Week 8+9+10 (M3) Flashcards
Language allows us to…
- Discuss things in the past and present
- Discuss abstract concepts
- Pass on knowledge
- Individual communication
- Communication through entire civilizations
- Sharing new ideas
Children learning language
- Learn language rapidly
- Without being explicitly taught
- Know lots of native language by three
Language per second and per minute
Done at 200 words per minute
Made of 40 diff phonemes
Can do 11 phonemes per second
Types of representation
Ex. Lexical
- Social → who am I talking to and what am I trying t do in this conversation
- Conceptual → the meaning of what you’re saying
- Grammatical → rules
- Lexical
- Phonological → sounds
- Prosodic → the tune of the sentences
- Motor → allowing mouth to move
Language as translation
- Nonverbal thoughts
- Sequences of words
- Sequences of sounds
Aka a relay race of processes working together, or a production line
High-level errors
Repeating a word (ex. a synonym) = redundant
Phrase errors
Errors in the ordering of the phrase
Word errors + what do they relate to
- swapping words (ephemery instead of epiphany)
- swapping words within the same sentence
- combining two words
Relates to tip-of-the-tongue errors and the building blocks of language
Morpheme errors
- meaningful parts of the word get mixed up
ex. “This bar is UNDERrun with OVERgrads”
Phoneme/phonological errors
- sound bits of the word (phonemes) get mixed up
ex. “Calcium, lust and rhyme dissolver” → rust and lime
Spoonerisms aka Freudian slips
phoneme exchange errors
- Suppressed/repressed inner desires and thoughts that inadvertently come out
- Sometimes makes sense, “hurrific”
- We think of these ones and report on them most often, but they’re not as prevalent as other types of errors
Are speech errors random?
NO
Regularities in errors
Word errors obey word rules
- Nouns exchange with nouns
- Verbs exchange with verbs
- Outcomes are grammatically legal
Sound errors obey sound rules
- Beginnings exchange with beginnings
- Similar sounds exchange
- Outcomes are phonologically legal
Words split apart at really predictable places
What do speech errors reveal
- The building blocks of language
- The rules we use to put those blocks together
Examples of lab procedures to test errors
- Tongue twisters
- The SLIPS procedure
- TOT (tip-of-the-tongue) elicitation
What makes tongue twisters hard
These are hard because they’re hard in your head (would even make these errors in your head)
- Difficulty planning, selecting, and executing these sound sequences
The SLIPS procedure
s for spooner
- Experimentally elicits phoneme exchange errors (spoonerisms)
- Gives a phoneme pattern of paired words, then changes it up and gets you to repeat THAT pair aloud = phoneme errors
TOT (tip-of-the-tongue) elicitation
Give definitions of fairly rare terms and get the person to report if they know it, don’t know it, or if it’s on the tip of their tongue
- Issue getting from lemma level to phonological level
Two stage model of language production
technically 3
- Related to TOT issues
Conceptual level (image of a cat)
→ lemma level (cat)
→ phonological level (/k/ /ae/ /t/)
Atriculatory level
Toin coss explanation
Planning errors - phonological exchange with the two stage model
- Should to first word levels, then second word
- If you get a bit ahead of yourself, gets in the way of your planning and is integrated too early
Phoneme manipulation to cause word errors
Make selection process more difficult
Ex. poke x 7, what is the term for white of an egg (yolk! no)
Ex. siblings with the same first letter names get called the wrong name more often
TOT test in the lab
Two possibilities
1. Some words are just idiosyncratically hard
2. TOT states can be LEARNED
Learning hypothesis:
- A TOT is an incorrect mapping of representations during retrieval
- Making a TOT constitutes a strengthening of that incorrect mapping
Method
- Elicit TOTs, then retest
- Measure TOT recurrence rate
Hypotheses
1. A TOT at Test 1 increases the likelihood of a TOT on that same word at Test 2
2. Long Test 1 TOTs should lead to more Test 2 TOTs than short Test 1 TOTs
- Longer breaks while thinking of it
Error repetition + delay effects
Error repetition effect
→ purple bars, much more likely to experience a TOT if you experienced it the first time
Delay effect
→ thinking hard (TOT long) = more likely TOT again
Resolution effect
- If TOT resolved, not likely to make the error again
Resolving it yourself protects from further error. Telling people the right answer doesn’t.
