PSY1002 SEMESTER 2 - WEEK 6 Flashcards
define global aphasia
problems with language comprehension: easily produce speech but struggle to find right words
name 3 challenges for comprehension (‘ambiguities’)
ambiguities in the speech stream,
ambiguities at the world level,
ambiguity at the phoneme level
outline ambiguity in the speech stream (challenges of comprehension)
impossible to know where one word end, another begins “word boundaries”
sound waves in production of speech is continuous stream, gap in sound not always corresponding to word boundary
explain ambiguity at world level (challenges of comprehension)
words have same sound but different meanings (homonyms, homophones, homograhs)
4 candle
define homonym (ambiguity at the word level- comprehensions challenge)
word that sound and spelt same (Bank-building or river)
define homophone (ambiguity at word level- comprehension challenges)
words sound same (muscle, mussel)
define homograph (ambiguity at the word level- comprehension challenges)
words that are spelt same (Bow = tie, arrow etc)
explain ambiguity at the phoneme level - comprehension challenges
word changes way they sound depending on environment due to place of articulation (air hitting different mouth area and obstruction causing different sound) and coarticulation (moving articulatory apparatus to blur or blend word)
explain categorical perception of sound
provides way to work out start of sound, and where another sound ends. based on Voice-Onset-Time
what is voice-onset-time
point at which vocal chord vibrations start relative to release of closure
cause different sound perception
b and p are bilabial consonants and articulated in same place = sound different due to differing VOT
0VOT- vocal chords vibrate when closure for ‘p’ in pan stop
+VOT- vocal chords vibrate after closure for ‘b’ in ban stops
explain categorical sound perception development
children hardwired for recognising differing phonemes
categorical perception of sounds that are on a continuum filters out some ambiguity in speech stream, allowing us to chop up speech stream and understand individual unit semantics
explain how regional accents causes speech comprehension issues
range of sound allowable for phoneme ranges dramatically eg: y in city is eee (southern) or eh (northern)
define invariance problem (language comprehension issues)
inability to define acoustic properties that facilitate categorisation of phonemes
phoneme restoration effect uses top-down processing to activate existing lexical representation helps understanding of words, dialect, accent, managing incomplete bottom-up info
apply invariance problem to research study of hearing interrupted phrases (Warren, 1970)
ppts heard a phrase, interrupted by cough in middle, and 19/20 said they heard no missing words as they filled in gaps - used mental lexicon
outline correct order of mental representation building blocks for production
- semantics
- syntax and morphology
- phonology
- speech
outline correct order mental representation building blocks for comprehension
- speech
- phonology
- semantics, morphology and syntax
what is top-down processing used for in mental lexicon
use to process existing word mental representations to work out what is being heard
explain word superiority effect
letters easily identifiable when are embedded in words compared to non-word contexts, or in isolation
explain categorical perception
speech is perceived as discrete categories, whereas most sounds are perceived along continuum
define co-articulation
overlapping of sound
how long does lexical recognition/access of word take
200ms
try and conceptualise mental lexicon
difficult to conceptualise as so grand, complex, stored bank of semantic words
explain frequency effects for lexical access
hear word, look up all of subcomponents, meanings in mental lexicon. lexical access is quicker for words that are short and frequent, but slower for words with many neighbours
outline high neighbourhood density
neighbour words have one sound which is different (walk/talk). not necessarily at start of word (peach/peel). yacht has low neighbourhood density (no similar word)
what is impact of situational context - word monitoring on recognising words and resolving ambiguities (Marlsen-Wilson, Taylor 1980)
ppt asked to monitor speech for ‘motorway’, say when heard
measured timing from beginning of motorway to speech onset. varied context (car journey, aeroplane etc) found quicker response for correct situation = language system predicts words that can come up next and activated in mental lexicon
outline priming paradigm for impact of situational context in mental lexicon
flash priming word (doctor), then target word (nurse). lexical decision tasks to decide if target was word/not, and because doctor-nurse semantically related, spreading activation allows nurse to become active when doctor presented
outline Zwitserlood (1989) study into cross-modal priming for situational context impacting mental lexicons
prime word (auditory) and target word (visual)
related prime-target (captain-ship)
unrelated prime-target (captain-wicket)
faster reaction for related, even if not given whole priming word (capt)
also if given in context sentence, faster reaction (for both captain, captive)
explain what lexical decision tasks are
ppts presented with word, say if word/not
measure reaction time to show speed of accessing word semantic representation
name 2 models of speech comprehension
Cohort model, trace model
outline syntactic analysis
how we build syntactic structure (synactic parsing) impacts our understanding of sentence
deep structure (from phrase structure rules)
surface structure (linear order that gets produced)
transformations of deep structure (adding and deleting, moving syntactic constituents) results in final surface structure
eg: dog bit man, man bitten by dog etc
explain syntax-first approach (of syntactic analysis)
construct one syntactic structure based on set of parsing principles focusing on syntactic info only, then evaluate structure against semantics and context and revise if necessary
simpler structure preferred over complex
