Last unit-Cog. Psych

Will's Story-examples of over-regularization

I went to pick them apples and then when I comed home I (??) in my garden and then I , I yelled but that didn't work though I bought my (??) and we waked him up and we putted him in the (??)

Recap of ch.8

Constructive nature of memory: an active process in which we use our prior knowledge, experiences, and context; errors in source monitoring: crytoamnesia, influence of familiarity and stereotypes -Are there any advantages? -Most often errors are inconsequential but occasionally they can lead to harm

Memory for emotional stimuli

-Emotional events remembered more easily and vividly (but can depend on the situation) -Emotion improves memory partially by enhancing consolidation: due to hormone release during or after the event; ex: cortisol released -associated w brain activity in the amygdala: ppl w amygdala damage show reduced emotion and no memory advantage for emotional stimuli (patient BP) -Amygdala almond size. Next to hippocampus. Amygdala enhances memories

Flashbulb memories explanations

-Emotions enhance the subjective sense of remembering -Rimmele et al. (2011) -Narrative rehearsal hypothesis: repeated viewing/hearing of event on TV, TWITTER, NEWSPAPER, TALKING W OTHERS, ETC. -may introduce errors into own memory -provides many opportunities to rehearse/repeat the memory event over and over -Ost et al. (2002): questioned ppl abt princess Diana's death: asked if they had seen film of the car crash (Which didn't exist) -44% of ppl said they saw the film

Recap of Ch. 5/6/7

-Encoding: active, more elaborate strategies tend to be better; help make more connections w material -Retrieval: Matches b/w encoding and retrieval benefit memory; more diagnostic cue=more likely to remember -Consolidation: synaptic consolidation; long-term potentiation; systems consolidation; standard model vs. multiple trace model; reconsolidation can update/change memories

post-identification feedback effect

It is an effect is robust and has profound forensic implications because the courts relay on witnesses' answers to these questions to make decisions about the reliability of the identification. The effect seems to occur because there is not an accessible memory trace formed about these retrospective judgments, thereby making witnesses rely on an inference process that responds to the feedback. -confidence in one's memories may be increased by post-event questioning/reinforcement -may make memories easier to retrieve "memory is part of the crime scene" -The care we take to preserve crime scenes should also be used to preserve witness's memories

Errors in Eyewitness Testimony

-Errors due to familiarity: source monitoring -church film (male teacher and female teacher) reading to his students -both grps see a film getting female teacher getting robbed -ppl who had the male teacher thought that he was the robber-identifying the teacher as the robber -that's why news stations are a little wrong in presenting a pic of the alleged fugitive/suspect -errors due to suggestion -Errors due to identification and perception Wells and Bradfield (1998) Participants viewed security videotape with gunman in view for 8 seconds Everyone identified someone as the gunman from photographs afterwards The actual gunman's picture was not presented -Sailor identified as robber because purchased tickets previously

Exemplar Approach

-Exemplar approach to categorization: also involves determining whether object is similar to others; category standard represented by multiple examples called exemplars (rather than a single prototype) -exemplars are actual category members encountered previously -to categorize, compare the new item to stored exemplars -the more similar an object is to a known category member, the faster it will be categorized -explains typicality effect: objects similar to more exemplars are easier to identify

Source monitoring error

-Failure to distinguish source of information -MPI is misattributed to the original source ("yield" is attributed to slide show, and not statement after)

probs with the embodied approach

-Garcea et al. (2013) -not well suited to explaining knowledge of abstract concepts: "democracy", "truth"

Evidence for a sensitive period

-Genie Wiley: extreme neglect; almost no linguistic input; unable to learn a language; missed her critical period to learn language -Mary No Name: no linguistic input; limited sign language

Patient BP

-His amygdala was not functioning correctly -was shown a video about a mother and a son. The son was injured. While other participants showed better memory for the part of the video in which the son was injured, B.P. did not.

pronunciation specificity

-I want to go - I wanna go

What is being done to help with lessening errors?

-Inform witness that perpetrator might not be in lineup -use "fillers" in lineup similar to suspect: decreases false identification -use sequential presentation (not simultaneous) -"blind" lineup administrator -improve interviewing techniques: cognitive interview

Evidence for Universality of Language

-It is innate (build-in to the human mind): critical/sensitive period -deaf children invent sign language: Nicaraguan Sign Language (LSN) -All cultures have a language: over 5,000 diff languages -Language development is similar across cultures: children babble around 7 months, form meaningful words around 1 yr, etc. -languages are "unique but the same": diff words, sounds, and rules; all have nouns, verbs, negatives, questions/past/present tense

Familiarity can influence source memory

-Jacoby et. al (1989) becoming famous overnight experiment

Rimmele et al. (2011)

-Memories for negative emotional pics were stronger and associated w greater confidence -but accuracy for surrounding detail was worse -flashbulb memories are not as special as ppl thought they were

Making inferences

-Memory can be influenced by inferences that ppl make based on their experiences and knowledge -memory often includes info that is implied by, or consistent w, the to-be-remembered info but was not explicitly stated: pragmatic inferences

What could happen to memory bc of schemas and scripts?

-Memory can include info not actually experienced but inferred -Memory can include information not actually experienced but inferred because it is expected and consistent with the schema -Can also lack novel things that might have been present if they are inconsistent with schema (e.g., skull) -This construction can lead to errors or "false memories"

Flashbulb memories

-Memory for circumstances surrounding shocking, highly charged important events--->ex. 9/11, boston Marathon bombings, important life events (death, birth, etc.) -Where you were and what you were doing -Thought to be highly emotional, vivid, and detailed -Were talked about in terms of a photograph that resisted fading -Similar to other memories: decay in a similar way as everyday memories, but belief in accuracy remains high Emotion and narrative rehearsal

self-image hypothesis

-Memory is enhanced for events that occur as a person's self-image or life identity is being formed -ppl assume identities during adolescence and young adulthood -evidence from "I am" study (Rathbone et al., 2008) -you are building who you are. "I am" study. Participants made "I am" statements and then rated when they became those things, ~25.

