CLPS 800 final quiz --> Chapters 8, 10, 11, 12

Which scenario describes back-channel responses? a. A conversation where the listener is following a complicated story and interrupts the speaker with questions to make sure they have understood the details. b. A conversation where the listener has heard the story being told to them by the speaker on several previous occasions, but is doing their best to stay alert and seem interested in the story. c. A conversation where the speaker is trying to use non-verbal cues such as facial expressions and hand movements to emphasize the important parts of a story to the listener. d. A conversation where the speaker is using practiced gestures to recount an important story that he has told on several previous occasions.

a (A conversation where the listener is following a complicated story and interrupts the speaker with questions to make sure they have understood the details)

Which method would be best for investigating the hypothesis that language universals arise from cognitive constraints? a. Compile similarities and differences across all natural languages spoken and determine which patterns are most common. b. Track the evolution of languages to distinguish between old (e.g., Latin) and young (e.g., Nicaraguan Sign Language) languages, and evaluate whether young or old languages are easier to learn. c. Evaluate whether certain patterns are learned more readily than others in artificial languages, and whether these correspond to common patterns found across languages. d. Track the migratory patterns related to various languages and determine which language communities have the highest rates of language disorders.

a (Compile similarities and differences across all natural languages spoken and determine which patterns are most common)

Which pair offers the best example of competence and performance, respectively? a. Distinguishing grammatical sentences from ungrammatical ones; Being able to speak grammatically b. Being able to write grammatical sentences; Explaining the rules of grammar to your friend c. Speaking a foreign language; Reading a foreign language d. Speaking a foreign language; Understanding what is said in a foreign language

a (Distinguishing grammatical sentences from ungrammatical ones; Being able to speak grammatically)

What seems to be a crucial difference between using ERP analysis and eye-tracking to evaluate subjects' moment-by-moment experiences of spoken language? a. ERPs can capture unconscious processing, whereas eye-tracking studies can only provide information about conscious linguistic processes. b. Eye-tracking provides researchers with data about moment-by-moment processing of language, whereas ERP data only allows them to view discrete time points within the process. c. ERP experiments allow researchers to test more abstract or complex language, whereas eye-tracking studies are limited to stimuli that can be easily represented in pictures. d. Eye-tracking is an older and more established technique among researchers, whereas ERP is still considered to be in its developmental infancy.

a (ERPs can capture unconscious processing, whereas eye-tracking studies can only provide information about conscious linguistic processes)

Which outcome suggests that participants process meaning during the shadowing task? a. Participants' shadowing slows down when the sentence they are repeating combines meaningful words in nonsensical ways. b. Participants say that they are processing the meaning as they shadow what they hear. c. Researchers ask the participants to report the gist of each sentence. d. Shadowing is the process of understanding.

a (Participants' shadowing slows down when the sentence they are repeating combines meaningful words in nonsensical ways)

The figure represents stimuli and results from McDonald and Just's 1989 study. The graph shows subjects' response times to indicate that "Yes" a target word was present in a previously read sentence. Which of the following can be deduced from the results? a. Subjects respond slower to negated words, suggesting that meaning is primarily encoded in memory using mental models, rather than propositions. b. Subjects respond faster to words that are in the stimuli, suggesting a priming effect. c. Subjects respond slower to negated words, suggesting that words with quantifiers require greater processing. d. Nothing - there is a confound of syllable count that also affects word recognition.

a (Subjects respond slower to negated words, suggesting that meaning is primarily encoded in memory using mental models, rather than propositions)

Refer to the figure below. Based on the results of the experiment illustrated, how does context affect a subject's ability to make sense of the ambiguous component in the sentence Put the apple on the towel in the box? a. The pencil does not aid the listener in A, but the apple in B provides context, helping the subject avoid confusion. b. The listener is confused in both A and B. Since they do not know to look only at the apple on the towel, they look at the single apple first. c. The time spent looking at the towel in A demonstrates a clear understanding of the sentence. d. The two sets of timelines of eye-gaze duration in A and B show that context does not affect the listener's ability to disambiguate sentence.

a (The pencil does not aid the listener in A, but the apple in B provides context, helping the subject avoid confusion)

An egocentric perspective is most closely aligned with the _______ perspective of language generation. a. ease-of-production b. audience design c. scalar implicature d. pedagogic stance

a (ease of production)

