Psychology of Language Flashcards
What is language generally described as that has limitations in its application?
A system of communication - Animals use non-verbal cues to communicate so language isn’t the defining feature of communication
To what extent can chimps understand language/mental states?
Chimps can learn certain words and understand mental states but lack knowledge about intent to share mental states = Language is the intent to make ones mental state known
What are some features of language among humans?
Skill of language is universal, not restricted to verbal language, language takes different forms/modalities
What is meant by language being combinatorial?
There are a few common speech sounds and letters that make up the language
Why are linguistic symbols/Iconicity important?
More iconic (visually stereotypical) the sign in sign language = The more memorable.
Iconicity bridges experience to linguistic symbols which are abstracted = Abstraction increases communicative capacity
Why is language not completely arbitrary?
Certain sounds occur in certain words in different languages (e.g. R in red)
Subtle differences in sounds of nouns & verbs impact processing times
Concrete words tend to be shorter whereas abstract words are identified by being longer
What is the neurobiology of language?
Grey matter = Neuronal cell bodies
White matter = Axons, myelin & glia cells
Each lobe has a characteristic set of gyri & sulci which identifies the area
Broadmann areas = Regions defined by layered composition of cells (cytoarchitecture)
Give a language-centric overview of functional neuroanatomy (the four main landmarks)
Language = Left hemisphere
Four main landmarks:
- Audition (Posterior, superior temporal lobe)
- Action & Motor control (Inferior frontal & parietal)
- Planning/cognitive control (Frontal lobe)
- Visual object recognition (Inferior temporal)
What are the two main methods to examine the brain?
- The lesion method - Association between location of brain damage & deficits (can use virtual lesions using non-invasive brain stimulation)
- Neuroimaging - Structural scans (MRI), Functional scans (FMRI), EEG, Intercranial EEG
Why are platonic and symbolic definitions of a concept not applicable to humans/psychology?
Platonic (concepts are metaphysical and exist outside the human mind)
- Psychology is more focused on empiricism & real-life
representations
Symbolic (List of necessary and specific features) - Humans don’t have this rigid structure
What is a good definition of a ‘concept’?
Concepts = Perceptual symbol system/embodied semantics
What are the features of a concept?
Defined by perception and action features (link ideas)
Features are probabilistic (people see certain things differently)
Simulation/re-enactment is necessary to a concept (visualisation)
Brain regions involved in processing objects are also involved in representing object concepts (e.g. face region of brain lights up if we think about the face)
How do category-specific semantic deficits occur?
Normally occur due to a stroke
Specific parts of the brain are damaged preventing knowledge about them
Sensory-functional distinction - Unable to separate specific categories (such as that inanimate objects are define by their functions& associated actions)
When do children experience a ‘vocabulary explosion’?
14-18 months = Rapidly produce more words
Word learning is difficult for children as they have to associate certain sounds with meanings
What are the types of biases that help children learn words?
- Whole object bias
Labels are assigned to the whole object rather than to just a part - Mutual Exclusivity
Some part of the situation is known so deduce the unknown (e.g. If that
is a fork, other is a knife) - Basic-level
Have a bias that what is being talked about is not too specific & is more generally applicable to all
How does verb learning occur in infants?
Syntactic bootstrapping - Sentence structure gives some clues to verb meaning
Verbs have suffixes that identify them & is more difficult than object naming
Word learning also occurs by intention (so if the action label seems intentional)
What role does infant directed speech have?
Infant-directed speech = How adults talk to babies
- Spoken at slower rate, longer pauses & intonational structures which promotes infant attention to language & fosters social interaction
- Helps infants learn their native language
What is phonology? Phonemes? Allophones?
The study of patterns & sounds in a language (and across cultures)
- Phonemes are abstract units of speech (small unit change will alter word meaning
- Allophone is a variation that does not change meaning
e. g. tam and taam in english would mean the same thing
How do infants develop speech perception?
Develop sensitivity to native-language phenomena contrasts at 6-12 months
New-borns prefer their mother’s voice and native language - Distinguish emotion and intonation speech
8 to 12 months focus only on native contrasts
How do infants use distributional learning to develop language?
Infants use the distribution of sound to work out the phoneme categories in their language
How do infants use categorical perception to develop language?
Categorical perception - Perceive speech sounds in terms of their categories without acoustic details or continuous physical differences
Sharp boundaries between speech sound categories so can easily be distinguished
How does visual context of the McGurk effect impact speech perception?
When we hear the same sound but the person says it with a different mouth shape of another sound - We will hear it as the mouth perceives it
How does lexical context/feedback impact speech perception?
Word superiority effect: Phonemes are recognised faster in words than in non-words
Ganong effect: Ambiguous speech sounds tend to be heard in a word consistent way (e.g. ‘iss’ as Kiss)
Phoneme restoration: Replacing a phoneme with a noise produces perception of noise and phoneme (activity in left superior temporal gyrus)
How does world knowledge tune speech sound categories?
When PPT read Wizard of Oz, with ‘Witch’ pronounced ‘Wetch’ they identified wetch as a word - key mechanism in adapting to accents
What is meant by syntax?
How sentence structure conveys meaning
What is the syntax paradox?
Primary school - Most children are fairly close to mastery of their own native syntax but even professional linguists have a hard time establishing all the rules of English
How does the syntax develop?
15 months to 2.5 yrs - Kids mostly produce content words & start combining them into two word phrases - Not much syntactic structure
2.5 yrs to 4yrs - Gradually start using markings like plurals and past tense + start to use prepositions
How are grammatical categories learnt?
Learn the context of how the words are used
What are frequent frames and how do they help using certain nouns as verbs?
Word sequences can provide information about word type. Frequent frames provide accurate categorization for about 50% of words a child hears
E.g. - you _____ it (can be filled with ‘hit’ etc.)
Distributional information is too noisy but frequent frames make it accurate
What did Mintz find when testing Frequent Frames in experimental conditions?
Among children, when taught novel words in frequent frames, shown new sentences - Looked longer at ungrammatical ones = Surprised
Same with adults when faced with a new language - could identify the novel vs repeated sentences