Retroactive interference

-More recent learning interferes w memory for something in the past -original memory trace is not replaced, just interfered w (hearing "yield" interferences w "stop")

Connectionist Approach

-New approach to knowledge representation -Creating computer models to represent human cognition -uses similar ideas discussed in Ch. 2 (concepts represented by patterns of activity distributed across a network) -Attractive for two reasons: theory based on how info is represented in the brain; explains a number of findings including: how experience shapes organization-how brain damage can affect some knowledge but leave other knowledge intact -Parallel distributed processing models -More complex, but more brain-like

Studying Language in Cognitive Psychology

-Noam Chomsky's (1957) Syntactic Structures and (1959) review: Poverty of stimulus: language is too complex to be completely learned from reinforcement -children produce sentences they have never heard/been reinforced: "I hate you mommy." "I like wrench ice-cream" -universal grammar

embodied approach (Barsalou)

-Our knowledge of concepts is based on reactivation of snesory and motor processes that occur when we interact w the object: reading "hammer" reactivates the brain areas that are active when you experience using a hammer -mirror neurons

language production

-Speakers generally want to be understood. They follow Grice's Maxims: The maxim of quantity the maximum of quality the maximum of relation the maxim of manner Sheldon and Ross

If autobiographical memory is memory of our personal past, what events are remembered well?

-Transition points = graduation Significant events in our lives Highly emotional events Transition points, moving to college, etc.

How do we understand language?

-Understanding words: top-down info-speech segmentation; word frequency -understanding sentences: parsing-syntax 1st approach; interactionist approach

Loftus and Palmer (1974)-Why does this effect occur?

-What is happening that changes participants' memory reports? -Memory-trace replacement hypothesis -Retroactive interference -Source monitoring error

Reminiscence Bump

-When participants age 40+ recall events from their lives, memory is enhanced for recent events and ones that occurred in adolescence and early adulthood (b/w ages 10-30)

Lexical ambiguity

-Words can have more than one meaning -Meaning dominance: Some meanings may occur more frequently -->Biased dominance (tin) -->Balanced dominance (cast) -->Processed based on frequency and context

cryptoamnesia

-a memory re-surfaces and is mistaken as an original (new) thought -can lead to unconscious plagiarism

Categorization

-but how do we get things into categories? -definitional approach to categorization does an object meet the definition of a category?; chair: a piece of furniture consisting of a seat, legs, back, and often arms, designed to accommodate one person

definitional approach

-definitions do not include all members of a category: too many subtle differences; not all members have the same features -Definitional approach not effective -family resemblance (wittgenstein, 1953) items in a category resemble one another in number of ways; share characteristics -Family resemblance allows for some variation within category -Sports example

Nicaraguan Sign Language

-school emphasized Spanish and lip reading and taught Spanish fingerspelling -deaf children created their own pidgin: Lenguaje de Signos Nicaragüense (LSN) based mostly on their home signs -younger children creolized the LSN (verb agreement; evidence of a real grammar)

Hypotheses about the reminiscence bump

-self-image -cognitive -cultural life script

interactionist approach to parsing

-sentence interpretation also occurs thru the meaning of a scene we are observing -Tanenhaus et al. (1995)

telegraphic speech

-short sentences baby doll ride truck kathryn no like celery pig say oink -still no grammatical or functional words

Collins and Loftus (1975) Modified Model

-shorter links to connect closely related concepts -longer links for less closely related concepts -no hierarchal structure; based on person's experience

Errors due to attention and arousal-eyewitness testimony

Attention can be narrowed Weapon focus effect Low arousal: attend to irrelevant information High arousal: focus too narrowly Moderate arousal: best for being aware of relevant information

Script

Conception of sequence of actions that occur during a particular experience -going to a restaurant, going to the dentist -influence memory

Pragmatic inferences

based on knowledge gained through experience -one which is likely to be true because of the state of the world -aka inductive inferences -McDermott and Chan (2006): reading various sentences based on diff situations, removing a word from each sentence (words w wide variety of synonyms) and then allowing the participants to fill in the blanks in each sentence based on what they remembered

corpora

collections of representative samples of utterances or written text of a language -a good corpus is a good representation of language -Kucera and Francis (1967) -Celex (1993) -HAL (1998) -SUBTLEXus (2009) -Google Ngram: shows the frequency/popularity of words over time -Corpus: Sample of utterances or written text from language. How people typically use language -KF: Based on adult written texts (1.014 million words) -Celex: Based on American and Britain written texts (16.6 million words) -HAL: Based on Internet news groups (130+ million words) -SUBTLEXus: American film and television subtitles from 1900 (51 million words) -Google Ngram: Determines word frequency by books published across world

cognitive hypothesis

encoding is better during periods of rapid change that are followed by stability -Many changes occur during adolescence/young adulthood that lead to relative stability (going to school, starting career, getting married, etc.) -evidence from ppl who emigrated to the US after young adulthood > reminiscence bump is shifted -rapid changes causes stronger encoding. Think about all the changes you make in your late teens and early 20s and then think about how many changes occur for your parents currently.