During the Stroop test, subjects a. experience interference from the physical characteristics of a word, such as the color in which it is written, as they attempt to read the word out loud. b. are asked to identify a visually presented word while another word is simultaneously presented auditorily. c. are asked to repeat out loud what they hear through head phones as soon as they hear it. d. experience interference from the semantic characteristics of words as they attempt to identify their physical characteristics, such as color.

a (experience interference from the physical characteristics of a word, such as the color in which it is written, as they attempt to read the word out loud)

Presuppositions have been used to induce _______, leading researchers to ask critical questions about potential problems in the questioning of eyewitnesses. a. false memories b. predictive inferences c. ambiguity d. lying

a (false memories)

You could conclude that the child in this figure is able to adopt the perspective of his conversational partner if he a. immediately looks at the taller glass when the speaker says "Pick up the glass." b. looks at both glasses when the speaker says "Pick up the glass," and then asks "Which one?" c. says "Pick up the tall glass" if he wants the glass on the right. d. points if he wants either of the glasses.

a (immediately looks at the taller glass when the speaker says "Pick up the glass.")

Bilinguals tend to _______ than monolinguals. a. switch between tasks more efficiently b. show earlier cognitive decline with age c. have better musical skills d. have better motor control

a (switch between tasks more efficiently)

What is the most plausible reason for the diverse number of color names across languages? a. Some groups of individuals, geographically isolated from others, have developed mutations that result in different color-differentiation abilities and thus do not have words that distinguish certain colors, such as greens from blues. b. Some languages have relatively few words for colors because they do not place importance on labeling color as a property of objects, given that color is generally predictable from the category membership of the object. c. Some cultures group colors with other concepts or categories, such as using the same word to convey "blue" as well as "broom," so the number of different color names is more difficult to identify due to this translation challenge. d. Some language communities have borrowed color terms from other languages, adding new terms to their original inventory of color names.

b (Some languages have relatively few words for colors because they do not place importance on labeling color as a property of objects, given that color is generally predictable from the category membership of the object)

Refer to the figure below. Based on eye movements, which statement about subjects' perceptions of the two sentences is true? a. Both sentences reveal some initial misinterpretation by listeners. b. The first sentence reveals some initial misinterpretation, whereas the second sentence is smoothly and correctly parsed. c. The second sentence reveals some initial misinterpretation, whereas the first sentence is smoothly and correctly parsed. d. Listeners are able to use context to avoid misinterpretation in both sentences.

b (The first sentence reveals some initial misinterpretation, whereas the second sentence is smoothly and correctly parsed)

Which sentence is a garden path sentence? a. The lawyer with a wart was hit by the gang leader. b. The gang leader hit the lawyer with a wart. c. The cruel man beat his puppy using a thick stick. d. The puppy was beaten with a thick stick by the cruel man.

b (The gang leader hit the lawyer with a wart)

If your roommate states "I'd really love some Chinese takeout food this evening, but I don't have time to go get it," you might interpret this as a request for you to pick up the food. This is an example of _______, a term coined by philosopher H. Paul Grice. a. a false belief test b. conversational implicature c. using the linguistic code d. referential communication

b (conversational implicature)

A _______ can be used to evaluate if a child can shift their perspective of a situation from their own to that of another person. a. false belief test b. false belief test or a referential communication task c. social gating task d. social gating task or a lexical decision task

b (false belief test or a referential communication task)

In the sentence Tim watched the baby as he rocked him in his arms, the antecedent of his is a. grammatically unambiguous. b. grammatically ambiguous but disambiguated by information present in the mental model. c. grammatically ambiguous but disambiguated by information present in the mental model and the use of a cleft sentence. d. extremely difficult for a hearer or reader to disambiguate because of competing cues.

b (grammatically ambiguous but disambiguated by information present in the mental model)

The garden path theory stipulates that parsers rely on _______ to make initial predictions about the meaning of an ambiguous sentence. a. strict rules b. heuristics c. interactive model processes d. phonetic cues

b (heuristics)

John Bransford and colleagues (1972) designed a study to investigate how readily subjects detected slight changes in nearly-identical sentences that were presented to subjects with a time lag. Their results demonstrated that a. participants detected changes in the specific forms of sentences more often than changes in the mental models they evoked. b. participants detected changes more often if the two sentence evoked different mental models. c. memory for syntax is more stable over time than memory for meaning. d. memory for the content of mental models is just as stable over time as memory for syntactic forms.

b (participants detected changes more often if the two sentence evoked different mental models)

Alf has stopped running because of a tear in his meniscus. In the sentence above, a(n) _______ conveys that Alf has been running in the past. a. elaborative inference b. presupposition c. antecedent d. proposition

b (presupposition)

