PSY 322 Exam 3 Study Guide

Inference (Understanding Text and Stories)

(Fill in the blank -- own pov.) *Readers create information during reading not explicitly stated in the text.* Ex: He is a good player vs. He got lucky today

These Sentences Illustrate Temporary Ambiguity (unclear)

(Garden Path Sentences) *When the initial words are ambiguous, but the meaning is made clear by the end of the sentence* Ex: The old man the boat.

Regier and Coworkers (2005)

(Limits to the effects of language) *Different languages have similar choice for "best" color examples*

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS)

(Magnetic stimulation across the brain) - Decreases brain functioning in a particular area of the brain for a short time. - If the behavior is disrupted, the deactivated part of the brain is causing that behavior.

Unilateral Neglect (Neuropsychological case Studies)

(Patient neglects one half of the picture: copying and producing) - Patient ignores objects in one half of visual field in perception and imagery

Propositional Representation (Pylyshyn)

(Proposed that Imagery is ______________) - Can be represented by abstract symbols (not by mental images of the scene) Ex: A bottle under a table would be represented by a formula made of symbols like UNDER(BOTTLE,TABLE).

Coherence (Understanding Text and Stories)

(Put together) *Representation of the text in one's mind so that information from one part of the text can be related to information in another part of the text.* Ex: The pitcher threw a fastball. The batter hit it and it was a home-run. (The pitcher threw the ball and the batter hit a home-run)

Comparing Imagery and Perception (Mental Walk Tasks)

(Relationship between viewing distance and ability to perceive details) - Imagine a small object next to a large object - Quicker to detect details on the larger object

What are Pros of the Exemplar Approach?

(Representation is not abstract) *The more similar a specific exemplar is to a known category member, the faster it will be categorized.* - Explains typicality effect. - Easily takes into account atypical cases. - Easily deals with variable categories.

Links between Imagery and Perception

(Spatial Correspondence) - Mental Scanning - Participants create mental images and then scan them in their minds

Syntax-First Approach to Parsing

(Use rules to make your phrase) - Listeners use heuristics (common rules to help figure things out) to group words into phrases. - Grammatical structure of sentence determines parsing. - Late closure: parser assumes new word is part of the current phrase. - A.k.a. the Garden-path model

Spatial Representation (Pylyshyn)

(____________ representation is an epiphenomenon) - Accompanies real mechanism but is not actually part of it (Ex: The apple sign on a phone startup shows that it is working, but it is not showing the mechanisms making it work → light is simply an epiphenomenon)

Phonemic Restoration Effect

*"Fill in" missing phonemes based on context of sentence and portion of word presented*

What is Visual Imagery?

*"Seeing" in the absence of a visual stimulus* (Provides a way of thinking that adds another dimension to purely verbal techniques)

Overlap/Differences of Activation in Brain for Imagery and Perception

*(Imagery neurons respond to both perceiving and imagining an object)* - Overlap in brain activation - *Visual Cortex* Ex: Responses of single neurons in a person's medial temporal lobe that (a) respond to the perception of a baseball but not of a face, and (b) respond to imagining a baseball but not to imagining a face. (There is a lot of overlap in brain activity)

Perky (1910)

*(Mistake actual picture for a mental image)* - Asked subjects to "project" visual images of common objects onto a screen (imagine on screen) -Perky back-projected a dim image of this onto a screen - They described mental images that matched the actual projections (NO ONE REALIZED) - Shows how perception and imagery are connected, sometimes can't distinguish the two

Lexical Priming

*(Priming that involves the meaning of words)* - Typically occurs when a word is followed by another word with a similar meaning Ex: When presenting the word "ant" before the word "bug" causes a person to respond faster to the word "bug" than if "ant" had not preceded it.

High Prototypicality (Prototype Approach)

*A category member closely resembles the category prototype (Almost identical - Bird → Robin)* - "Typical" member - Ex: For category "bird" → Robin

Low Prototypicality (Prototype Approach)

*A category member does not closely resemble the category prototype.* Ex: For category "bird" → Penguin

What is the Exemplar Approach?