Word Superiority Effect

Letters are easier to recognize when contained in a word than when appearing alone or in a non-word Importance of context

Misinformation Effect

Misleading info presented after a person witnesses an event can change how that person describes the event later -->Misleading post-event information (MPI)

Lexical decision task

Read a string of letters silently, one at a time Determine whether letters represent a word or non-word burgli

Stereotypes also influence source memory

Read statements w accompanying name: --->Some statements stereotypically male: "I swore at the guy who insulted me." --->Some stereotypically female: "I made a centerpiece for the dining table." --->Some neutral: "I am very easygoing." -When they were given stereotypically female names w stereotypically female actions, they tended to remember more

Factors that impact our understanding of words

Speech segmentation (top-down information) Word frequency

Garden Path sentences and Temporal ambiguity

initial words of a sentence are ambiguous and can lead to more than one meaning: meaning is solved by end of sentence -After the musician played the piano was wheeled off of the stage -the horse races past the barn fell

semantics

meanings of words and sentences

parsing

mental grouping of words of a sentence into phases : aids in determining meaning

aren't some languages or varieties just better than others?

no, they are not -all natural languages are equal -we all speak a dialect of a specific language -some languages are the official languages of countries, others are not -there are no"right" or "wrong" languages but some languages are perceived as higher status bc they have been established as a standard or bc they are spoken by an elite: this is a purely social phenomenon and is not based on any inherent quality of the language or dialect -today's standard English, or General American has its origins in the non-coastal Eastern US and the adjacent Midwestern states (b4 their vowels shifted)

discrimination

referring to categorical perception -worse at discriminating language that is not relevant to us -better vice versa

Semantic priming

refers to the observation that a response to a target (e.g., dog) is faster when it is preceded by a semantically related prime (e.g., cat) compared to an unrelated prime (e.g., car)

event-related potential and brain imaging studies:

semantics and syntax associated w diff mechanisms -N400 experiment: we are able to distinguish a syntactic error from a semantic error -we are processing meaning and syntax separately

cognitive economy

shared properties stored only at higher-level nodes -exceptions are stored at lower levels -Cognitive economy aids efficiency. But problems with cognitive economy: not all birds fly

principle of cognitive economy

storing shared properties just once at a higher-level node ex. you must travel from "canary" to "bird" to find out that a canary can fly (had that info been placed at the canary node, we would know right away) but this model proposes that including "can fly" at the node for every type of bird was innefficient and would use up too much storage space. Thus, instead of indicating the properties "can fly" and "has feathers" for every kind of bird, these properties are placed at the node for "bird" b/c this property holds for most birds

Different approaches to parsing

syntax-first approach interactionist approach

Prescriptivism

the practice of championing one linguistic variety against others. Sometimes it implies that the other varieties are incorrect, unsophisticated or even illogical

two word stage

two-word stage (+/- 24 months) -"big house", "baby cry", "hit ball" -still virtually no closed class words-some pronouns, especially ME/YOU -no syntactic or morphological markers; that is, no inflections for number, or person, or tense, and so on

Jacoby et. al (1989)

-Acquisition: read nonfamous names -immediate test: read nonfamous names from acquisition plus new nonfamous names and new famous names. Q: Which are famous? Result: most nonfamous names correctly identified as nonfamous -wait 24 hrs.... -delayed test: same as immediate test result: some nonfamous names misidentified as famous -Explanation: Certain non-famous names were familiar, and participants misattributed the source of the familiarity Failed to identify the source as the list that had been read the previous day

Another Critical Period: /RA/ /LA/ DISCRIMINATION

-BABIES ARE STATISTICIANS: another ex of critical period -they listen for patterns int heir native language -babies under 10 minths can discriminate phonemes of all languages -older babies lose this ability -as they acquire a linguistic system they learn which distinctions need to be represented in that specific system -Patricia Kuhl's Ted Talk on categorical perception (specific ex of a critical period)

Marsh and coworkers 2006

-Called Sebastian Weisdorf as famous -When unsure, participants seemed to rely on what "typical" males and females would say to make source judgment Unique from other memories: greater activation of hippocampus and prefrontal cortex (multidimensional, rich)

Over-regularization

-Children over-regularize more with verbs that parents use less often -Fewer encounters with these verbs means more chance of retrieval failure -They know the correct forms and have them stored in memory, but sometimes fail to retreive them -Overregularization occurs after children have learned the -ed past tense rule. -Overregularization is an example of the generativity of languages: children are not merely repeating what they hear but they are building language by combining units according to rules.

Ch.9 Knowledge

-Connectionist Approach: how learning occurs-network responds to stimulus; provided w correct response thru feedback or life observation; modifies responding to match correct response; Error signal: difference b/w actual activity of each output unit and the correct activity; back propagation: error signal transmitted back thru network starting from property units; indicates how weights should be changed to allow output signal to match correct signal; process repeats until error signal is 0; Graceful degradation: damage to the system does not completely disrupt its operation

False recognition

-DRM procedure Deese, Rodiger, McDermott (1995) -Rest, Dream, Cactus, Pillow, Snore, Tired, Awake, Drowsy, Peace, Yawn, Slumber, Window, Sleep, doze, night -the word is partially activated bc it fits the theme of the words around it (due familiarity, semantic priming occurs) -Cactus is the baseline-chosen on purpose bc it is not semantically related to the other words -Presented words activate semantically related words -The partial activation of new but related words leads to a sense of familiarity -Familiarity can lead to false recognition

Home Sign- Language out of Thin Air

-Deaf children of hearing parents will develop their own sign language if they are not exposed to a formal sign language -a key feature of language is interaction: if nobody signs back the child's home sign will be simpler and more similar to a pidgin than to a natural language -if the family signs back, or there are two deaf individuals, their home sign will generally be a full-blown language -please don't use the word primitive!