Subjects who read _______ would subsequently demonstrate the shortest reading times for the sentence: Betsy picked up the popsicle stick and put it in the trash. a. The popsicle stick flew out the car window. b. The popsicle stick fell on the floor. c. The popsicle stick was glued onto the paper. d. The popsicle stick was stained green.

b (the Popsicle stick fell on the floor)

_______ are morphemes attached to words to help identify grammatical roles such as subject, object, and indirect object. a. Classifiers b. Prefixes c. Case markers d. Honorifics

c (Case markers)

A scalar implicature arises when the sentence _______ is understood to mean _______. a. We should hire Raj because he has a degree in psychology; the other candidates do not have a degree in psychology b. Go see if the beef stew at Table 7 wants anything to drink; go see if the man who ordered beef stew wants anything to drink. c. Donna enjoys eating some vegetables; that Donna does not enjoy eating all vegetables. d. I went to bed at ten and lay there horizontally for eight hours; I went to bed but I did not sleep for all, or even most, of the eight hours I lay there.

c (Donna enjoys eating some vegetables; that Donna does not enjoy eating all vegetables)

If you want to teach your 8-month-old infant to learn to differentiate sounds used in Swahili, what would be the best method for delivering the lessons on those distinctions? a. Have your infant watch videos of someone speaking to them in Swahili. b. Have your infant listen to natural language recordings of someone speaking Swahili. c. Have you infant engage in live, interactive play with someone who is speaking Swahili to them. d. Have your infant watch two older children playing and talking with each other in Swahili.

c (Have you infant engage in live, interactive play with someone who is speaking Swahili to them)

What can be inferred from the findings of studies that investigated how specific languages can influence specific cognitive processes? a. Auditory exposure to a tonal language in early life can enhance a person's perception of pitch. b. Auditory exposure to a tonal language, whether in early life or later, can enhance a person's perception of pitch. c. Mastery of a tonal language can enhance a person's perception of pitch. d. There is no evidence that experience with a tonal language can enhance a person's perception of pitch.

c (Mastery of a tonal language can enhance a person's perception of pitch)

The graph from Kuhl et al.'s 2003 study on social gating shows that babies raised by English-speaking parents whose training in Mandarin was limited to auditory exposure were a. better able to distinguish between Mandarin sounds than children from English-speaking households who received training in English. b. as able to distinguish between Mandarin sounds as children from Mandarin-speaking households who received no training at all. c. as unable to distinguish between Mandarin sounds as children from English-speaking households who received no training at all. d. as able to distinguish between Mandarin sounds as children from English-speaking households who were exposed to Mandarin by a live speaker.

c (as unable to distinguish between Mandarin sounds as children from English-speaking households who received no training at all)

Compared to children diagnosed with ASD, typically developing children were found to a. be worse at recognizing when conversational norms had been violated. b. score about the same on tasks where they had to identify if conversational norms had been violated. c. be better at recognizing when conversational norms had been violated. d. be better at identifying violations of conversational norms related to the maxim of Relevance but worse at identifying violations related to the maxim of Quantity.

c (be better at recognizing when conversational norms had been violated)

A survey of pronoun systems across various spoken languages indicates that a. some languages may drop pronouns entirely, but this never occurs with third person pronouns. b. most languages avoid any possibility of ambiguity in their pronouns. c. gender and number tend to be marked more often on third-person pronouns than on first-person pronouns. d. many languages do not have second-person pronouns.

c (gender and number tend to be marked more often on third-person pronouns than on first-person pronouns)

In these graphs from Arnold et al.'s 2000 study showing the effect of manipulations of grammatical gender marking and order of mention, the eye-fixation data indicate that a. hearers had no difficulty correctly interpreting the pronoun in any of the conditions. b. order of mention was a more effective disambiguating cue than gender marking. c. hearers were able to make use of the gender marking cue more quickly than the order of mention cue. d. under certain circumstances, hearers experienced persistent difficulty in correctly interpreting the pronoun.

c (hearers were able to make use of the gender marking cue more quickly than the order of mention cue)

A pattern that is common across many languages likely reflects an underlying cognitive constraint on language learning if the pattern a. pertains to syntactic structure. b. is common mainly among languages in Southeastern Africa. c. is found in a number of languages that are historically and geographically unrelated. d. is found mainly among languages within the Indo-European family.

c (is found in a number of languages that are historically and geographically unrelated)