What are the results of the TOT test after time
Same results if the participants are brought back a week later instead of just 48 hrs later
If retested immediately; still same results
If retested immediately and told there will be a retest; STILL same results
Phonological cued resolution
- Spontaneous resolution rate = 32%
- Phonologically cued resolution rate = 82%
- Still much more likely to make the TOT again
- Immediate answer NOT helpful
TOT resolved using cue = helpful
Are TOTs an issue with the phonological mapping stage? Why or why not?
Give a slightly different definition and see if they still have the TOT error
If phonological mapping = no effect (definition not helpful = still make the errors)
Result: yes still errors = yes phonological mapping error
Elicited phonological errors using SLIPS procedure
will you remake the same error
Making a mistake once makes it over 4 times as likely that you will make it again on retest
Summary of TOT results
Resolving a TOT helps prevent error reoccurrence more than being told the answer
However, if we help you resolve it with a phonological cue, it still helps
What’s special about language
- Uniquely human skill
- Incredibly complex system that is mastered by babies incredibly quickly
- Language is something we do very rapidly and effortlessly, but there is a lot of work that has to happen
Prescriptive vs. descriptive
Prescriptive
- What you ought to do
- Some set of “rules”
Descriptive
- What the language actually is
- How do people use it
- People don’t follow the rules
Psycholinguistics
Language is what’s in your head
Examples of the generativity of language
→ can create new sentences out of old words (express new ideas)
→ can create new words (ex. new scientific terms)
→ can apply old rules to new words (ex. Yeet -> yeeted)
→ can create infinitely long sentences
Are language and thought the same
NO
- Not everything you think is in words
- It’s actually a translation process of nonverbal concepts to language
- Holistic to linear
- Conceptual to lemma to phonological
- They influence each other
Language representational levels
Discourse: “Hi how are you? I saw two dogs”
Sentences: “I saw two dogs”
Phrases: “two dogs”
Words: “dogs”
Morphemes
Phonemes
Features: stop, alveolar, +voice
Semantics: meaning
Syntax - grammar
Prosody - tune
Morphology - the meaningful bits of words
Phonology - sounds
Pragmatic - real world meaning “do you have the time”
Why is comprehension hard
- Understanding language is hard
- Hard because of semantics, syntax, and also phonology
- Ambiguity issues (ex. un-buttonable or unbutton-able)
Garden path sentence
As you walk along the “garden path” you’re guided to parse a certain way
- Based on top-down assumptions
The parsing of a sentence in your head can get interrupted (the sentence structure/flow)
Ex. “the horse raced past the barn fell” harder to understand than “the presents placed by the fire burned”
Because you know the presents aren’t placing themselves by the fire, so you’ll add “that had been”
Why is it hard to understand other languages
- No gaps between words, and speech is very fast
- Think speech segmentation issue
- Sounds aren’t constant - different accents/speakers/sounds themselves
= variance
Ex. /e/ in different words
Phonology
Study of the sound patterns that occur within languages
- Huge amount of systematicity
3 ways to describe phonemes
- Place of articulation (where in the mouth)
- Manner of articulation (how you put air through)
- Voicing (how your voice box is moving)
Place of articulation
(where in the mouth)
ex. /f/ versus /th/
Manner of articulation
(how you put air through)
ex. /n/ versus /s/
Voicing
(how your voice box is moving)
ex. /s/ versus /z/
Voiced onset time
time between release of air and start of vibration
Other languages, different VOTs, include pre-voicing
Categorical perception
within language
- You don’t perceive the variability of /b/ vs /p/
- Never perceive sounds that sound “in between”
- also present for infants
- for ANY language
- not uniquely human
- Has to do with the properties of the human auditory system - languages have evolved to take advantage of differences that people are good at detecting
- Put boundaries where phonemes naturally lie
Categorical perception graph
- You perceive as completely /b/ or completely /p/
- No intermediate
- Could also ask if these are the same (EXACTLY the same sounds) or different
They will say they’re exactly the same
- UNLESS the onset is in the perfect location; on the boundary of the VOT
Duration of time doesn’t matter unless its that
Linguistic universal examples
Lots of things differ across languages, but what is really amazing is how much is the same (ex. English uses “th,” other languages use /m/ /p/ bc its easy even for babies)
Syntax
+ relationship to meaning
Grammar
- Syntactic rules don’t have to do with MEANING
- They deal with linguistic categories such as “noun” “verb”
- Syntactic rules build a structure, and you can put individual words into the structure for meaning
- Syntax is important for both the listener and the speaker
- Listener - makes a difference to meaning
ex. “Bill kissed fred” vs “fred kissed bill” - Can also be universally ambiguous
Parsing
- Figuring out the phrase structure of a sentence as you are listening or reading
- Incremental - happens a word at a time
- Sometimes correct, sometimes wrong
A garden-path sentence syntax
a grammatically correct sentence that starts in such a way that a reader’s most likely interpretation will be incorrect
Whorf-Sapir hypothesis
Do thought and language influence each other?