Psycholinguistics

-Discover psychological process by which humans acquire and process language Comprehension Speech production Representation Acquisition -Context is critical, as is knowledge

Memory-trace replacement hypothesis

-MPI impairs or replaces memories that were formed during original event -Reconsolidate new but diff info

mirror neurons

- neurons that fire when we do a task or when we observe another doing that same task -neurons in a monkey's premotor cortex fired both when the monkey grasped food on a tray and when the monkey observed the experimenter grasping food on a tray (Rizzolatti et al., 1996)

restricted languages

- pidgins - "A pidgin," says RL Trask, "is nobody's mother tongue, and it is not a real language at all: it has no elaborate grammar, it is v limited in what it can convey, and diff ppl speak it differently" -arises when 2 social grps w diff languages need to communicate -developed by adults -has no naive speakers -the less dominant grp generally develops the pidgin -colonialism: mauritius -Mauritian Pidgin developed by african slaves to talk to one another and with their french owners. First human settlers Dutch, Malagasy slaves French Rule 1710-1810, British Rule 1810-1968) Chinese, Malay African Malagasy Indian labourers.

Phonemic restoration effect

-"Fill in" missing phonemes based on context of sentence and portion of word presented -The state governors met with their respective legi/s/latures convening in the capital city. /s/ = 'cough'

connectionist approach

-"neuron-like units" -input units: activated any stimulation from environment -hidden units: receive input from input units -output units: receive input from hidden units -Parallel distributed processing -Knowledge represented in distributed activity of many units -Weights determine how strongly incoming signal will activate next unit -Ultimately, activation of network units determined by -->Original signal from input unit -->Connection weights -Weights like synapses -FOUR RELATION Statements

Perceiving and Understanding Words

-Lexicon: all words a person understands-aka mental dictionary; ~50,000 words -most adult native test-takers range from 20000-35000 words -avg native test-takers of age 8 already know 10,000 words

Power of Suggestion

-Loftus and coworkers (1978) See slides of traffic accident w stop sign -introduce MPI manipulation: "Did another car pass the red Datsun while it was stopped at the stop/yield sign?" ½ people get stop sign ½ people get yield sign -Inclusion of MPI seems natural -Participants identified pictures of what they heard (yield sign) not what they saw (stop sign)

multiple factors approach

-Looks at how concepts are divided up within a category rather than identifying specific brain areas of networks for different concepts -Hoffman and Lambon Ralph (2013) Subjects' task was to rate each item on the features concept "door": "How much do you associate door with a particular color (or form, or motion, etc.)?" rating of 7 for "very strongly" to 1 for "not at all." -However, mechanical devices (tools, musical instruments) overlap with both animals and artifacts in their representations

Constructive Nature of Memory

-Our memories are not perfect records of events -memory=what actually happens + person's knowledge, experiences, and expectations: it is an active process; memory is not veridical -Bartlett's "War of the Ghosts" experiment: had participants read a story from a diff culture (Canadian Indian folklore); participants later wrote down the story from memory -It may seem disadvantageous to rely on such a fallible memory -What are the adv. /disadv. of the constructive nature of memory? -Advantages: allows us to "fill in the blank," make decisions, solve problems, project into the future stereotypes arise bc humans are machines that create rules that help make decisions for the future -positive mechanism leads to stereotyping; help us move forward in life -Disadvantages: sometimes we make error; sometimes we misattribute the source of info -most of the time memory is accurate -although memory errors occur, these errors are helpful -memory is like other cognitive processes: we "fill in" blanks -While relying on scripts, schemas, and inferences to support our memories lead to lots of errors, most of the time these errors are not really a problem and allow us to extract the information we need without too much interference from detailed information. -Understanding is not a replica of the stimuli -Context affects our understanding, which leads us to predict/assume details -Errors do not impact our lives too frequently, but knowing how memory functions can help us discern when to be confident in what we remember

Niesser and Harsch 1992: flashbulb memories for the Challenger explosion

-Participants filled out questionnaire within one day of explosion and 2.5-3 years later -Details changed over time (initially, 21% said heard about explosion on TV; after 2.5-3 years, 45% did) What is the general topic? Study of memories based on the explosion of the Challenger Is the experiment challenging a theory/assumption/previous finding? If so, what is it? Yes, it is challenging the flashbulb phenomenon. What is the main take away point of the experiment? Flashbulb memories are not as special as Brown and Kulik of 1977 made them out to be How does the experiment design address the main question? Subjects were interviewed within a day of the accident and again 2.5-3 years later to assess and compare the differences in the circumstances surrounding the event What are the results and how do they lead to the main take away point? One subject claimed that they were in religion class and they heard from the people talking about it. 21-->45% of ppl claimed to have heard about the event on television What would the results have to be to prove this theory wrong/an opposing theory right? There would have to be little to no changes in the details surrounding the "flashbulb" event.

Loftus and Palmer (1974)

-Participants heard "smashed" or "hit" to describe car accident -those who heard "smashed" said cars were going faster than those who heard "hit" -32% reported seeing broken glass when there was none (in smashed condition); 14 percent in hit condition

Elizabeth Phelps' Study

-Participants who were closer to WTC experienced stronger emotions (more distress) -4 yrs later they report the most vivid (flashbulb) memories -They also show more activation in the amygdala than participants who were further away

Autobiographical Memory

-Recollected events that belong to a person's past: involves a mix of episodic, semantic, prospective, etc. components -Tend to be multidimensional and complex: spatial, emotional, and sensory aspects -Unique from other memories: greater activation of hippocampus and prefrontal cortex (multidimensional, rich)

Narrative rehearsal hypothesis

-Repeated viewing/hearing of event on TV, Twitter, newspaper, talking with others, etc. -May introduce errors into own memory -Provides many opportunities to rehearse/repeat the memory event over and over -ex. Ost et. al 2002: Idea: Extensive media coverage of the general crash (not it actually happening) caused people to remember something that didn't occur

Hub and spoke model

-Semantic dementia: general loss of knowledge -Associated with damage to anterior temporal lobe (ATL) -Hub and spoke model of semantic knowledge: areas associated with specific functions are connected to the ATL. Damage to one of these areas can result in category specific deficits, damage to the ATL can result in semantic dementia.

