PSYC 2501 - Ch 11

Dictionaries commonly list the multiple definitions of a particular word in a numbered list, with the first definition as #1, the next definition as #2, and so on. Which concept does this reflect?

a. Meaning dominance ----- a. Meaning dominance b. Lexical priming c. Positional inference d. Object-relative construction

From the perspective of the listener, as a person speaks, each sentence often is characterized by ________ until the sentence is completed.

a. ambiguity ----- a. ambiguity b. heuristics c. entrainment d. tonics

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

a. had a large number of sophisticated language systems.

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. hierarchical ----- a. hierarchical b. parallel c. relational d. propositional

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

a. people create a mental representation of what the text is about in terms of people, objects, locations, and events. (NOT "in terms of information about phrases..")

One of Chomsky's most persuasive arguments for refuting Skinner's theory of language acquisition was his observation that children a. produce sentences they have never heard. b. are rewarded for using correct language. c. show similar language development across cultures. d. learn to follow complex language rules, even though they are not aware of doing so.

a. produce sentences they have never heard.

B.F. Skinner, the modern champion of behaviorism, proposed that language is learned through ...

a. reinforcement. ----- a. reinforcement. b. genetic coding. c. syntactic framing. d. parsing.

Syntax is the... a. rules for combining words into sentences. b. meanings of words. c. way people pronounce words in conversational speech. d. mental grouping of words in a sentence into phrases.

a. rules for combining words into sentences.

Consider the sentence, "Because he always jogs a mile seems like a short distance to him." The principle of late closure states that this sentence would first be parsed into which of the following phrases? a. "Because he always jogs" b. "Because he always jogs a mile" c. "a mile seems" d. "he always jogs"

b. "Because he always jogs a mile"

If human speech is represented as a string of taffy on a candy-making assembly line, then what function does speech segmentation serve at the candy factory?

b. It cuts the taffy into pieces. ----- a. It puts the taffy in packages. b. It cuts the taffy into pieces. c. It adds flavors to the taffy. d. It mixes the taffy ingredients.

Boxing champion George Foreman recently described his family vacations with the statement, "At our ranch in Marshall, Texas, there are lots of ponds and I take the kids out and we fish. And then of course, we grill them." That a reader understands "them" appropriately (George grills fish, not his kids!) is the result of a(n) ____________________ inference.

b. anaphoric ----- a. analogic b. anaphoric c. instrument d. narrative

Evidence that language is a social process that must be learned comes from the fact that when deaf children find themselves in an environment where there are no people who speak or use sign language, they...

b. invent a sign language themselves. (ie Nicaraguan Sign Language) ----- a. lose the ability to communicate in any way. b. invent a sign language themselves. c. demonstrate compensatory regeneration of lost auditory neural pathways. d. start speaking out loud even though they cannot hear themselves.

Coherence refers to the..... a. mental process by which readers create information during reading that is not explicitly stated in the text. b. 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. c. mental process whereby ambiguity is resolved online during sentence reading. d. principle that we process information in isolation before we link it to its context.

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

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

The crucial question in comparing garden path and constrain-based approaches to parsing is ____________________ is involved.

b. when semantics ----- a. whether syntax b. when semantics c. when syntax d. whether semantics

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 ....

c. 50 percent of the words spoken by their own voices. ----- a. 50 percent of the words spoken by others with an accent similar to theirs. b. none of the words spoken by others. c. 50 percent of the words spoken by their own voices. d. 100 percent of the words spoken by their own voices

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 showed the importance of ____________________ in how we understand sentences in real-life situations.

c. environmental context ----- a. local connections b. the cooperative principle c. environmental context d. instrumental inferences

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

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

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

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

When two people engage in a conversation, if one person produces a specific grammatical construction in his or her speech and then the other person does the same, this phenomenon is referred to as ....

d. syntactic priming. ----- a. anaphoric inferencing. b. garden pathing. c. phonemic restoration. d. syntactic priming.