Week 5- storage retrival

Question 1

what can speakers usually retrieve when a word is on ‘the tip of the tongue’?

Answer 1

- semantic information
• phonetic information
• number of syllables
• initial letter
• semantically related words
• phonologically related words

Question 2

what does the mental lexicon look like?

Answer 2

• large • complex • highly organised • stores entries • rich/detailed information • can integrate new information • dynamic

Question 3

how are words stored in the lexicon?

Answer 3

• gigantic multi-dimensional web (network) – an interconnected system – variety of ‘links’ (some weak, some strong)
• words seem to be organised primarily by semantic fields – connections between co-ordinates – connections between collocates
• with some phonemic organisation too

Question 4

what is lexical storage?

Answer 4

How words are stored in our minds in relation to each other

Question 5

what is lexical retrieval?

Answer 5

How we reach a word (or find it) when we need it

Question 6

what is a network?

Answer 6

‘words’ linked by a network of forms and meanings – The things we ‘store’ are connected (networked)

Question 7

what is the connectionism model?

Answer 7

connectionism models itself upon the way in which the brain operates by transferring signals across multiple nerve connections. it suggests that: when a connection is used a lot, it gets stronger and when a connection is used a little it gets weaker. eg: the link between ‘fish’ and ‘chips’ is strong as they’re often used together, and the link between ‘fish’ and ‘river’ is weaker as it is used less frequently.

Question 8

what does connection strength account for?

Answer 8

Frequency • The words we use most are the ones that are easiest for us to retrieve (because the connections to them are more often used)
Collocation • We retrieve certain words together because they are so closely connected (e.g. strong tea not powerful tea)

Question 9

what are gradable antonyms?

Answer 9

word pairs that have variations between the two opposites. eg:
Big, huge, bulky, full-size, slight, petite, little

Question 10

what are relational antonyms?

Answer 10

pairs that have a relationship. Each word wouldn’t exist without the other. There can’t be a parent without a child or it’s either all or nothing. Other examples include:
Open – close

Question 11

what are complementary antonyms?

Answer 11

word pairs that have no degree of meaning. There are only two opposite possibilities.
Dead- alive

Question 12

what is metonymy?

Answer 12

the substitution of the name of an attribute or adjunct for that of the thing meant, for example suit for business executive, or the turf for horse racing.

Question 13

what is meronymy?

Answer 13

a term which denotes part of something but which is used to refer to the whole of it e.g. roof – house

Question 14

what are the four central sense relations?

Answer 14

–Synonymy, similar meanings
–Antonymy • Complementary/opposing meanings –Hyponymy • ‘kind-of’ (is-a) relationship (hierarchy) –Meronymy • part-of relationship

Question 15

what are some problems with a word association test?

Answer 15

Unnatural activity • Results are altered greatly if word is presented among other words • Can only give us some ideas about how words might be organised in the mind

Question 16

how is activation achieved?

Answer 16

• Access (including the ruling out of any other possible candidates)
  – Recognition

Question 17

what is the cohort theory?

Answer 17

According to the model, when a person hears speech segments real-time, each speech segment “activates” every word in the lexicon that begins with that segment, and as more segments are added, more words are ruled out, until only one word is left that still matches the input.

Question 18

what happens when we activate a word?

Answer 18

– A neuron fires an impulse – The associated word is activated
The higher the frequency of this word… – …the more often it needs to be activated – …the more often the neuron needs to fire – …the stronger the neuron – …the quicker the word is activated

Question 19

what are slips of the tongue?

Answer 19

– ‘errors’ of production – Non-target productions

Question 20

what is semantic priming?

Answer 20

If two things are similar to each other and involved in the same level of processing, they will either assist with or interfere with each other, but if they are unrelated, they will have no effect.
• It is easier to recognize a word (e.g. BREAD) if you have just seen a word that is related in meaning (e.g. BUTTER)
–if processing is sped up ® facilitation
–if processing is slowed down ® inhibition

Question 21

what was LEVELT’S EXPERIMENT?

Answer 21

• Participants were given a picture naming task
• Picture naming takes approx 500 to 800 ms.
• The initial 150 ms is taken up with visual processing and activating the appropriate concept.
• Another 125 ms or so is for selecting the lemma.
• Phonological encoding starts around 275 ms and we usually start uttering the name from 600 ms.
• In the interval between presentation and naming, subjects were given a word in an acoustic form through headphones (e.g. “goal”).
• The participants had to press a button as soon as they decided whether this second item was a word or not. – it was an auditory lexical decision task.

Question 22

what did Levelt conclude?

Answer 22

• in picture naming and lexicalization, there is –an early stage when semantic candidates are active (this is the lemma selection stage) –and a late stage when phonological forms are active.
• Furthermore, these two stages are temporally discrete and do not overlap or interact.