PSYC358-Ch. 11
phonemic restoration effect
"fill in" missing phonemes based on context of sentence and portion of word presented; relies on top-down processing
Altmann & Kamide (1999); "the child will..."
-"the child will eat": as soon as sound t in eat is said person looks at the cake bc that's the only thing in the image that people eat -"the child will move": people will look at different things because all objects in the picture can be moved we anticipate sentences as we read them; supports constraint based model
Bransford and Johnson (1973): inferences in language
-"the children's snowman vanished when the temperature reached 80 degrees" -when asked to fill in the blank "the children's snowman _______ when the temperature reached 80 degrees" most people will say melted because when they read that it vanished in the initial sentence, they inferred that it melted bc it was 80 degrees
biased dominance vs balanced dominance
-Biased dominance is when words have two or more meanings with different dominance -Balanced dominance is when words have two or more meanings with about the same dominance
word superiority effect
-The idea that letters are easier to identify when they are part of a word than when they are seen in isolation or in a string of letters that do not form a word -evidence that we perceive words as a whole rather than letter by letter
garden-path model of parsing
-a model of parsing that emphasizes syntactic principles, rather than semantics, as a major determinant of parsing; semantics are used later to resolve any ambiguity -choose simplest syntactic structure (least amount of hierarchical layers -strengths: faster bc we only consider one interpretation (unless it doesn't make sense and then you consider others)
lexical decision task/word frequency effects
-a procedure in which a person is asked to decide as quickly as possible whether a particular stimulus is a word or a nonword -RT is longer for uncommon words indicating that it takes longer to access them from the lexicon
characteristics of language: generative/productive
-able to make novel utterances -new combinations of symbols can be generated within the boundaries of language structure -creative, dynamic, flexible
instrument inference
-an inference about tools or methods that occurs while reading text or listening to speech -"john was trying to fix the birdhouse. he was hammering the nail." we infer that he was using a hammer
anaphoric Inference
-an inference that connects an object or person in one sentence to an object or person in another sentence; involves pronouns -"wanda made a tart. it was very delicious." we infer that "it" refers to the tart
causal inference
-an inference that results in the conclusion that the events described in one clause or sentence were caused by events that occurred in a previous clause or sentence -"grindstone won the Kentucky Derby in 1996. he was the fastest horse in the race." he won bc he was the fastest
Can animals learn language?
-communication: yes -language: no; bc their communication is not as advanced and doesn't follow the rules of language
characteristics of language: rule-based
-components/units of language can only be combined in specific ways -phonological rules: rules of sounds (/nt/ vs. /tn/) -syntactic rules: rules of sentence structure -semantic rules: relating the meaning of language -pragmatic rules: social conventions for language use
the given-new contract
-idea that a speaker should construct sentences that contain both known information and unknown information -"howard was given an alligator for his birthday" -given: howard had a bday, new: he got an alligator
tanenhaus et al. (1979)- lexical priming and ambiguity
-participants heard "she held a rose", "they all rose", or "she held a post" and then had to read the word "flower" off of a screen as fast as possible -with a delay of 200ms, the "she held a rose" group had the fastest RT for the probe word bc the semantic meaning of rose in that sentence is related to flower -however, when there was no delay, both conditions that had the word "rose" primed flower and showed = RTs bc there wasn't any time to consider the semantic meaning of "rose" i the sentence -hear a word -> access all meanings -> consider context -> decide which meaning is being conveyed
differences between spoken language and written language
-perceptual domain (visual vs. auditory) -mode of production -processing time-course -basic units
lexical priming
-priming that involves the meaning of words -for example, doctor would prime nurse, because their meanings are related -RT are faster when words are semantically related indicating that semantically related words are activated
similarities between spoken language and written language
-same meanings conveyed; mapping --seeing the word "tree" and hearing the word "tree" allow us to access the same knowledge
characteristics of language: hierarchical
-small components come together to create larger units of meaning -phoneme, morpheme, word, phrase, sentence (from smallest to largest)
constraint-based model
-syntactic analysis and semantic interpretation occur simultaneously and influence each other -supported by tanenhaus et al. (1995) apple on towel
characteristics of language: arbitrariness/symbolic
-typically no resemblance between a word or sentence and what it refers to
4 Characteristics of Language
Hierarchical Rule-based Generative/Productive Arbitrariness/Symbolic
lack of invariance problem in speech perception
Problem in speech perception because no sound is ever produced exactly the same way twice
parsing
The mental grouping of words in a sentence into phrases. The way a sentence is parsed determines its meaning.
Lexical ambiguity studies show that people access ambiguous words based on a.) the identification of a single meaning for that word b.) the meaning dominance of each definition of the word c.) a bottom-up processing of meaning comprehension d.) the words that immediately appears before and after the ambiguous words in a sentence
b
alex the parrot and language
basically learned language but he was not fully capable of being generative; seemed to understand and be able to produce language but only through imitation
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.) syntax b.) lexical priming c.) meaning dominance d.) positional interference
c
Skinner vs Chomsky
chomsky theory argue that humans are biologically prewired to learn language at a certain time and in a certain way (LAD) but skinner argued that language represents nothing more than chains of responses acquired through reinforcement
which property below is NOT one of the characteristics that makes human language unique? a.) hierarchical structure b.) rule-based c.) arrangement of a sequence of symbols d.) communication
d
Linguistics vs. Psycholinguistics
linguistics: the academic study of language (structure, commonality, etc.) psycholinguistics: the study of how people use and learn language
koko the gorilla and language
never fully learned sign language bc her use of signs did not display full richness of syntactic structure but she was able to communicate
Categorical perception of phonemes
our categorization of phonemes shows abrupt boundaries, even when there is no corresponding abrupt change in the physical stimuli themselves
syntactic coordination/ is due to _______
people sharing a conversation will tend to use similar grammatical constructions due to syntactic priming
garden path sentences
sentences that begin by appearing to mean one thing, but then end up meaning something else
phoneme
smallest distinctive sound unit; don't have meaning
segmentation problem
the listener's problem of dividing the almost continuous sounds of speech into separate phonemes and words; relies on top-down processing
Syntax
the rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences in a given language
syntactic ambiguity
when the structure or grammar of a sentence renders the meaning of a word or phrase uncertain