Errors of Source Monitoring

-Source monitoring/Source memory: the process of determining the origins of our memories -source monitoring error -cryptoamnesia

Fine and Jaeger 2013

-ambiguity effect -semanticization -showing you can affect change in a short period of time

multiword stage to adult performance

-around 30 months -sentences get longer and grammatical structures emerge -vocab increases -language is a hierarchal system and we learn language hierarchally and all kids learn language in the same order

criticism of collins and quillian's model

-cannot explain typicality effects: ostrich is a bird vs. canary is a bird; both are one node away, but canary is verified faster-->Both ostrich and canary are one node away -a cat is an animal vs. a cat is a mammal: verifying "mammal" sentence found to be slower despite fewer links to travel

the sensory-functional hypothesis

-categories broken down by how you think about them: sensory for living things; functional for artifacts (nonliving things) -evidence: patients who do not recognize specific categories (like living animals) but do recognize others -prediction: a person who cant identify artifacts should have impaired functional knowledge and a person who can't identify living things should have impaired sensory ability; however, Matthew Lambon Ralph and coworkers (1998) reported a patient who couldnt recognize artifacts but who had an impaired sensory ability

creolization

-creoles evolve from Pidgins and are natural languages -they have native speakers -children who are born around Pidgins will creolize the pidgin by applying rules

Critical/Sensitive Period

-ideal time to learn a skill -if the skill is not learned within that window: -->the individual will never learn it (critical) -->the individual will have a harder time learning it and will never master it (sensitive) (usually language deals with sensitivity) (there are several diff sensitive periods to learn diff languages)

Talarico and Rubin's Study (2003)

-details slowly decreased over time, but the same b/w regular memories and flashbulb memories -As details decreased, the belief decreased -It's your belief of how accurate your memory is is the only difference -Results: (a) The decrease in the number of details remembered was similar for memories of 9/11 and for memories of an everyday event. (b) Participants' belief that their memory was accurate remained high for 9/11, but decreased for memories of the everyday event. The first set of questions asked specifically about how the participant heard of the terrorist attacks on the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001, and the second set asked about an everyday event from the participant's life in the days prior to the attacks. The types of events listed for the everyday memory were typical for the life of an average college student (e.g., parties, sporting events, and studying Relivingness and vividness also stayed high, constant

categories and concepts in the brain

-diff areas of the brain may be specialized to process info about certain categories: double dissociation for categories "living things" and "nonliving things"; category-specific memory impairment

Exemplar approach advantages

-easily takes into account atypical cases: by remembering unique cases instead of always using "avg"; for ex. : some birds don't fly -easily deals w variable categories: don't have avg for "game"; lots of diff examples (video games, football, chess)

tanenhaus et al. (1995)

-eye movements change when need to reinterpret sentence -syntactic and semantic info used simultaneously ex. put the apple on the towel in the box -the fact that the two conditions show diff eye movement patterns suggests that ppl are using context, not just syntax to interpret the sentence -Interpretation 1: The relevant apple is the one on the towel Interpretation 2: Move the apple onto the towel -Caption: (a) One-apple scene similar to the one viewed by Tanenhaus et al.'s (1995) participants; (b) eye movements made while comprehending the task. Against syntax-first approach because scene should not make a difference

word frequency effect: eye tracking

-eye movements while reading -look longer at low-frequency words -need more time to access meaning -the time you spend looking at a word shows how much recognition you have for the word

Language Acquisition begins in utero

-fetuses starts to recognize the prosody of their native language -they prefer their mother's voice

Why have concepts and categories?

-helps us interact w the world classification, understanding/explanation, prediction, reasoning, communication -ex: here's a new fruit: what do you about it? You understand why it starts to smell if it's left outside for several days You can reason that it's okay to eat when it smells fresh, and not okay when it smells funny You can predict that if you take a seed from the fruit and put it into the ground, it'll grow You can tell other people that it's a fruit and they'll understand it too -(IM)Possible categories: a fictitious taxonomy of animal kingdom

all natural languages are creative

-hierarchical system: components combine into larger units -phonemes (refers to sound): shortest segment of speech that, if changed, alters meaning of word: --> ex. BIT - /B/ /I/ /t/ I pit I bat I bid -morphemes: refers to meaning; smallest unit of language that has meaning or grammatical function --> ex. TABLE: 1 morpheme -BEDROOM: 2 morphemes -S and ED considered morphemes -words -sentences -governed by rules: specific ways components can be arranged -but rules allow us to be creative

semantic networks

-how are categories or concepts organized in the mind? -semantic network approach: concepts arranged in networks -collins and quillian (1969) --->node = category/concept --->concepts are linked, and each has properties --->model for how concepts and properties are associated in the mind -Pioneering work, early model. Develop computer model of memory Do not necessarily correspond to structures I the brain, but how ideas are associate

syntactic specificity

-i know THAT you are my friend -I know ___ you are my friend

Repeated recall procedure

-initial description used as baseline -Later reports can then be compared to baseline

language instinct

-is the human brain pre-programmed for language? -language is innate- only surface details need to be learned (words, sounds) -there are a few exceptions to the "everybody speaks a language" rule -language has a critical period-we are biologically bound to learn our native language within a specific time frame

common ground

-isaacs and Clark (1987) 16 postcards of NYC The director has to describe how their postcards are arranged and the Matcher has to arrange their postcards in the same way, w/o seeing the Director's postcards -this task is easier when both the director and the Matcher are New Yorkers -->trials were briefer, fewer words used -when they were not both New Yorkers the trials were longer intially but when they established short ways to refer to them

influence of knowledge on sentence comprehension

-knowledge ab the environment ex. getting himself and his car to work ont he neighboring island took time. each morning he drove for a few mins and then boarded the... -knowledge ab language constructions ex. the experienced soldiers warned ab the dangers b4 the midnight raid ex. the experienced soldiers warned about the dangers conducted the midnight raid -Main verb construction is more likely, but this can change with experience

Conceptual knowledge

-knowledge that enables us to recognize objects and events and to make inferences about their properties -Concepts: -->Mental representation of a class or individual -->Meaning of objects, events, and abstract ideas -Knowledge exists as concepts -How is our knowledge about these things organized in our mind?

