PSY2002 W1 Language I

Question 1

Language Definition

Answer 1

an exchange of information: language processing occurs under the level of conscious awareness. You are not aware of all information being processed to allow you to speak.

Question 2

Methods to test speech prodcution

Answer 2

Timing of speech onset, hesitations and pauses
Tip-of-the-tongue state
Speech errors

Question 3

Why do we hesitated

Answer 3

Word representations in the lexicon compete for selection due to spreading activation.
Competition between words slow down the speech

Question 4

Tip-of-the-tongue state

Answer 4

Unable to retrieve the word you want

Question 5

Tip of the tongue - grammatical gender (Vigliocco et al. 1997)

Answer 5

In language with grammatical gender, you are able to state the grammatical gender of the word but cannot access the phonological form of the word
Can retrieve the syntactic elements that go with the word. Cannot retrieve the sounds to expression the word.

Question 6

What does the tip of the tongue state suggest

Answer 6

Sentence is planned, structured is planned, syntax in place but strugglin gto retrieve the sound, suggest specific levels of procssing required to produce speech

Question 7

Speech errors - specific processes

Answer 7

Speech errors tend to occur within specific processes, such as the selection of syntatic units or form (syllables and phonemes)

Question 8

Specific levels of processing language

Answer 8

Semantic processing (think about the concept) => Syntactic adn morphemic processing => Articulation (form processing)

Question 9

Types of speech errors

Answer 9

Omission, Addition, Lexical substitution, Morpheme substitution, phonological substitution, lexical exchange, phonological exchange, anticipations, perseverations, blends, morpheme shift, morpheme standings

Question 10

Speech errors - language processes

Answer 10

Errors tend to occur within the following process rather than corssing th eboundaries between them.

• Semantic processing
• Syntactic and morphemic processing
• Articulation (form processing)

Question 11

Semantic processing - Speech errors

Answer 11

Semantic processing = conceptualisation semantic blend errors

Question 12

Syntactic and morphemic processing - speech errors

Answer 12

formulation syntactic and morpheme exchange

Question 13

Articulation (form processing) - speech errors

Answer 13

articulation word and phoneme exchange.

Question 14

Model of utterance generation (1971): Victoria Fromkin

Answer 14

First models of speech prodcution. Serial processing (discrete).
1. Meaning
2. Syntactic structure [article + // + plural + possessive + article //]
3. Position of intonation
4. Lexicon look-up (finds words and generate phonological segments)
5.Morphophonemic constraints

Question 15

Discrete Models

Answer 15

Each stage must be completed before the next begins.

Activation is feed forwards can only move from meaning to sound

Question 16

Dell, G. S. (1986). A spreading-activation theory of retrieval in sentence production.

Answer 16

Assumes processes are fluid, information can go back and forth through the language production processes

Question 17

Levelt, W. J., Roelofs, A., & Meyer, A. S. (1999). A theory of lexical access in speech production.

Answer 17

Assumes processes are serially organised and must complete 1 before the other begins – similar to Fromkin

Question 18

Types of models (cognitive psychology)

Answer 18

Box and arrow model
Computational model

Question 19

Box and arrow model

Answer 19

Fromkin’s model

Describe the relationship between different mentla prossess under the assumption that the mind opperates like multi stage information processing machines.
We can study this models by manipulating the input and observing the output.

Question 20

Computational model

Answer 20

Implemented as functiong computational models = (Dell, G. S. (1986) and Levelt, W. J., Roelofs, A., & Meyer, A. S. (1999))

Question 21

Statistical models

Answer 21

a mathematical relationship between variables, that hold under specific assumptions

Question 22

Theoretical models

Answer 22

description of the relationship between different mental processes, that makes assumptions about the nature of these processes.

Question 23

Behaviourism

Answer 23

Input => Brain => Output (behaviour)

Question 24

Neural Networks

Answer 24

Nodes represent groups of neurons. Activation of nodes spreads activation across the network.

Question 25

Dell (1986) Spreading activation theory

Answer 25

The theory is a cascaded interactive model. Information is active in parallel.
Spreading activation in both semantic level adn phonemic level.
All diffirent stages happen at once, we may also activated other semantically related concepts and could account to word errors.