*A concept is represented by multiple examples (rather than a single prototype)* Ex: Apple, Orange, Banana (Give examples of category) - (Many different examples of the category: Fruit)

What are Dissociations between Imagery and Perception?

*A divide between imagery (memory) and perception (sensation/seeing)*

What is Cognitive Economy?

*A feature of some semantic network models in which properties of a category that are shared by many members of a category are stored at a higher level node in the network.* - Shared properties are only stored at higher-level nodes Ex: The characteristic "has wings", "flies", "has feathers" will not be stored in the concept "canary" but in the concept "bird".

What is the Conceptual Peg Hypothesis?

*A hypothesis that states that concrete nouns create images that other words can hang onto, and that this enhances memory for these words*

What is a Concept?

*A mental representation used for a variety of cognitive functions*

Psycholinguistics

*A study concerned with discovering psychological processes by which humans acquire and process language*

Lexicon

*All words a person understands*

What is the Prototype Approach to Categorization?

*An abstract representation of the "typical" member of a category* Ex: "Typical" (Best example of something: Bird → Owl) - Characteristic features that describe what members of that concept are like. - Contains the most salient features (most predominant)

What was the Collins and Quillian's (1969) study?

*An experiment that measured reaction times to statements that involved traversing different distances in the network*

Nonverbal Communication

*Being able to interpret and react to the person's gestures, facial expressions, tones of voice, and other cues to meaning*

Theory of Mind

*Being able to understand what others feel, think, or believe*

What is a Hierarchical System?

*Components that can be combined to form larger units (Ex: like chunking)*

What are Semantic Networks?

*Concepts (ideas) are arranged in networks that represent the way concepts are organized in the mind.* (Ex: How to get to Newhouse) - Many different routes that all lead to the same place) - Many different stimuli will remind you of a concept - Newhouse

Anaphoric (Inference)

*Connecting objects/people* Ex: It had been a long day. The builders were exhausted. Eventually a truck arrived to help. They needed the vehicle because the load was so heavy. At last they could start work on the building. (The vehicle refers to the truck)

Imagery and the Cognitive Revolution (Paivio)

*Developed ways to measure behavior that could be used to infer cognitive processes* - Paired-associate learning (Process -- observing behavior -- to infer what someone is thinking) (not always accurate)

Causal (Inference)

*Events in one clause caused by events in previous sentence.* Ex: Sharon took aspirin. Her headache went away. (The aspirin caused the headache to disappear)

What is Mental Imagey?

*Experiencing a sensory impression in the absence of sensory input*

Rosch (1975b)

*Hearing "green" primes a highly prototypical "green"*

Which Particular neurons respond to BOTH Perceiving and Imagining?

*Imagery Neurons* respond to *both* perceiving and imagining an object

What is the Definitional Approach to Categorization?

*It determines the category membership based on whether the object meets the definition of the category* (Ex: Definition of a chair - four legs and a back)

What is Categorization?

*It is the process by which things are placed into groups called _____________* (___________ are all possible examples of a particular concept)

What is Conceptual Knowledge?

*Knowledge that enables us to recognize objects and events and to make inferences and their properties*

Pylyshyn (2003)

*Kosslyn's results can be explained by using real-world knowledge unconsciously* (Tacit-knowledge explanation)

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

*Language influences thought* Ex: hail, sleet, snow, flurries vs. sunny, rainy, gloomy -- what you wear for the day (thinking processes) (The more you know about words, the better you are able to think)

B.F. Skinner (1957): Verbal Behavior

*Language is learned through reinforcement* (You as the parent reinforces the child and teaches them) *(Language is learned/Reinforced)*

What is Inheritance?

*Lower-level items share properties of higher-level items*

Semantics

*Meanings* of words and sentences

Paivio (1963, 1965)

*Memory for words that evoke mental images is better than for those that do not*

What is Parsing?

*Mental grouping of words in a sentence into phrases* (Helps the listener create meaning)

Situational Model

*Mental representation of what a text is about* - Represent events as if experiencing the situation - Point of view of protagonist (the main character in the story)

Similarities and Differences in Languages Across the Globe

*No language is "better" than another* (Different words have different meanings/interpretations)

What is the Lexical Decision Task?

