Module 1: Language Flashcards
a language disorder associated with damage to part of the brain that causes problems with language expression and comprehension
aphasia
problems producing language; low-functioning grammar, but still meaningful utterances; language comprehension is spared; located in inferior frontal gyrus
Broca’s aphasia
brain region where Broca’s area is located
inferior frontal gyrus
brain region where Wernicke’s area is located
posterior superior temporal gyrus (pSTG)
language production is fluent and often copious, but often lacks meaning; language comprehension is also affected; located in posterior superior temporal gyrus (pSTG)
Wernicke’s aphasia
some sort of auditory speech input is relayed to Wernicke’s area; meaning is put to the words heard; using the input and conceptual representation, Broca’s area is responsible for speech production
Wernicke-Lichtheim-Geschwind model
meaningful grammatical units within a sentence
propositions
the smallest meaningful units of language that cannot be further divided or analyzed (carries meaning)
morphemes
the basic sounds of a language (speech sounds)
phonemes
words that differ in only one phonological element, such as “rot” and “lot”
minimal pairs
the study of the categorical organization of speech sounds in languages; how speech sounds are organized in the mind and used to convey meaning
phonology
the part of the mouth used to make a sound
place of articulation
how speech comes to life
manner of articulation
whether or not your vocal cords vibrate when making a sound
voicing
the acoustic realization of phonemes is influenced by the surrounding phonemes
coarticulation
perception of distinct categories when there is a gradual change in a variable along a continuum
categorical perception
the duration of the period of time between the release of a plosive and the beginning of vocal fold vibration
voice onset time (VOT)
where the sounds of phonemes are processed
dorsal superior temporal gyrus (STG)
where the meanings of phonemes are processed
mid-post superior temporal sulcus (STS)
word that can be derived from another word if you change 1 phoneme
neighbor
the number of phonological neighbors a word has
neighborhood density
a model of speech perception in which there are two simultaneous processes (ventral stream and dorsal stream) that play different roles in the perception of speech
Hickok and Poeppel’s Dual Stream Model
the “what” stream of the dual-stream model; where sounds are given meaning and we are able to understand the message; lexical access; aMTG and aITS for combinatorial network; pMTG and pITS for lexical interface
ventral stream
accessing the meaning of a word
lexical access
combining words into a sentence/message
combinatorial network
an imaging analysis technique that establishes a relationship between precise lesion location and clinical deficit
voxel-based lesion symptom mapping
the “how” stream of the dual stream model; the motor system for speech production; how we would pronounce the sounds we hear; pIFG, PM, anterior insula for articulatory network; parietal-temporal Spt for sensorimotor interface
dorsal stream
a method of studying brain regions by temporarily activating or deactivating a brain region to determine what regions are necessary for what functions
repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS)
deciding whether a sound you hear is a word or not
lexical decision task
region in planum temporale involved in translating what you hear to motor signals, sensorimotor regulation of the vocal tract, and speech perception
Sylvian Parietal-Temporal area (Spt)
no problem with language production and processing, but have problems with language repetition due to damage in the dorsal stream
conduction aphasia
neurons in the brain that are active during both the production and perception of speech; Broca’s area
mirror neurons
meaning is represented in nodes within an interconnected network
semantic network
activating one concept automatically activates concepts that are related to it
spreading activation
words that are ________ related are closer in semantic networks than words that are _________ related
associationally; semantically
words that often co-occur; ex. traffic-jam
associational relationship
words that overlap in meaning; ex. fork-spoon
semantic relationship
bottom-up model; representations of speech sounds (i.e., words) are individual logogens; inputs activate logogens and if the threshold for a logogen is reached, it fires and then the information in that logogen is integrated into the sentence and used to build further sentence structure
Logogen Model (Morton, 1969)
an interactive model of speech perception that takes into account contextual information in a sentence; bottom-up and top-down; allows for either words or phonemes to be derived from spoken language
TRACE Model (McClelland and Elman, 1986)
model of speech perception with 3 sequential levels of processing: access, then selection, then integration
Cohort Model (Marlsen-Wilson & Welsh, 1978)
part of the cohort model in which initial activation of multiple word-candidates occurs based on phonetic match with the first part of the acoustic input (no role for context)
access
part of the cohort model in which one of the accessed word candidates is selected based on the rest of the acoustic input AND context
selection
part of the cohort model in which the meaning of the selected word is activated and integrated within the preceding message (the discourse)
integration
when a phoneme in a word is replaced with meaningless noise (ex. *eel), we “hear” the missing phoneme based on the context of the sentence
phoneme restoration
a group of words that don’t change over time; a set for a given language
closed class words
words that we can add to our mental lexicon and fluctuate based on context
open class words
the language you speak (the form and content/words) determine the content of your thought
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
you cannot think anything else than what you have words for
linguistic determinism
you can still think about concepts that you don’t have words for, but it is less specific/acute of a thought
linguistic relativism
a semantic unit conventionally associated with linguistic forms
lexical concept
lexical selection process in Levelt’s model of speech production; contains info on syntactic and semantic properties (meaning)
LEMMA
word form retrieval process in Levelt’s model of speech production; contains info about phonetic properties (pronunciation)
LEXEME
one sound form (lexeme) with two different meanings (lemmas)
homophone
it is easier to pronounce words that occur more frequently
word frequency effect
sequentially modular model;
1. lexical selection - LEMMA
2. word form retrieval - LEXEME
Levelt’s Model of Speech Production
when people make speech errors, they have a bias to say real words rather than fake words
lexical bias
syntactic/grammatical analysis
parsing
as readers/listeners, we don’t wait until a full sentence is finished before we start giving meaning
immediacy principle
Friederici & Mecklinger; a modular model in which first, the syntactic category (part of speech) of each incoming word is established, then a sentence structure is constructed based on the category labels; semantics play no role in these steps
two-stage model of parsing
we prefer to have as few nodes in our parsing trees as possible
minimal attachment strategy
keep working on/ adding to the node you are currently
in for as long as possible
late closure
Steinhauer et al.; an interactive model of parsing in which multiple syntactic structures are constructed at the same time and there is competition between structures; if a syntactic tree gets a lot of activation, it inhibits the other structures
constraint-based model
Van Gompel et al.; a modular model of parsing in which multiple syntactic structures are constructed at the same time and each structure receives more activation as the input matches; there is no competition in the sense that activation of one structure doesn’t suppress another
race-based model
each sentence does not exist within a vacuum; other sentences around it influence meaning/interpretation; we also integrate sentences into our knowledge about the world and how people function in it; updated continuously as new information is added
discourse integration
brain region involved in discourse processing
bilateral anterior temporal lobes
brain region thought to support the generation of the situation model and update it based on incoming text
medial parietal areas
mental model of the situation conveyed by the text; some parts are described in the text (ex. time, space, protagonist) but others may be more hidden (ex. motivation)
situation model
brain region involved in scene construction and potentially also inferencing but more for logic stories about the physical world (rather than theory of mind)
dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC)
brain region highly activated only when inference needs to be made, particularly activated for theory of mind stories
right temporo-parietal junction (rTPJ)