Question 26

The thoery and prediction - Dell 1986

Answer 26

Spreadin gactivation results in activation of related items at all levels of processing. Processing items that verlap in semantics adn or phonology will result in higher errors rates than processing items that do not overlap

Question 27

Experiement Ferreira and Griffin 2003

Answer 27

Participants named target pictures (picture of a priest) after first reading sentences that primed a semantic competitor (‘nun’), a semantic and phonological competitor (‘none’) or an unrelated word (‘match’).
In an interactive model the combined influence of Semantic and Phonological similarity results in an error.
Participants were more likely to mistakenly produce the semantic or phonoligcal and sematic competitor than they were to produce an unrealated word.

Question 28

The Evidence: Ferreira and Griffin (2003)

Answer 28

Participants can successfully inhibit ‘match’ to say ‘priest’ but fail to inhibit ‘nun/none’ and say ‘priest’. Semantically and phonologically related items are active at the same time and can be selected for output.

Question 29

Is speech production based on interactive processes?

Answer 29

Evidence from Ferreira and Griffin (2003) demonstrates that semantic and phonological similarity can result in speech errors suggesting that processing is fluid and interactive

Question 30

Speech Errors in Dell’s 1986 Model: How does this account for the speech errors observed by Fromkin?

Answer 30

• errors may occur due to more than one concept receiving the same amount of activation. Both concepts become active resultign in a cascade of processing to the level of phonology

Question 31

Dell 1986 Interim Conclusion

Answer 31

The model provides a convincing account of speech errors. Evidence from lab induced speech errors supports the suggestion that processing is interactive.
However, some suggest that the parallel processing in the Dell model would predict that we make far more speech errors than we actually do.

Question 32

Levelt et al., 1999 WEAVER++ = Word-form Encoding by Activation and VERification

Answer 32

Similar model to Dell but Discrete.
Activation can only go in one direction, process must be complet before another can begin, prevents errors in speech all the time.

Question 33

LEMMA

Answer 33

The word form and the syntactic information that links with the word form

Question 34

Competitive processes

Answer 34

Selection of items at each level is based on competition between items. Once word has been selected, this node sends inhibitory signal to other related concepts to stop activation.

WEAVER++ (levelt et al.) predicts that items which are semantically similar will inhibit processing.

Question 35

Dell 1986 - Inhibition

Answer 35

No inhibition in dell’s model, due to the lack of inhibitory connections processing items which are semantically similar will not be inhibitive

Question 36

The Experiment: Wheeldon & Monsell 1994

Answer 36

Participants were asked to answer a question out loud and then name a picture ( What is the largest creature that swims in the seam - whale - picture of a shark)
Once you activate the concept of whale you inhibit related concepts like shark so you will be slower in naming the image aka shark

Question 37

The Experiment: Wheeldon & Monsell 1994
Results:

Answer 37

Mean reaction times for semantically related adn unrelated items. It takes longer to record the word of an image semantically related to the answer to the question

Question 38

Is speech prodcution based on interactive processes

Answer 38

Evidence that semantically related items inhibit processing of each other suggest that speech production processes are discrete.

Question 39

Speech errors in Levelt et al.’s WEAVER ++ Model

Answer 39

Errors may occur if the wrong concept is selected and processed to the phonological level. Two concepts that are both viable options for the utterance could be selected and processed to the phonological level

Question 40

WEAVER ++ Interim conclusion

Answer 40

Levelt et al.’s model has to suggest that speech errors are ‘special cases’, but WEAVER++ accounts for inhibitory effects in speech production where Dell’s model appears ill equipped to accommodate these effects

Question 41

Interactive processing

Answer 41

If processing of spoken words is interactive and parallel (Dell, 1986) phonological processing is likely to occur for all items that are related by semantics and/or phonology to the target item.

Question 42

Discrete processing

Answer 42

If processing of spoken words is discrete and feedforwards (Levelt et al., 1999) phonological processing should only occur for items that have been selected and should not be affected by ‘non target’ information.

Question 43

Semantic interference Meyer & Damian (2007)

Answer 43

When phonological items overlap (related items) are faster, because the DO of doll and dog will activate the concepts quick.

Phonological should not have an effect on our speech production then there must be some interaction even if they don’t match the studies