*Participants read stimuli and are asked to say as quickly as possible whether the item is a word or not*

Speech Segmentation

*Perception of individual words even though there are no silences between spoken words.* Problem: - Issue understanding when one word end and begins when interpreting another language

Syntactic Priming (Producing Speech)

*Production of a specific grammatical construction by one person increases chances other person will use that construction.* (Priming of one person, i.e. speaking slang, sets up the other person to speak the same way) - Reduced computational load in conversation

What is the Imagery Debate? (Pylyshyn)

*Propositional representation (symbols, language) vs. Depictive/Spatial representation (similar to realistic pictures)*

Typicality Effect

*Prototypical Objects are processed preferentially (more favorably).* - High prototypical objects judged/named more rapidly. (Close prototypical objects/animals (Robins vs. Ostridge) recognized faster) - Prototypical category members are more affected by a priming stimulus.

How is the Exemplar Approach Different to the Prototype Approach?

*Representing a category is not defining it*

Syntax

*Rules* for combining words into sentences

Interactionist (constraint-based) Approach to Parsing

*Semantics influence processing as one reads a sentence, along with syntax.* (Meaning of words influences the processing in our brains as we read a sentence + grammar rules) - Word meaning - Memory load - Story context

What are Garden Path Sentences?

*Sentences that begin by appearing to mean one thing, but then end up meaning something else.* (After first reading and not understanding, the meaning comes later) Ex: Reading Fabian's text messages

Word Length (Effect)

*Shorter words are processed faster than longer words, and are often skipped in sentence reading*

Phoneme

*Shortest segment of speech that, if changed, changes the meaning of the word* Ex: Walk(ed) vs. Walk - changes tense and meaning of the word

Morphemes

*Smallest unit of language that has meaning or grammatical function* Ex: A cat, walk, study, etc...

Meaning Dominance

*Some meanings of words are used more frequently than others* (Dominance is determined by frequency of use in *written* language)

Governed by Rules (Hierarchical System)

*Specific ways components can be arranged*

Categorical Perception

*Stimuli in same categories are more difficult to discriminate from one another than stimuli in two different categories.* Ex: Three different shades of blue vs. blue, yellow, pink - Differences in the way names were assigned to colors affect the ability to tell the difference between colors. - Language can affect color perception. - Limits to the effects of language

Common Ground (Entrainment)

*Synchronization between conversation partners* (Understanding that they are talking about the same topic)

Global (superordinate) level

*The highest level in Rosch's categorization scheme (e.g., "furniture" or "vehicle")*

Specific (Subordinate) level

*The level in Rosch's categorization scheme that is a level below the basic level.* Ex: "Dining room, Kitchen" under the basic category "table").

Lexical Semantics

*The meaning of words* (Each word has one or more meanings)

Basic Level (Hierarchical Organization)

*The middle level, and often the first level learned, within a category hierarchy, such as "dog" under a Animal category.* Ex: "Chair, Table, Bed; Car, Truck, Bicycle"

Why are Categories Useful?

*They help to understand individual cases not previously encountered* (Ex: A kumquat is a fruit) *"Pointers to knowledge"* - They provide a wealth of general information about an item - Allow us to identify the special characteristics of a particular item

What is Family Resemblance?

*Things in a category resemble one another in a number of ways, but do not have to share every feature* (Similar but not identical -- beanbag chair vs. bar-stool) - Strong positive relationship between prototypicality and family resemblance. - When items have a large amount of overlap with characteristics of other items in the category, the family resemblance of these items is high. (Low overlap = low family resemblance)

Instrumental (Inference)

*Tools or Methods* Ex: "John was trying to fix the birdhouse. He was pounding the nail when his father came out to watch him and help him do the work." (You infer that he is using a hammer to "pound the nail")

Roberson and Coworkers (2000)

*Two cultures had differences in how participants assigned names to color chips.* - Culture affects language (You see the world differently depending on how you were raised)

Balance Dominance

*When words have two or more meanings with about the same dominance.* Ex: Hit - (hit) song, or (hit) someone