Universal stages of language development

-language stage: crying, cooing, babbling, intonation patterns, one-word utterances, two-word utterances, telegraphic speech, word inflections, questions, negations, rare and complex constructions, mature speech -beginning age: birth, 6 weeks, 6 months, 8 months, 1 yr, 18 months, 2 yrs, 2 yrs, 2.25 years, 5 years, 10 yrs

hierarchal organization

-larger, general categories divided into smaller, specific categories: animal, mammal, cat

Semantic category approach

-limited # of categories based on innate properties of survival importance -->parts of the brain and neural circuits specialized for certain types of information; i.e.: areas that respond to body parts or faces -Zhu et al., 2010 find that monozygotic twins are closer to one another in their face recogniition ability than fraternal twins, suggesting that at the mechanisms supporting face recognitions have a genetic basis -at the same time recognition depends on info that is distributed across diff areas of the brain: faces-areas for face recognition, emotion, gaze etc.; Hammers-areas for shape, motion, function, etc.

Prototypes or exemplars?

-may use both approaches: may start w prototype approach, but over time (and learning) exemplars play larger role -exemplars may work best for small categories: presidents of the US -Prototypes may work best for larger categories: Furniture

concepts

-mental representation of a class or individual -meaning of objects, events, and abstract ideas

source monitoring error

-misidentifying source of memory -Also called "source misattributions"

Power of Suggestion: Familiarity -Lindsey (1990)

-more similar the sources, the more likely that you will misremember the source -Tendency to report suggested details was set in opposition to ability to remember their source by telling Ss not to report anything from the narrative. Conditions were manipulated so that in the high- but not the low-discriminability condition it was easy to remember the suggestions and their source. At test, Ss were told (truthfully) that any information in the narrative relevant to the questions was wrong. Suggested details were more often reported on misled than control items in the low- but not the high-discriminability condition, yet suggestions impaired accurate recall of event details in both conditions. -Although the suggestibility of eyewitness memory is well documented, previous studies have not clearly established the extent to which misled Ss might come to believe they actually remember seeing the suggested details they report. To assess whether Ss confuse misleading suggestions for their "real memories" of a witnessed event, Ss were asked specific questions about their memory for the source of suggested items. The results of 5 experiments showed that misled Ss do sometimes come to believe they remember seeing items that were merely suggested to them, a phenomenon we refer to as the source misattribution effect. Nevertheless, the results also showed that the magnitude of this effect varies and that source misattributions are not an inevitable consequence of exposure to suggestions.

Ways to measure prototypicality

-naming as many items in this category as you can-top 10 items have high typicality -identifying-ex. clapping every time an item matches the definition of a "fruit"

Bartlett's "War of the Ghosts" experiment results

-over time, reproductions became shorter and contained omissions and inaccuracies -also tended to more closely reflect participants' own culture: transformed story to reflect culture of Edwardian England -Findings suggest that participants drew upon memories of the original event (episodic) and of their culture (semantic): i.e., 2 diff sources -Participants later wrote down the story from memory -->Immediate recall -->Delayed recall across time (1 day later, 2 days, etc.) -->Repeated reproduction

interactionist approach

-parsing determined by both syntax and semantics simultaneously -both influence processing as we read a sentence -ex. the spy saw the man w the binoculars ex. the bird saw the man w the binoculars -we use our knowledge of the world; properties of spies and birds to inform our interpretation

syntax-first approach to parsing

-parsing determined by syntactic rules (grammatical structure)

Garcea et al. (2013)

-patient A.A could not produce actions associated with various objects. (could not demonstrate how he'd swing a hammer) -Was still able to identify pictures of the objects -the ability to represent motor activity associated with actions is not necessary for recognizing objects, as the embodied approach would predict.

THE embodied approach

-perceptual and motor responses are linked in the human brain -Olaf Hauk and coworkers (2004 measured subjects' brain activity using fMRI): as subjects moved their right or left foot, left or right index finger, or tongue; as subjects read "action words" such as kick (foot action), pick (finger or hand action), or lick (tongue action) -cortex activated by the actual movements and by reading the action words: same areas of the brain, but more extensive for actions than words; i.e. leg words and leg movements elicit activity near the brain's center line, whereas arm words and finger movements elicit activity farther from the center line. -correspondence between words related to specific parts of the body and the location of brain activity is called semantic somatotopy,

Word Frequency Effect

-ppl respond more rapidly to high-frequency words: cat house furniture beach; despise demure alcove symbiosis -how do we determine word frequency? Corpora