Whorf-Sapir hypothesis: the language you speak determines what you can think
Ex. Canadians have many words for snow
Not completely that way
- Ex. You can have a concept for the philtrum before you know the name for it
- Ex. If you have the same word for pink and white chips, you’ll sort them together. BUT if you just ask someone to separate into groups they might be able to differentiate
SO…
W-S probably only true in a very weak form
Concepts versus categories
Concept = mental representation
Ex. dogs; have this, do this, look like this
Categories = set of entities in the world described by a concept
Ex. many different breeds
Functions of concepts
- Classification (of objects)
- Understanding
- Prediction
- Reasoning (for new objects)
- Communication (need a word that applies further than yourself, and that connects to the same things for everyone)
The classical view
Concepts have defining features or attributes
These features are necessary and sufficient
Is it easy or hard to categorize?
Easy to categorize!
- Hard to come up with a good definition to explain HOW you are categorizing
- Yet we are still able to
Most of our knowledge isn’t based on definition
Family resemblance
Wittgenstein: Category members have a family resemblance to each other
- Some features in common, but not every member has to have those features
- Relates to the probabilistic view
Probabilistic view
- No necessary conditions to belong to a category, no sufficient definitions either
- Does not mean that the categories have no structure
- If you have these features, then you have X likelihood of belonging to category Y
Prototype theory
- Graded membership based on typicality
- The center/ideal/average for the category
Ways to test prototype theory (4)
- typicality ratings
- sentence verification
(Longer to decide for less typical items in a category) - production/generate examples from memory
(Generate more typical examples first) - picture verification
(Faster when more typical)
Is the prototype always the average
- Not necessarily the “average” - often the BEST one
- And maybe that thing is closest to the center is the best one
Privileged category members
- Category members closest to the prototype are privileged (detected/produced first)
- Basic level categories are psychologically privileged
- These categories are usually captured by one word and seem to be the default working level
- We usually describe the world in terms of basic level categories
Vertical hierarchy of categories
- Superordinate level
- Basic level category → kids learn first
- Subordinate level → used by experts for their category
Exemplar theory
How much does this example resemble all the other examples that I know belong to category Y?
Benefits of exemplar theory
- graded membership
Memory search easier when you have many examples of the object to be characterized (ex. apples) - retain info about particular cases
- preserves info about correlated features
- bends to change (given one new example the prototype doesn’t change)
- can create new categories easily and can create categories that are difficult to make a prototype for (ex. “what you might regret tmo”)
Contrast of prototype and exemplar
Prototype theory: predicts the “standard” is the most typical member; might not exist (average or ideal)
Exemplar theory: predicts the standard is the most common member, or the most recent or most salient member; can vary from time to time
The TAVE non-word experiment
- Many -ave words pronounced similarly
Ex. save, dave, rave, crave, brave - When you see “tave” you’ll probably pronounce it similarly to “save” (90% of ppl)
- Predicted by prototype theory as it’s the most typical
BUT “have” is much more common than any of those words individually or even combined (= the most common/more exemplars)
- Exemplar would predict a different pronunciation than what is seen
- Pronunciation influenced by priming effect = exemplar instead
Real-world frequency P/E
Prototype can be separate from real-world frequency, exemplar can’t really be separated
Parallel prototype/exemplar system
Combination of the two with a standard formed using both mechanisms
Categorization based on theories and heuristics
- Not always similarity/resemblance based in the obvious ways
- Sometimes based on deeper analyses and the ways that matter = underlying theory
ex. counterfeit money and 3 legged dogs
Rules of natural vs. created objects
…
Knowledge network
- Interconnected representations of different things
- Loose associations
- Like a spreading activation network
Propositional network
- Specific propositions that tell you about the relationship between things
- Less broad than the knowledge network
Visual knowledge
- Connect percept (organized form like using the gestalt principles) to your memory (object files)