Imagine that you are designing a study to evaluate whether certain types of sentences are ambiguous and lead to misunderstanding. Which technique would permit the most natural environment for your study? a. Self-paced reading task b. Shadowing task c. Moving window paradigm d. Eye-tracking reading task

c (moving window paradigm)

Which of the following is not a plausible explanation for Keith Chen's finding that countries where people tend to save less money for their futures tend to also be countries where people speak a language that requires the future tense to be grammatically marked? a. The use of a grammatical marker to indicate the future focuses the attention of speakers on the future. b. The association is due to cultural priming of certain behaviors rather than arising from a direct relationship between grammar and behavior. c. This association is simply a coincidence; these two variables are positively correlated because an assortment of unrelated linguistic and cultural characteristics may spread among neighboring populations. d. A grammatical distinction between the present and the future encourages people to conceptualize their present and futures lives as discontinuous.

d (A grammatical distinction between the present and the future encourages people to conceptualize their present and futures lives as discontinuous)

Which linguistic behavior shows evidence of audience design? a. In planning a potentially ambiguous sentence, a speaker always orders a shorter phrase before a longer phrase. b. A valedictorian practices her speech repeatedly until she is able to deliver it without any disfluencies. c. A speaker provides more detail in referring to a person his conversational partner has never met than in referring to a mutual friend. d. A political candidate speaks at a lower pitch in order to sound more authoritative to voters.

d (A political candidate speaks at a lower pitch in order to sound more authoritative to voters)

What is the most plausible explanation for the fact that English speakers distinguish between the words in and on, whereas Spanish speakers use a single word en to encompass both? a. Historically, English speakers have lived in a more spatially complex environment than Spanish speakers, requiring them to make a greater number of spatial distinctions. b. In general, English-speaking cultures value precision to a greater extent than Spanish-speaking cultures. c. Over time, changes in sound have resulted in two separate Spanish words being pronounced the same. d. No plausible explanation exists, suggesting that the match between concepts and words in a particular culture may be arbitrary to some extent.

d (No plausible explanation exists, suggesting that the match between concepts and words in a particular culture may be arbitrary to some extent)

What language would you recommend your uncle study to protect himself against cognitive decline due to aging? a. French or Spanish, because learning romance languages tends to increase a person's memory capacity. b. German, because it helps boost a person's analytical skills. c. Chinese, because it increases a person's spatial working memory. d. There is no evidence to suggest that any particular language is better than another for preserving cognitive function.

d (There is no evidence to suggest that any particular language is better than another for preserving cognitive function)

Refer to the example below, in which participants read through sentences a phrase at a time, pressing a button to advance from step 1 through 3. 1. The British ---- ------- -- -------- ------- . 2. --- ------- left waffles -- -------- ------- . 3. --- ------- ---- ------- on Falkland Islands. The above stimulus is an example of which research method? a. Lexical decision task b. Shadowing task c. Eye-tracking method d. Moving window paradigm

d (moving window paradigm)

Researchers have noted that many children who appear to have been reading well in the third grade show a dip in reading performance in the fourth grade. This may be explained by a. the effect of nutrition on cognitive development at this critical age. b. the fact that many children whose families cannot afford the extra reading support provided by private tutors fall behind their peers. c. children's increased sensitivity to peer expectations and cultural norms that devalue reading. d. the fact that as texts get more complex, they require not only strong decoding skills but also strong general knowledge about the topics of the texts.

d (the fact that as texts get more complex, they require not only strong decoding skills but also strong general knowledge about the topics of the texts)

Greenberg's work on linguistic universals suggests that a. all human languages exhibit Hockett's design features of language, but otherwise vary without constraint. b. the sound structure of languages is more variable than the syntax. c. there are only 30 different grammars found across all human languages. d. the patterns found across languages make up a small subset of logically possible patterns.

d (the patterns found across languages make up a small subset of logically possible patterns)

Enraged at flubbing a penalty kick, Delilah kicked the soccer ball directly at her opponent's head, giving her a severe concussion. The victim's father, observing from the sidelines, immediately pulled out his cellphone to have a big bouquet of flowers sent to Delilah's mother. The passage above poses difficulty for the reader because a. it contains many stops and starts, typically found in spoken language b. it uses complex and potentially ambiguous grammatical structures that are difficult to parse. c. the obscure and uncommon words used by the author require expert knowledge in medicine and soccer to understand. d. the sequence of the sentences does not allow the reader to create a plausible mental model of the situation and how the components are related to one another.

d (the sequence of the sentences does not allow the reader to create a plausible mental model of the situation and how the components are related to one another)