Biased Dominance

*When words have two or more meanings with different dominance* Ex: The word ball - Senior ball, basketball... (The meaning of the word is used most frequently in your life - sports balls are most frequent)

Contextual Constraint

*Words in highly constrained sentences are processed faster and more likely to be skipped.* (Easier to predict = processed faster)

Age of Acquisition

*Words learned earlier in life are processed faster than those learned later*

Meyer and Schvaneveldt (1971) - (Lexical Decision Task)

- "Yes" if both strings are words; "no" if not. - Some pairs were closely associated. - Reaction time was faster for those pairs. (Spreading activation)

Tannenhaus and coworkers (1995)

- *Eye movements change when information suggests revision of interpretation of sentence is necessary.* - *Syntactic and semantic information used simultaneously.* Ex: - Ambiguous: "Place the apple on the towel in the box" - Unambiguous: "Place the apple that's on the towel in the box"

What are the Problems with the Definitional Approach to Categorization?

- *It does not work well* (Ex: I've seen chairs with two legs and no back - stool) - *Not all members of everyday categories have the same defining features* (Ex: Chairs)

Lexical Ambiguity

- *Words have more than one meaning* - Context clears up ambiguity after all meanings of a word have been briefly accessed.

What is Spreading Activation?

- Activation is the arousal level of a node. - When a node is activated, activity spreads out along all connected links. - Concepts that receive activation are primed and more easily accessed from memory.

Amedi and Coworkers (2005)

- Again, overlap (The same area of your brain can do two functions) Ex: Seeing a dog run in a park vs. imagining a dog run in a park - *Deactivation of non-visual areas of brain* (Hearing; Touch) - Mental images more fragile, less activation keeps other things from interfering

Physiology of Simulations (Situational Model)

- Approximately the same areas of the cortex are activated by actual movements and by reading related action words. - The activation is more extensive for actual movements.

What is the Pegword Technique?

- Associate items to be remembered with concrete words - Pair each of these things with a pegword - Create vivid image of things to be remembered with the object represented by the word

M.G.S

- Before her operation, she could mentally "walk" to within 15 feet before the image of the horse overflowed her visual field. - After removal of the right occipital lobe, the size of the visual field was reduced, and she could mentally approach only within 35 feet of the horse before it overflowed her visual field.

Guariglia and Coworkers (1993)

- Brain-damaged patient - Patient's perception intact, but mental images were impaired (They can see something clearly, but their mental image is impaired)

Criticism of Collins and Quillian

- Cannot explain typicality effects. - Cognitive economy? - Some sentence-verification results are problematic for the model.

Ganis and Coworkers (2004)

- Complete overlap of activation by perception and imagery in front of the brain - Differences near back of the brain

Components of Psycholinguistics (Language)

- Comprehension - Speech Production - Representation - Acquisition

How do we understand Speech Segmentation?

- Context - Understanding of meaning - Understanding of sound and syntactic rules - Statistical learning

R.M.

- Damage to occipital and parietal lobes. - Could draw accurate pictures of objects in front of him. *(He can perceive the object)* - Could not draw accurate pictures of objects from memory (using imagery -- memory) *(Disconnection between creating images but can still perceive)*

The Universality of Language

- Deaf children invent sign language. - All cultures have language. - Language development is similar across cultures. - Language are "unique but the same" (different words, sounds, and rules) (All have nouns, verbs, negatives, questions, past/present tense)

What are the Levels of Categories?

- Global (Superordinate) - Basic - Specific (Subordinate)

What were the Results of Collins and Quillian's (1969) study?

- Greater distances are associated with longer reaction times - When verifying statements both about properties of canaries (top) and about categories of which the canary is a member (bottom).

Noam Chomsky (1957): Syntactic Structures

- Human language coded in the genes. - Underlying basis of all language is similar. - Children produce sentences they have never heard and that have been reinforced. *(Language is innate)*

C.K.