- The experience of forming a mental image is kind of like “seeing” a picture in your head
Chronometric studies of imagery
We can get some information on how people are processing their mental images by observing how long it takes to perform particular tasks
Depiction vs. description experiment
Depiction
- specific imagery options
- large things, things positioned at front are prominent (ex. head)
Description
- no specific instructions, can form a mental image if they want
- distinctive features, strong associates are prominent (ex. claws)
Dual-coding hypothesis (Paivio)
Two codes and two storage systems
- Imagery: pictures, concrete words (ex. Apple, not “justice”)
- Verbal: some pictures (ex. When given directions), concrete and abstract words
The concrete/abstract dimension
The ease with which a concept can elicit a mental image (be represented by a picture)
- Imagery and concreteness are highly correlated (ex. Apple high for both, justice low for both)
Paired (cued) associate memory task
- First is the cue, then is the associate/response (try to remember the associate to be recalled when prompted with the cue)
Best recall
- when you start with high imagery
Best to worst
1. H-H
2. H-L
3. L-H
4. L-L
Types of coding + dual coding
Verbal code: involving language networks
Image code: involving perceptual networks
Dual coding: when possible, two memory codes are better than one
Scanning spatial images → kosslyn
Purpose: Demonstrate that a mental image is similar to perception of a real object
- Image has spatial properties
Method:
A. Tested using the fictional map to study the effect of distances on mental scanning time
B. Tried measuring scanning times for stimuli participants cannot predict → maze, spiral, swirl
Results: Different individual scanning times
BUT same linear relationship between actual distance and distance to move it in your mental image
Conceptual-propositional hypothesis
Maybe participants might be predicting or guessing the response times the experimenter wants
- You don’t need to use “images”
- Information stored in the same way for both verbal and visual events/objects
- Concepts and propositions (this is this, this has this, etc.)
- Concrete words have a richer set of predicates than more abstract words
Purpose of boat and EMF experiment
show analogue representation
Boat image experiment
- focus on one end of the boat image
- answer questions about features either at the focus or at the other end of the pic
- people take longer to answer questions about features distant
Scanning across depends on spatially NOT functionally similar
Elephant next to rabbit VS rabbit next to fly experiment
- Appropriateness = does ______ have _____
- Takes longer when small bc you have to zoom in (scale)
- Smaller thing is less detailed = need to imagine zooming in
Analogue representation
- This is a linear relation
- People scan their images at a constant rate (scanning twice takes double the time and so on)
- The image you form has some of the properties of a real picture - maintains a spatial layout
Functional equivalency
So are visual images literally laid out in the way that pictures are?
Not necessarily
- Functionally close ≠ physically close in the brain (ex. Can only travel along the roads paved)
Functional distance
Significance for images
The difference between physically and functionally close
Functionally, the representation is close to picture-like, in that it maintains information about size, distance, geometry, etc.
Mental rotation
- Takes longer to move longer distances over mental images; same relation holds when we TRANSFORM mental images
- The further it needs to rotate, the longer it takes (like you are physically doing it) = linear relationship
Imagery and perception
- Images are not the same thing as pictures.
- Images are the PERCEIVED version of pictures
- Recall how perception is not the same as what is in the real world – perception goes beyond.
- Same goes for imagery
Are images ambiguous?
- Images are ORGANIZED, disambiguated (ambiguity removed), 3D
- More difficult to reinterpret an ambiguous figure from a mental image
Bistable
Easy to see both interpretations at the same time → the object
The mental image disambiguates the picture (picks one)
TMS experiments
disrupt one and see if it disrupts another
Interference
Listen or look for a faint stimulus, while maintaining either a visual or auditory image.
- More detections when visual/auditory vs. auditory/auditory (same modality)
- Also less false alarms
- Like INTERFERENCE
- Using same brain machinery
Evidence that the same neural networks are involved in perception and imagery
Interference
Priming
TMS experiments
Visual acuity (foveal vs. peripheral)
Etc.
