Chapter 11 PSYC 345

Balanced dominance

A word has more one meaning, yet the usage for both meanings is about the same

Meaning dominance

Certain meanings of words are more well known than others

"Lexical dominance" refers to a word with more than one meaning.

False, Lexical ambiguity

A morpheme is a language sound that has no meaning

False, it is a combination of phonemes that does have meaning (/b/+/i/+/t/ = "bit") May or may not be actual words

A "situation model" refers to a mock-up of the setting of a story.

False: it is a mental representation of what a text is about

Syntax vs semantics

Syntax: Rules we use to combine words to produce an understandable sentence Semantics: meaning of a sentence

"Parsing" refers to the process of grouping words into phrases.

True

A "human language" includes a "hierarchical structure" and "syntactic rules."

True

Broca's area is in the frontal lobe.

True

The sentence, "He cut the cheese." probably refers to the use of a knife, but not necessarily.

True

"Unladylike" consists of 3 morphemes and 4 syllables.

True un- 'not' lady- woman -like 'having the characteristics of

A phoneme is a language sound that has no meaning.

True (/b/)

An experiment on the phonemic restoration effect would most likely include a. an extraneous cough. b. two similar-sounding letters (e.g., "T" and "C"). c. a garden-path sentence. d. a categorical perception task.

a. an extraneous cough.

According to the situation model of text processing, a. people create a mental representation of what the text is about in terms of people, objects, locations, and events. b. people draw inferences about what is happening in a story by considering both local and global connections. c. it will take longer to understand a story that involves a complex series of situations. d. people create a mental representation of what the text is about in terms of information about phrases, sentences, and paragraphs.

a. people create a mental representation of what the text is about in terms of people, objects, locations, and events.

Coherence refers to the a. representation of the text in a reader's mind, so that information in one part of the text is related to information in another part of the text. b. mental process whereby ambiguity is resolved online during sentence reading. c. principle that we process information in isolation before we link it to its context. d. mental process by which readers create information during reading that is not explicitly stated in the text.

a. representation of the text in a reader's mind, so that information in one part of the text is related to information in another part of the text.

The interactionist approach to parsing states that a. semantics is activated as a sentence is being read. b. the grammatical structure of a sentence determines the initial parsing. c. semantics is activated only at the end of a sentence. d. semantics is only activated to clear up ambiguity.

a. semantics is activated as a sentence is being read.

Which of the following is NOT influenced by meaning? a. Word superiority effect b. Phonemic restoration effect c. Word frequency effect d. The lexical decision task

c. Word frequency effect

In the lexical decision task, participants are asked to a. identify words that are contained in sentences. b. decide which meaning of an ambiguous sentence is correct in a specific situation. c. decide whether a string of letters is a word or a non-word. d. separate a sentence into individual words.

c. decide whether a string of letters is a word or a non-word.

Ron is an avid reader. He has a large vocabulary because every time he comes across a word he doesn't know, he looks it up in the dictionary. Ron encounters "wanderlust" in a novel, reaches for the dictionary, and finds out this word means "desire to travel." The process of looking up unfamiliar words increases Ron's a. parser. b. syntactical capacity. c. lexicon. d. mental set.

c. lexicon.

Yoda, a central character of the Star Wars movies created by George Lucas, has a distinctive way of speaking. His statement, "Afraid you will be," violates which property of the English language? a. Coding is required for language b. Language involves the use of a lexicon c. Language symbols must have high discriminability d. Language has a structure that is governed by rules

d. Language has a structure that is governed by rules

In an eye movement study, Rayner and coworkers had participants read sentences that contained either a high- or low- frequency target word. For example, the sentence "Sam wore the horrid coat though his ____ girlfriend complained," contained either the target word "pretty" or "demure." Results showed the participants' _____ was shorter for the target word _____. a. lexical distinction; demure b. lexical distinction; pretty c. fixation; demure d. fixation; pretty

d. fixation; pretty

Biased dominance

difference in use frequency of the meanings of a word

Broca vs Wernicke

Broca: producing speech, left frontal lobe Wernicke: comprehending speech, back temporal lobe

A "corpus " of a language refers to words that are not used anymore.

False: corpus- data about a particular language, a corpus of a language would include info about how frequently certain words are used along with their different meanings and grammatical phrases within which they are used

Wernicke's area is in the frontal lobe.

False: temporal lobe

Lexical ambiguity

Familiar words with multiple meanings

Instrument Inference

Inferences about tools or methods

Anaphoric Inference

Inferences that connect an object or person in one sentence to an object or person in another sentence Riffifi, the famous poodle, won the dog show. SHE has now won the last three shows she has entered.

Causal Inference

Inferences that the events described in one clause or sentence were caused by events that occurred in a previous sentence

A saccadic eye movement begins at a fixation point and ends at a fixation point, but not the same fixation point.

True

Accessing "low-frequency" words takes longer than accessing "high-frequency" words.

True

I would probably recognize the letter "d" at the end of the word "bread" faster than if "d" was shown to me alone.

True

If a story is to make sense, readers must make inferences based on the text.

True

If the narrative makes sense, we say the story has "coherence."