Producing Language: Syntactic Coordination

-ppl use similar grammatical constructions The girl gave the boy the book the girl gave the book to the boy

prototype approach

-prototype approach to categorization: compare object to prototype that represents category; prototype = "typical" -"typical" = avg representation of members of a category encountered in the past -prototypical objects have high family resemblance: furniture-chair, sofa, mirror, telephone -Positive relationship between prototypicality and family resemblance -How do we know what the typical member is? Results of Rosch's (1975a) experiment, in which participants judged 50 objects on a scale of 1 (good example of a category) to 7 (poor example): (a) ratings for birds; (b) ratings for furniture. -PROTOTYPES DO NOT ACTUALLY EXIST

typicality effect

-prototypical objects are processed preferentially -statements about prototypical objects are verified easily: sentence-sentence verification technique: ex. an apple is a fruit; a pomegranate is a fruit -prototypical objects are named first when listing objects in a category

Errors due to suggestion

-suggestive questioning: misinformation effect -confirming feedback: post-identification feedback effect -Wells and Bradfield's (1998): "Good, you identified the suspect" experiment. The type of feedback from the experimenter influenced the participants' confidence in their identification, with confirming feedback resulting in the highest confidence.

speakers have lots of choices

-syntactic specificity -lexical specificity -pronunciation specificity

Weapon focus effect

-tendency to focus on a weapon during a crime, which causes a cost to memory for other things in the scene -Saunders (2009) -Results of Stanny and Johnson's (2000) weapons-focus experiment. Presence of a weapon that was fired is associated with a decrease in memory about the perpetrator, the victim, and the weapon.

Rosch: basic level categories

-the most "natural" level of categorization is neither too specific nor too general: superordinate (e.g., "furniture"); basic level (e.g., "chair")****; subordinate (e.g., "rocking chair"); -Basic level is frequently used for labelling -Children learn basic-level categories first -It is easier to define basic level categories than superordinate categories -ex. Guitar and fish rather than musical instrument/rock guitar or animal/trout

Creating false memories

-you can completely implant something false into someone's head -memory questionnaire sent to parents: write description of childhood events-ppl, location, time of year -false event is constructed (by researchers) based on descriptions from parents -Participants complete interview (usually 3): reminded of events from questionnaire and of false events that never occurred -Participants recalls and gives description of events-goes home and thinks about the events b/w interviews -why does this happen? -->Familiarity -->Source monitoring -->Similar to Jacoby et al's (1989) non-famous names experiment -->Participants do not remember the event the first day -->By day 2 or 3, sense of familiarity with story causes them to adopt the false narrative

Top-Down Word Processing

-the frequency effect suggests that we recognize words in part due to top-down processing bc words that we've seen more often are easier to recognize -we use top-down processing all the time to process auditory words as well

descriptivism

-the practice of objectively describing how a language is spoken by a linguistic group or community -don't every say "you're wrong" -describes language change according to change in environment -->SE (Standard English) doesn't use double negatives *I ain't got none" *I don't have none I don't have any -->AAVE (African American Vernacular English) uses double negatives I ain't got none -->Standard French uses double negatives Ce n'est pas possible! Je ne chanterai pas *Je chanterai pas -->Some French vernaculars and most informal speech drop the first part of the negation Je chanterai pas Ils sont pas venus C'est pas possible!

Priming

-the presentation of one stimulus facilitated the recognition/production of the same stimulus (repetition priming), or a related stimulus (semantic priming) later on.

Lexical specificity

-the professor of my bio course is very tall -she is very tall

Baby cries

-their first cries have a language-specific contour -french group preferentially produced cries w a rising melody contour -german group preferentially produced falling contours

given-new contract and common ground

-when we produce language we take the other person into account by (mostly) following Grice's maxims -we also follow the given-new contract: sentences should include info that is given (old) to the listener; sentences should include info that is new to the listener; example: "we got some beer out of the trunk" "it was warm" -in order to follow the given-new contract we have to establish common ground: mutual knowledge, beliefs and assumptions; doctor will talk to patient about "heart attack" unless patient is also a doctor, then doctor will use the word "myocardial infarction"

how did they do it?

-there must be something about the human brain that is predisposed to learn a language w a structure and rules -chomsky-if the rules are not consistent, the kids make it consistent

so how are children are learning?

-they have an innate language acquisition device: some call this an innate grammar, but you can think of it more broadly as a predisposition to learn a language quickly thru predetermined steps -they have to have meaningful input: they learn the superficial features of their native language by listening and learning -They productively apply the rules that they learn -->over-regularization -They are not learning by pure imitation and feedback

recap

-this area od research is a work in progress and that each of the approaches we have described provides part o the answer to the overall puzzle of how concepts are represented in the brain. -approaches agree that info about concepts is distributed across many structures in the brain -approaches differ in their emphasis on the type of information that is most important. -->Category-specific approach: specialized areas of the brain and networks connecting them -->Multiple-factor approach: role of many different features and properties -->Embodied approach: activity caused by the sensory and motor properties of objects.

(IM)Possible categories: a fictitious taxonomy of animal kingdom

-this shows that categories are not random, they are constrained by psychological principles -what are they? -i.e., what is in your head that leads you to organize the world the way you do?

one word stage

-usually content words that are concrete -words are used holophrastically: a word stands for an entire sentence -dont start out using function words (ex. the) -not just any words -for example you get: cookie drink bad yes/no but never in, the, and

Zipf's Law

-very few words in your lexicon are very frequent, very many are very infrequent -Top-down processing: words that we've encountered more often are easier to process

Linguistic Universals

All natural languages have: A grammar Basic word order (in terms of SVO, etc.) Nouns and verbs Subjects and objects Consonants and vowels All natural languages can be used to talk about everything.

cultural life script hypothesis

Each person has: -a personal life story (all events that occurred in life) -A cultural life script (an understanding of culturally expected events that o cur at a particular point during life) -Personal events are easier to recall when they fit the cultural life script -fits w the notion of schemas (better memory for events that fit within a cultural schema) - you are able to tag your life memories to cultures expected life memories

Schema

Knowledge about what is involved in a particular experience or about some aspect of the environment -post office, ball game, classroom -influence memory