- Inability to name pictures of objects, even his own drawings in front of him. *(Unable to perceive objects)* - Could draw objects in great detail from memory (using imagery) *(Disconnection between perception but still being able to create images)*

Kosslyn and Coworkers (1978)

- Island with seven location, 21 trips - It took longer to scan between greater distances - Visual imagery is spatial

Brain Activity in Response to Imagery (Overlap)

- May indicate something is happening - May not cause imagery

How is the Exemplar Approach Similar to the Prototype Approach?

- May use both - Exemplars= best for small categories - Prototypes= best for larger categories

Kosslyn (1973)

- Memorize picture and create an image of it - In the image, move from one part of the picture to the other - Like perception, imagery is spatial (It took longer for participants to mentally move long distances than shorter distances)

Shepard and Metzler (1971)

- Mental Chronometry (Mental rotation experiment) - Participants mentally rotate one object to see if it matches another object

Criticisms of Kosslyn's Work

- More distractions when scanning longer distances may have increased the reaction time - Interesting things encountered during the mental scan are responsible for these distractions

Mental Walk Task (Kosslyn)

- Move closer to small animals than to large animals - Images are spatial, like perception (See more detail in the animal that is biggest in the picture compared to what is next to it)

Collins and Quillian (1969)

- Node = category/concept - Concepts are linked - Model for how concepts and properties are associated in the mind

Le Bihan and Coworkers (1993)

- Overlap in brain activation - *Visual cortex*

Finke and Pinker (1982)

- Participants judge whether arrow points to dots previously seen. - Longer reaction time when the greater distance between arrow and dot (as if they were mentally "travelling") - Not instructed to use visual imagery - No time to memorize, no tacit knowledge

Why is the "Basic" Level Special?

- People almost exclusively use basic-level names in free-naming tasks. - Quicker to identify basic-level category member as a member of a category. - Children learn basic-level concepts sooner than other levels. - Basic-level is much more common in adult discourse than names for superordinate categories - Different cultures tend to use the same basic-level categories, at least for living things.

Collins and Loftus (1975) Modifications

- Shorter links to connect closely related concepts. - Longer linkers for less closely related concepts. - No hierarchical structure; base on person's experience.

Pylyshyn (1973)

- Spatial Representation is an epiphenomenon - Proposed that imagery is propositional - Imagery debate

What is Language?

- System of communication using sounds or symbols - Express feelings, thoughts, ideas, an experiences

How is Language Different than Communication?

- System of communication using sounds or symbols - Express feelings, thoughts, ideas, and experiences Vs. - Hierarchical system = Components that can be combined to form larger units - Governed by rules = Specific ways components can be arranged

Kosslyn and Coworkers (1999): TMS Studies

- TMS to the *visual area* of the brain during perception and imagery task - Response time *slower* for both (perception and imagery) - Brain activity in the *visual area* of the brain plays a causal role for *both perception and imagery* (brain activity causes perception and imagery)

Producing Speech: Conversations

- Two or more people talking together - Dynamic and rapid

Word Frequency Effect

- We respond faster to high-frequency words. - Rayner and Duffy (1986) fixation and gaze times. - Eye movements while reading. - Look at low-frequency words longer.

Variable Word Pronunciation

-"Didjoo?" "Gonna" -Use context to understand words with unfamiliar pronunciations

What is the point of the Mental Rotation Experiments?

If the participant can mentally rotate the object, they are able to find the match

Given-New Contract (Producing Speech)

Speaker constructs sentences so they include: - Given Information - New Information - New can then become given information (In a conversation, a speaker should construct sentences so that they contain both given information (information that the listener already knows) and new information (information that the listener is hearing for the first time).)

What is an Abstract Word?

Things that are not tangible (The process of something: conceptual) Ex: "Truth, honor, kindness"

Hierarchical Organization (Collins and Quillian's (1969) Model)

To fully understand how people categorize objects, one must consider: - *Properties of objects* - *Learning and experience of perceivers*

Syntactic Coordination (Producing Speech)

Using similar grammatical constructions (Understanding that they are talking in the same format -- proper english vs. slang)

What is a Concrete Word?

Words that communicate to the 6 senses (Something you can feel or touch) Ex: A boat

What are Exceptions?

___________ are stored at lower nodes.