True

Temporary ambiguity is a symptom of garden path sentences.

True

The "interactionist" approach to sentence parsing suggests that both syntax and semantics are taken into account as we read or hear a sentence.

True

The "syntax first" approach to sentence parsing means I base my phrase construction on syntactic rules.

True

The psychological study of language is called "psycholinguistics."

True

Pollack and Pickett's experiment on understanding speech found that when participants were presented with individual words taken out of conversations (single words presented alone with no context), they could identify a. 100% of the words spoken by their own voices. b. 50% of the words spoken by their own voices. c. 50% of the words spoken by others with an accent similar to theirs. d. none of the words spoken by others.

b. 50% of the words spoken by their own voices.

Which of the following is the best example of a garden path sentence? a. The man was not surprised when he found several spiders, roaches, and other bugs in the corner of the room. b. Before the police stopped the Toyota disappeared into the night. c. The Eskimos were frightened by the walrus. d. The cats won't bake.

b. Before the police stopped the Toyota disappeared into the night.

The ____ states that the nature of a culture's language can affect the way people think. a. interactionist approach b. Sapir-Whorf hypothesis c. given-new contract d. cooperative principle

b. Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

You are conducting a study on how fluency influences the phonemic restoration effect. You study two groups of non-native English speakers, one with a year of English classes and the other with 10 years. All of your stimuli are in English. Who would you expect to show the greatest phonemic restoration effect? a. The group with one year of English instruction b. The group with 10 years of English instruction c. Neither group would show an effect because they are non-native English speakers d. The two groups would show equal phonemic restoration effects

b. The group with 10 years of English instruction

In New Guinea, tribes that had been isolated for centuries were found that a. communicated by hand signals but not verbal language as we know it. b. had a large number of sophisticated language systems. c. had languages that were more primitive than languages of most non-isolated societies. d. had just a few language systems that were all governed by similar rules.

b. had a large number of sophisticated language systems.

Noam Chomsky proposed that a. language is learned through the mechanism of reinforcement. b. humans are genetically programmed to acquire and use language. c. as children learn language, they produce only sentences they have heard before. d. the underlying basis of language is different across cultures.

b. humans are genetically programmed to acquire and use language.

Chaz is listening to his grandma reminisce about the first time she danced with his grandpa 60 years ago. When his grandma says, "It seemed like the song would play forever," Chaz understands that it is more likely his grandma was listening to a radio playing and not a CD. This understanding requires Chaz use a(n) a. given-new contract. b. instrument inference. c. garden path model. d. age-appropriate principle.

b. instrument inference.

*Brain imaging studies reveal that semantics and syntax are associated with which two lobes of the cerebral cortex? a. the frontal and parietal lobes b. the frontal and temporal lobes c. the parietal and occipital lobes d. the temporal and parietal lobes

b. the frontal and temporal lobes

Tanenhaus and coworkers' eye movement study presented participants with different pictures for interpreting the sentence, "Put the apple on the towel in the box." Their results support a. the garden-path model to parsing. b. the interactionist approach to parsing. c. the syntax-first approach to parsing. d. both syntax-first and interactionist approaches to parsing.

b. the interactionist approach to parsing.

Lexical ambiguity studies show that people access ambiguous words based on a. a bottom-up progression of meaning comprehension. b. the meaning dominance of each definition of the word. c. the word that comes immediately before and the word that comes immediately after the ambiguous word in the sentence. d. the identification of a single meaning for that word.

b. the meaning dominance of each definition of the word.

The given-new contract is a method for creating a. children's mastery of syntax. b. anaphoric inferences between consecutive sentences. c. resolution of a lexically ambiguous sentence. d. comprehension between a speaker and a listener in a conversation.

d. comprehension between a speaker and a listener in a conversation.

Language consists of smaller components, like words, that can be combined to form larger ones, like phrases, to create sentences, which themselves can be components of a larger story. This demonstrates the _______ property of language. a. parallel b. propositional c. relational d. hierarchical

d. hierarchical

Ty has finished work on his doctoral dissertation. He studied how most adults understand words, specifically the priming effects of categorically related words and submitted a proposal to be included in a psychological conference to present his work to his peers. Presentations at the conference are grouped based on the particular topic in psychology under consideration. It is most likely that Ty's work will be presented in a conference session on a. neuropsychology. b. psychophysics. c. psychoacoustics. d. psycholinguistics.

d. psycholinguistics.

The word frequency effect refers to the fact that we respond more a. quickly to phonemes that appear multiple times in a word than just once in a word. b. slowly to letters appearing in non-words than letters appearing in words. c. quickly to letters that appear multiple times in a word than just once in a word. d. slowly to low-frequency words than high-frequency words.

d. slowly to low-frequency words than high-frequency words.

A psycholinguist conducts an experiment with a group of participants from a small village in Asia and another from a small village in South America. She asked the groups to describe the bands of color they saw in a rainbow and found they reported the same number of bands as their language possessed primary color words. These results a. contradict the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. b. support the word frequency effect. c. contradict the word frequency effect. d. support the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.

d. support the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.

The word "bad" has ____ phoneme(s). a. one b. four c. two d. three

d. three