Brain imaging observations
Similar brain regions activated during perceiving and imaging
- Visual imagery DOES activate some of the same brain areas as vision
Result: brain areas normally active for real visual images were active in the imagery conditions and not in the non-imagery conditions
Brain damage examples
Selective damage to the brain impairs visual imagery in the same manner that it impairs visual perception
- Object agnosia - also have difficulties with imagery
- Cerebral achromatopsia - cannot perceive colour and images do not have colour
- Visual neglect - also show the same neglect in their images unless directed to turn and consider something else
Double dissociation
Can do b but not a, someone else can do a but not b
evidence for a distinction between perception and imagery
- Imagery deficits with preserved perception/recognition
- Perception/recognition deficits with preserved imagery
Is imagery just a weaker form of perception
Imagery ISN’T just a weaker form of perception
It is distinct, yet they share pathways and mechanisms
Visual vs. spatial imagery
not the same thing
- Dissociation between object recognition versus spatial location
- Congenitally blind ppl show the same effects of mental rotation and image scanning, therefore spatial representation is not necessarily visual
How can spatial info be represented
- Visual, motion imagery/body imagery, auditory, tactile, vestibular, somatosensory, proprioceptive
- We can think of spatial info as the more general construct
Neurological distinction between visual and spatial imagery tasks - Patient LH
- brain damage
- vision ok
- visual RECOGNITION damaged
- could draw images they were looking at but couldn’t identify them/didn’t understand what they were
Can people be separated into “good” vs. “bad” imagers
Not that simple
- can be separated into size, state, colour, etc. differences
Imaging individual differences
Need to look at different aspects
- Ex. scanning, rotating, elaborating
- Visual or spatial?
- Vivid imagers vs sparse imagers
- Little relationship between self-reports of vividness and performance on imagery tasks (ex. Speed and accuracy on tests)
Vividness vs. imagery + brain scan
Vividness probably has to do with visual
Imagery tests are usually more spatial
- Put self-reported vivid imagers and the opposite in an MRI machine
- Self-reported vivid imagers show more occipital (visual) brain activation than do sparse imagers
- For vivid imagers, it really is more like “seeing”
Eidetic (photographic) memory experiment
- Show someone a bunch of random dots multiple times
- Then imagine all and superimpose
- Will create a hidden picture
Long term visual memory
Need to construct images a piece at a time from IMAGE FILES in the LTM
Difference between an image file (LTM) and an active image (in working memory)
- Image file is dormant, you can’t perform operations on it
- Need to make an active image from it to work with it
The image file isn’t necessarily picture-like, but the active image IS
Verbal storage of visual info in the LTM - experiment
We have a label for it (ex. “cat”)
- Show them ambiguous labelled images
- Then get them to redraw it after a while (redraw the exact image they just saw)
- They will draw something that looks more like the label
Label affects interpretation of the image
Pros and cons to verbal image labels
Very helpful to remember a verbal label along with an image - gives you another route for retrieval
However, can also lead to schema based memory mistakes
= More intrusion errors
Imagery benefit to memory
- Provides another route for retrieval
- Many mnemonics rely on imagery
- People are better at recalling highly imaginable words in a list than less imageable words (ex. mouse vs. context)
- Works just as well with spatial images, not just visual
Making memorable mnemonics
Many mnemonics rely on imagery
- One common rule for mnemonics: make the image really bizarre and interactive for better memory
Interaction more important
If you want to use bizarreness, only make one or two things bizarre
- Only weird things among normal ones are particularly memorable
Synesthesia
Stimulus appropriate for one sense (inducer) triggers an experience appropriate to another sense (concurrent)
1/200 ppl
Better memory bc now two cues
Bad synesthesia application
- Synesthesia can help or hurt memory
- Difficult if you show number in its wrong colour
- Like a Stroop task for synesthetes
Sports and spatial imagery
You can practice sports just by imagining it
Ex. rehearsing a throw
Three groups
1. Actual physical practice
2. Mental practice for the same amount of time
3. Control (no practice)
Results:
Mental practice better than control but worse than real practice
Helps with some things more than others
Ex. doesn’t help you remember exactly how much force to use, but helps you practice how to hold your hands
Optimal: 20 mins mental practice every week
