Semantic Representation of Language Flashcards

1
Q

Why do embodied theories have difficulties explaining abstract language representations.

A

Abstract concepts are not directly mapped to our five senses.

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2
Q

What is the evidence that provides support for the causal role of embodied experience representing language meaning?

A

Injecting Botox to the face interferes with the understanding of ‘smile’

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3
Q

Describe the Chinese Room Problem.

A
  • Has a dictionary and need to decide the meaning if chinese characters.
  • It appears that they understand the language, but this isn’t the case.
  • Know the meaning when given meaningful images to show meaning
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4
Q

What is an Amodal symbol?

A

A symbol that is not tied to one or more perceptual systems.

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5
Q

Describe the Amodal symbol of language representation.

A

semantic representations can be abstract symbols.

  • mental representation must be a central language processing unit
  • nothing to do with perception and action
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6
Q

Describe Embodied cognition.

A

The idea that the body (its movement, or eternal state) can be used in cognition (e.g. to understand words, or social situations).

  • dependent on bodily experience
  • mental representation must be a distributed semantic system
  • language processing interacts with ongoing perception and action.
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7
Q

What is the symbol grounding problem (Harrad, 1990) ?

A
  • The problem of defining concepts without assuming some preexisting knowledge.
  • Symbols has no constraints so itself has no meaning
  • Something can only be meaningful if it has constraints
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8
Q

What is the evidence for the Embodied theory of language representation?

A

Stanfield & Zwaan, (2001)

  • Sentence Picture verification task
  • RT to answering is this a pencil when in different orientations
  • RT was different with different orientations

Glenberg & Kaschak 2002

  • Sentence and action compatibility task
  • Compared comprehension of sentences, then Ps had to say if sentence made sense.
  • RT were different
  • Amodal model would expect to see similar reaction times
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9
Q

What is the neuro-scientific evidence for language representation?

A
  • Understanding of different action in language is topographically organised. = discredits amodal system theory
  • when you read different action words the same areas of the motor cortex are activated = distributed semantic system
    Affected in Parkinson’s
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10
Q

What did Buccino et al (2005) find when investigating language representation?

Listening vs. Body Movements

A
  • TMS to investigate if muscular activity is differentially engaged.
  • motor evoked potentials (MEPs) measured.
  • When you listen to hand related activity the muscles of the hand are more activated.
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11
Q

What did Speer et al (2009) find when investigating language representation?

Listening vs. Multimodal Experiences

A
  • Used ecologically valid stimuli (short narrative instead of single words)
  • There is clearly a distributed system for language. Different parts of the system deal with different kinds of information.
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12
Q

What have neuropsychological patient studies shown about language representations?

A
  • Parkinson’s patients suffer specific impairments in the motor system.
  • They have difficulties in understanding actions in language, thus providing causal evidence for embodied cognitive theory.
    Fernandino et al., 2013
  • asked if sentences made sense.
  • actions vs non action sentence. & compared different type of actions.
  • parkinsons = harder to understand literal, metaphoric actions.
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13
Q

What are the different types of Actions?

A
  • Literal Action
  • Metaphoric Action
  • Idiomatic Action
  • Abstract Verb
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