1
Q
language
A
a system of communication using sounds or symbols
2
Q
language is…
A
- generative
- hierarchical
- rule-based structure
3
Q
generative
A
many ways to construct sentences
4
Q
hierarchical
A
- components can be combined to form larger units
5
Q
rule-based structure
A
mental system of rules for producing correct sentences in a language
6
Q
language hierarchy
A
- sentence (“the cat jumped the fence”)
- phrase (the cat [noun phrase] phrase, jumped the fence [verb phrase])
- word (the, cat, jumped, the, face)
- morpheme (the, cat, jump, -ed, the, fence)
- phoneme (international phonetic alphabet)
7
Q
components of sentences
A
- semantics
- syntax
- morphemes
- lexicons
- phonemes
8
Q
semantics
A
meaning
9
Q
syntax
A
grammar/rules for sentence formation
10
Q
morphemes
A
smallest unit of meaning in a language, stem-words, affixes
11
Q
lexicons
A
words in memory
12
Q
phonemes
A
speech sounds
13
Q
language is universal
A
- deaf children invent their own sign language
- all humans with normal capacities develop a language and learn to follow its rules
- language development similar across cultures
- all languages have forms of nouns, verbs, etc. and systems that indicate negatives, questions, and tenses
- all cultures have languages
14
Q
psycholinguistics
A
psychological study of language
15
Q
psycholinguistics areas of interest
A
- comprehension
- representation
- speech production
- acquisition
16
Q
comprehension
A
understanding of spoken and written languauge
17
Q
representation
A
construction of language in the mind and making connections between information from a story
18
Q
speech production
A
mental and physical process involved with creating speech
19
Q
acquisition
A
language learning
20
Q
word frequency
A
frequency that a word is used in a language
21
Q
word frequency effect
A
- faster to respond to high frequency words (i.e. home) relative to low frequency words (i.e. hike)
- longer time spent looking at low frequency words versus high could indicate that more time is required for processing low-frequency words
22
Q
speech segmentation
A
- the perception of words in speech
23
Q
our ability to segment speech occurs because of
A
- word frequency
- context
- knowledge of statistical regularities in language
- word meaning
24
Q
lexical ambiguity
A
- words with an ambiguous meaning (i.e. rose as a noun or verb)
- different meanings are activated upon presentation
- selection of meaning based on context occurs after slight delay
25
meaning dominance
how frequent a word's meaning occurs
26
biased dominance
- when one meaning of an ambiguous word occurs more frequently than another
- i.e. tin metal is the more frequent meaning of tin versus tin container
27
balanced dominance
- multiple meaning of a word are equally likely
- i.e. the word "cast" as an injury cast vs an acting cast
28
context and meaning in words
if context indicates the nonfrequent meaning → both meanings are activated → slow responding
29
parsing
grouping words into phrases to create meaning
30
garden path sentences
- when sentences appear to mean one thing but end up meaning something else
- elicits temporary ambiguity because first sentence organization is adopted and then when error is realized, the person shifts to the correct organization
31
constraint-based approach to parsing
- influence word meaning (defendant/evidence examined example)
- influence story context (the horse raced past the barn fell example)
- syntax-based principle
- scene context: visual word paradigm
- memory load + prior experience with language
- subject-relative construction
- object-relative construction
32
syntax-based principles
- principle of late closure: we add words as we read to the current phrase
33
scene context
- contents in a scene can help one with parsing
- "place the apple on the towel in the box" example
34
example of subject-relative construction
- sentence: the senator who spotted the reporter shouted
- main clause: the senator shouted
- embedded clause: the senator spotted the reporter
- the senator is the subject in the main and embedded clause → easier to understand and more frequently encountered
35
example of object-relative construction
- sentence: the senator who the reporter spotted shouted
- main clause: the senator shouted
- embedded clause: the reporter spotted the senator
- the senator is the subject in the main clause and object in the embedded → difficult to understand and less frequently encountered
36
inferences
coming to conclusions
37
narrative
text that progresses from each event
38
coherence
creating associations
39
anaphoric inference
inferring a connection between individual/object mentioned in one sentence and an individual/object in another sentence
40
instrument inference
inferring the tools/methods
41
causal inference
inferring events in one clause or sentence was impacted by events described in an earlier sentence
42
situation models
- mental representation of events as if one is experiencing it
- taking the POV of the protagonist
43
pictures and story comprehension
- faster to verify that a picture was mentioned in the text if it matches the situation
- "he hammered a nail into the wall" example and eagle example
44
conversations
- 2+ people talking together
- dynamic and rapid
45
given-new contract
- speaker constructs sentences, so they include: given information, new information, new information can then become given information
46
entrainment
synchronization between two people conversing
47
entrainment components
- gestures
- speaking rate
- body positions
- pronounciation
- grammatical constructions
48
branigan et al.
- using similar grammatical constructions known as syntactic coordination
- syntactic priming: grammatical construction by one person increases the chances other person will use it
- reduces computational load in conversation
- like me having miles' vocabulary
PSYCH 258 MIDTERM #3
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