PSY 403 EXAM 1

Question 1

linguistics (vs psycholinguistics)

Answer 1

study of grammars, systems of languages, lang structure; takes a descriptive approach

Question 2

psycholinguistics (vs linguistics)

Answer 2

study of the psych factors involved in language perception, production, and acquisition; experimental approach

Question 3

nativists (theories of language development)

Answer 3

S. Pinker, Noam; support the Genetic Bio-program Hypothesis, that genetic evolution produced language organ” in humans, we r specialized for complex specialized language production

Question 4

anti-nativists / constructionists (theories of language development)

Answer 4

Tomasello; lang developed universally in humans as a result of our shared cognitive, social, linguistic hardware; not genetically pre-determined

Question 5

Hockett’s Design Fts (5)

Answer 5

i. semanticity - permanency in our understanding of the meaning of words
ii. arbitrariness - no direct links between objects and the words that signify them (randomness)
iii. discreteness - clear boundaries between linguistic units of a language
iv. displacement: ability to distinguish different states of time and place
v. productivity: discreteness allows for limitless combos of words

Question 6

sound symbolism

Answer 6

violation of HDF of arbitrariness where certain sounds are associated with certain words/concepts ex. takete/maluma, gl = light

Question 7

continuity (comparative MHL perspectives)

Answer 7

modern human language as a result of quant changes to primitative lang (ANTI-NATIVISTS)

Question 8

discontinuity (comparative perspectives)

Answer 8

modern human language as a result of qualitative changes to primitive lang (NATIVISTS)

Question 9

what apes CAN do

Answer 9

i. accumulate a (100+word) lexicon
ii. spontaneously comment (not strictly transactional)
iii. displacement, productivity, prevarication, grammar
iv. exceptional working memory
v. some comprehension

Question 10

what apes CANT do

Answer 10

i. lang acquisition is variable, only exceptional apes can learn it (not tru for humans)
ii. innovate, babble (apes copy)
iii. as utterances grow longer, complexity doesn’t increase (repetition does)

Question 11

communicative intent

Answer 11

human trait of using words to convey intentions/planned actions; apes don’t use or understand this, but babies (and dogs!) do (ex. pointing)
- domesticated dogs/foxes exhibit better comm intent than wild ones, may be a result of living in packs or in closer proximity to humans –> cooperation/tameness as a selected for trait

Question 12

joint attention

Answer 12

the awareness between 2+ that they are paying attn to the same thing; perhaps only present in humans; contributes to social behaviors that enhance comm (helping, fairness, altruism) even in children

Question 13

physical language adaptations in humans

Answer 13

vocal tract is more vertical/columnar than apes –> conducive to oral speech production but increases risk of choking (can’t breathe and talk @ same time); potential evolutionary trade off

Question 14

specific language impairment (dissociation between lang skills and general cognitive ability)

Answer 14

patients have normal IQ but grammatical, morphological, working verbal memory problems; diagnosed @ age 4-5; may have genetic component (mutation of FOXP2 gene)

Question 15

williams’ syndrome (dissociation between lang skills and general cognitive ability)

Answer 15

patients have abnormal brain structure and function, mental impairment but lang abilities are generally left intact

Question 16

broadmann areas

Answer 16

division of brain into sections based on different cell types and structure; 52

Question 17

broca’s aphasia (importance)

Answer 17

paul broca associated a patient’s repetitive speech problem with his L FRONTAL LOBE damage –> discovery helped to develop the concept of brain modularity

Question 18

broca’s aphasia (symptoms)

Answer 18

L FRONTAL LOBE
i. agrammatism (disturbed word order, misuse of function words, poor comprehension)
ii. labored speech, difficulty word finding
iii. awareness of deficit
PRESENT ACROSS MODALITIES (SPEECH + WRITING)

Question 19

wernicke’s aphasia (symptoms)

Answer 19

L TEMP LOBE

i. fluent speech and intonation but speech is incoherent
ii. neologisms, nonsense words
iii. unawareness of deficit
iv. issues with comprehension
* early patients likely had Alzheimer’s*

Question 20

why data from brain damaged patients is not perfect / why broca’s + wernicke’s aphasia should be considered “syndromes”

Answer 20

i. patients have various individual differences
ii. very small # of patients
iii. brain has the ability to reorganize in response to certain kinds of damage
iv. aphasia’s are not strictly linked to the 2 areas (ex. Broca’s patients had deep subcortical damage, not just damage to B’s area)

Question 21

fMRI (vs just MRI)

Answer 21

i. “FUNCTIONAL” magnetic resonance imaging; depicts brain structure AND what areas are most active at a given time based on O2 blood flow, popular in language research
ii. data is always in contrast; reflects level of relative difference in brain activity between 2+ tasks or conditions so the baseline condition/measurement is V important

Question 22

embodied semantics

Answer 22

the meanings of expressions are understood via a mental simulation of the indicated action; stimulation of associated areas of the PMC

Question 23

streams of language processing (2)

Answer 23

i. dorsal: “how”, pronunciation, phonology, articulation (front lobe)
ii. ventral: “what” meaning, syntax, semantics (temp lobe)
- supported by dissociations

Question 24

prosody

Answer 24

i. the tone / tonality / rhythm of a language, picked up by fetuses in the first trimester AND in UTERO
ii. differs between speakers

Question 25

prosodic bootstrapping

Answer 25

ii. babies use prosody to identify important words/sounds (at around 2 mos); utilize stress patterns (ex. trochaic v iambic), known words as landmarks, and the phonotactic constraints of their particular language (around 7.5-9mos)

Question 26

measuring infant language capabilities: methods

Answer 26

i. preferential looking: babies look longer at FAMILIAR stimuli
ii. high amplitude sucking (HAS): babies suck harder in response to NOVEL stimuli
iii. cardiac deceleration: in utero, babies’ heart race slows in response to FAMILIAR stimuli (ex. nursery rhymes and music)

Question 27

phoneme discrimination in infants

Answer 27

detection begins around 1 mo/old, ability begins to decay around 6-8 mos; can learn to distinguish speech sounds learned while sleep!

Question 28

statistical language learning

Answer 28

i. it’s possible babies utilize the fact that there’s higher P of syllable transitions within words than between words to id what is a word and what isn’t
ii. exper.: 3 syllable words (ex. bidaku) babies exposed to it for 2 mins and then listen to a scrambled version –> they looked/attended longer to the scrambles than to the actual words indicating that they noticed the difference
iii. also occurs in the id’ing of visual patterns –> suggests that word learning mechanisms are general purpose rather than lang specific (anti-nativist/constructionist)

Question 29

event related brain potentials (ERPs)

Answer 29

type of EEGs that measure brain electrical activity in response to different stimuli, non-invasive; great TEMPORAL resolution, poor spatial (thick heads); reflect post synaptic potentials (PSPs)

Question 30

important ERP values

Answer 30

i. N400: hill, brain response to semantic deviations (errors) 400 milliseconds after presentation [ex. ice is hot]
ii. P600: valley, brain responds to syntactic deviations 600 ms after presentation [ex. he like fruit]

Question 31

learning biases

Answer 31

it’s easier to group items/create categories that share 1 feature(s) –> natural clases; babies/people learn individual sounds but also make categories of similar sounds and how they combine

Question 32

sonority

Answer 32

how easily can air vibrate in the vocal tract when producing a sound?

• vowels are the most sonorant, all other sounds exist in a hierarchy
• the most sonorant sound occurs in the middle of the syllable (in the nucleus)
• segments closest to the nucleus tend to be more sonorant than those further from the nucleus; i.e. words are arranged along the hierarchy which may aid in learning