PSY1002 SEMESTER 2 - WEEK 6

Question 1

define global aphasia

Answer 1

problems with language comprehension: easily produce speech but struggle to find right words

Question 2

name 3 challenges for comprehension (‘ambiguities’)

Answer 2

ambiguities in the speech stream,
ambiguities at the world level,
ambiguity at the phoneme level

Question 3

outline ambiguity in the speech stream (challenges of comprehension)

Answer 3

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

Question 4

explain ambiguity at world level (challenges of comprehension)

Answer 4

words have same sound but different meanings (homonyms, homophones, homograhs)
4 candle

Question 5

define homonym (ambiguity at the word level- comprehensions challenge)

Answer 5

word that sound and spelt same (Bank-building or river)

Question 6

define homophone (ambiguity at word level- comprehension challenges)

Answer 6

words sound same (muscle, mussel)

Question 7

define homograph (ambiguity at the word level- comprehension challenges)

Answer 7

words that are spelt same (Bow = tie, arrow etc)

Question 8

explain ambiguity at the phoneme level - comprehension challenges

Answer 8

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)

Question 9

explain categorical perception of sound

Answer 9

provides way to work out start of sound, and where another sound ends. based on Voice-Onset-Time

Question 10

what is voice-onset-time

Answer 10

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

Question 11

explain categorical sound perception development

Answer 11

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

Question 12

explain how regional accents causes speech comprehension issues

Answer 12

range of sound allowable for phoneme ranges dramatically eg: y in city is eee (southern) or eh (northern)

Question 13

define invariance problem (language comprehension issues)

Answer 13

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

Question 14

apply invariance problem to research study of hearing interrupted phrases (Warren, 1970)

Answer 14

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

Question 15

outline correct order of mental representation building blocks for production

Answer 15

1. semantics
2. syntax and morphology
3. phonology
4. speech

Question 16

outline correct order mental representation building blocks for comprehension

Answer 16

1. speech
2. phonology
3. semantics, morphology and syntax

Question 17

what is top-down processing used for in mental lexicon

Answer 17

use to process existing word mental representations to work out what is being heard

Question 18

explain word superiority effect

Answer 18

letters easily identifiable when are embedded in words compared to non-word contexts, or in isolation

Question 19

explain categorical perception

Answer 19

speech is perceived as discrete categories, whereas most sounds are perceived along continuum

Question 20

define co-articulation

Answer 20

overlapping of sound

Question 21

how long does lexical recognition/access of word take

Answer 21

200ms

Question 22

try and conceptualise mental lexicon

Answer 22

difficult to conceptualise as so grand, complex, stored bank of semantic words

Question 23

explain frequency effects for lexical access

Answer 23

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

Question 24

outline high neighbourhood density

Answer 24

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)

Question 25

what is impact of situational context - word monitoring on recognising words and resolving ambiguities (Marlsen-Wilson, Taylor 1980)

Answer 25

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

Question 26

outline priming paradigm for impact of situational context in mental lexicon

Answer 26

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

Question 27

outline Zwitserlood (1989) study into cross-modal priming for situational context impacting mental lexicons

Answer 27

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)

Question 28

explain what lexical decision tasks are

Answer 28

ppts presented with word, say if word/not
measure reaction time to show speed of accessing word semantic representation

Question 29

name 2 models of speech comprehension

Answer 29

Cohort model, trace model

Question 30

outline syntactic analysis

Answer 30

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

Question 31

explain syntax-first approach (of syntactic analysis)

Answer 31

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