

T or F. TRACE model is a connectionist model?

Answer 17

T

Question 18

what are the 3 levels of the TRACE model of spoken word recognition? from lowest to highest

Answer 18

features (eg voicing of a sound), phonemes, word layer/lexical level

Question 19

what can the TRACE model not explain

Answer 19

how meaning is attached to words, only focused on recognising individual words

Question 20

why is the TRACE model considered an interactive activation connectionist model?

Answer 20

because there is activation between all layers of the model that influence and feed back on the nodes in other layers… there is both bottom up and top down functioning

Question 21

what does threshold refer to when talking about nodes in the TRACE model?

Answer 21

this threshold determines how much input the node needs in order to send activation to other nodes

Question 22

what does resting level of activation refer to when talking about nodes in the TRACE model?

Answer 22

reflects the frequency that the node is activated.

Question 23

what determines resting level of activation?

Answer 23

this resting level of activation is determined by the frequency that the nodes are used… nodes that are used a lot have a higher resting level of activation as it does not take much to push them beyond the threshold

Question 24

what is “lexical feedback” within the TRACE model?

Answer 24

top down interaction between the lexical level and the phoneme level, which reinforces the phoneme level, thus reinforcing the likelihood of both nodes from each layer occurring

Question 25

what are lateral inhibitory connections at the word level in the TRACE model?

Answer 25

connections within the model where the activation of one word node and suppresses the activation of another competing word node… “lateral competition”

Question 26

what are the 2 key questions in regards to bilingual lang processing?

Answer 26

1. is there independent lexica or an integrated lexicon?

2. is processing non selective or language selective?

Question 27

what does non selective v language selective refer to?

Answer 27

non selective means bilinguals cannot choose to only operate in one language based on the context they are in, language selective theorises that they can choose to operate in (activate) one lang

Question 28

based on the two questions of bilingual lang processing, what are the 4 possibilities of this phenomena in bilinguals? which one is it?

Answer 28

1. selective, independent
2. selective, integrated
3. non-selective, independent
4. non-selective, integrated (THIS ONE)

Question 29

T or F, different brain areas are used to represent different languages in bilinguals

Answer 29

False

Question 30

T or F, bilinguals represent lang in the same areas of the brain that monolinguals do

Answer 30

True

Question 31

what did van Heuven et al (1998) investigate? How?

Answer 31

whether or not there is evidence for non selective processing of language in bilinguals.
-They had dutch-english bilinguals decide if a word was or was not an english word, but for some participants, neighbouring words were thrown in the mix to impact RT

Question 32

what did van Heuven et al (1998) find?

Answer 32

that for bilinguals, the more dutch word neighbours the english words had, the slower the lexical decision time

Question 33

what are the 3 levels of an interactive activation (connectionist) model for orthography? bottom to top

Answer 33

Feature, letter, word, Language nodes/language tags

Question 34

what are examples of the feature level in the orthography model?

Answer 34

pen strokes, eg horizontal, vertical, dots etc

Question 35

what are language nodes/tags in the orthography model?

Answer 35

nodes that accrue info about which language the task requires the bilingual to use, thus sending inhibitory signals towards representations of the words that are non consistent with target language