Evidence that BASIC level is special

Level: global, basic, specific Ex: furniture, table, kitchen table number of common features: 3---(lose a lot of info) 9----10.3 (gain just a little info) --Caption: Left column: category levels; middle column: examples of each level for furniture; right column: average number of common features, listed from Rosch, Mervis et al.'s (1976) experiment. -People almost exclusively use basic-level names in free-naming tasks -Quicker to identify category membership when basic-level category used -Basic-level is much more common in adult discourse than names for superordinate categories -BUT...knowledge can affect which level is most common for you. Experts typically operate in terms of specific levels and use more specific names than non experts. -Different cultures tend to use the same basic-level categories, at least for living things

Understanding words: Importance of contexts

No context: Biased read faster The tin was bright and shiny. The cast worked into the night. Context for weaker meaning: Slows reading The miners went to the store and saw that they had beans in a tin. Context for stronger meaning: Quickens reading The miners went under the mountain to look for tin. For figure on ppt: -Caption: Accessing the meaning of ambiguous words while reading a sentence is determined by the word's dominance and the context created by the sentence. (a) and (b) illustrate situations with no prior context: (a) When a word has two equally likely meanings (balanced dominance), both meanings of the words are activated, which results in slow access. (b) When a word has one dominant meaning and one less dominant (biased dominance), only the most frequent meaning of a word is activated, which results in fast access. (c) and (d) illustrate situations in which context precedes a word with biased dominance: (c) If the less dominant meaning is indicated by the context, it is activated, but so is the more dominant meaning, even though it doesn't fit the context. This slows down access. (d) If the more dominant meaning is indicated by the context, it is the only meaning activated, and access is fast.

collins and quillian's (1969) semantic network

On the assumption that memory is organized hierarchically, Collins and Quillian (1969) proposed that you would need to move up and down the levels in such a hierarchy to link together concepts and attributes. In their study, subjects rated the truthfulness of a number of statements about whether ne category is part of another category ("A Canary is a Bird") or whether a particular category contains a certain attribute ("A canary can fly"). They predicted that the more levels of the hierarchy that one needs cross to verify the truthfulness of a statement, the longer a person should be to respond. -the time it takes for a person to retrieve information about a concept should be determined by the distance that must be traveled through the network - the model predicts that when using the sentence verification technique (subjects answer "yes" or "no" to statements about concepts), it should take longer to answer "yes" to the statement "a canary is an animal" than "a canary is a bird" - it is necessary to travel along two lines to get from canary to "animal" but only one to get to "bird" -Hierarchical model Collins and Quillian's (1969) semantic network. Specific concepts are indicated in blue. Properties of concepts are indicated at the nodes for each concept. Additional properties of a concept can be determined by moving up the network, along the lines connecting the concepts. For example, moving from "canary" up to "bird" indicates that canaries have feathers and wings and can fly.

But are flashbulb memories really special?

Original study supporting the photograph idea assessed memory only years after event (assassinations of JFK and MLK, Jr.) -Seemed highly detailed and accurate -But what is a limitation of this design? you can't compare bc you don't know what they are saying is true -Later studies have used repeated recall procedure -Results suggest that these memories can be inaccurate or lacking in detail: even tho participants report that they are v confident and that the memories seem vivid -Niesser and Harsch (1992) -Results suggest that these memories can be inaccurate or lacking in detail -Even though participants report that they are very confident and that the memories seem vivid

ERPS

Pancani et al. (2015) -N400 has greater amplitude when a word is low frequency -in the graph, negative is up! -N400 is an index of the ease of processing the meaning of a word -Broca's creating meaning based on word order Wernicke's poor understanding of meaning in general N400 temporal lobe; P600 in frontal lobe

Brewer and Treyens, 1981

Schemas theory -30 university students -aim: to investigate whether people's memory for objects in a room (office) is influenced by existing schemas about what to exist in an office -What did you see in the office? chairs, hammer, skull, window, wood floors, computer, cork board, and BOOKS -but there were no books even tho it was an office-it's bc books are usually in an office -inferred from their prior knowledge -results: most of the students recalled the schematic objects (desk, typewriter, etc.); many of them also recalled the unexpected item-the skull; some participants reported things that were not in the room but would be expected to be found in the room

Factors that impact our understanding of sentences

Semantics Syntax Parsing Knowledge

speech segmentation

Using context Taken out of context, people's words are difficult to understand Using sentence meaning Big girl vs. Big Earl Using sound and syntactic rules (through statistical learning) Pretty baby vs. Pre tyba by -We use our knowledge to know where to segment the continuous speech. Sometimes we make mistakes

universal grammar

an innate system that organizes and expands on sparsity of stimuli

spreading activation

figure 9.14: how activation can spread thru a network -Activation = arousal level of a node When node is activated, activity spreads along connected links -Concepts receiving activation are primed and more easily accessed

late closure

parser assumes each new word is part of the current phrase -After the musician played... -After the musician played the piano... -After the musician played the piano was wheeled off the stage -Late closure usually leads to correct parsing, but must wait for error to occur

syntax

rules for combining words into sentences

crowding

when diff concepts within a category share many properties -->e.g., "animals" all share "eyes," "legs," and "the ability to move" -->deficits are duet o an inability to distinguish amongst members of the category

the maxim of manner

when one tries to be as clear...

the maxim of quantity

where one tries to be as informative as one possibly can, and givs as much information as is needed, and no more

the maxim of relation

where one tries to be relevant, and says things that are pertinent to the discussion

the maxim of quality

where one tries to be truthful and does not give info that is false or that is not supported by evidence

Garden-path model

works until a correction is needed -Garden-path sentence meaning: appear to mean one thing, then end up meaning something else