language

Question 1

what is hyper scanning

Answer 1

measuring 2 or more brain signals simultaneously to relate them to each other

Question 2

explain human specialisation for rhythm and language

Answer 2

Compared to other species, a peculiar human feature is our capacity for vocal learning: the ability to imitate and learn vocalizations which do not belong to our innate repertoire.
Humans are also unusual in our enjoyment of rhythmic patterns and drive to synchronize to them.

Question 3

what is language

Answer 3

• System of communication using sounds or symbols to express feelings, thoughts, ideas and experience
• Hierarchal system
• Components combined to form larger units
  Inherently social and communicative, connected to social cognition

Question 4

what are the similarities in human language and animal comms

Answer 4

Dialects & syntax
Signal modalities
Complex species specific systems
(e.g. birdsong, bee dance)
Regulating social structures
Genes that are linked with communication ability

Question 5

what are the differences in human language and animal comms

Answer 5

Animals can only communicate ‘here and now’
Humans can communicate past, future, ideas, and hypothetical scenarios
Animal systems are not ‘productive’
(limited signs & ways of expression, no new symbols)
Creation of new patterns of signs in humans:
We can understand and create an indefinitely large number of utterances

Question 6

explain the universality of language

Answer 6

• Critical for quality of human life e.g. multiple deaf children creating own communication system
  
  • Drive for communication is innate in typical developing children
  • All humans with normal capacities develop a language and learn to follow its complex rules
  • Language ability is universal across cultures
  • Language development is similar across cultures
  • Languages are unique but the same, used for the same functions

Question 7

what did skinner believe about verbal behaviour

Answer 7

children learn language through operant conditioning
- imitate then repeat correct speech when rewarded
- learnt through reinforcement

Question 8

why did chomsky disagree with skinner

Answer 8

children say sentences that they would not be rewarded for
children go through incorrect grammar stages despite it not being reinforced

Question 9

what did Chomsky believe about language

Answer 9

ability is innate - coded in genes and underlying basis of language is similar

Question 10

Who was right - skinner vs Chomsky

Answer 10

both and neither
humans do have a biological encoded language capability
however some conditioning involved in associative learning

Question 11

what is psycholinguistics

Answer 11

Scientific field dedicated to psychological processes by which humans acquire and process language

Question 12

how many levels of processing are there

Answer 12

6

Question 13

what is the first level of processing

Answer 13

1. Decoding phonemes: classifying sounds that distinguish words

Question 14

2nd level of processing

Answer 14

2. Accessing the mental lexicon: contains all words a person understands.

Question 15

3rd level of processing

Answer 15

Lexical semantics: The meaning of words. Each word has one or more meanings.

Question 16

4th level of processing

Answer 16

Syntactic processing: understanding relations between words

Question 17

5th level of processing

Answer 17

Semantics: Understanding the meaning of language signal.

Question 18

6th level of processing

Answer 18

Discourse integration: Relating & embedding meaning in context, understanding relations of sentences to each other

Question 19

what is the tip of the tongue phenomenon

Answer 19

you know what you want to say but can’t remember the phonological structure automatically

Question 20

what is speech segmentation

Answer 20

recognising boundaries in speech - challenging if you do not know the rules of a spoken language

Question 21

what is the phonemic restoration effect

Answer 21

Phonemes are perceived in speech even when the sound of the phoneme is covered up by an extraneous noise (cough)
Affected by contextual processing: Top down completion of missing sounds

Question 22

what is Broca’s area

Answer 22

responsible for language production

Question 23

what is Wernicke’s area

Answer 23

language comprehension

Question 24

describe Broca’s aphasia

Answer 24

Speech is slow & laboured
Jumbled sentence structure
Difficulty understanding syntactic variations (e.g. passive sentences)

Question 25

what is Wernicke’s aphasia

Answer 25

Speech is random & meaningless
Inability to comprehend speech & writing
General impairment in understanding meaning (semantics).

Question 26

what does language prediction help

Answer 26

• Ambiguity
• Words can have multiple meanings (some can be more dominant than others)
• Interpolation in difficult conditions (distraction, noise)

Deciding on best candidate meaning

Question 27

what happens to frequent words

Answer 27

processed faster and more efficiently

Question 28

explain discourse processing

Answer 28

Sentences consist of words
Stories consist of sentences that are coherent with the story
But the sum of units alone does not define the whole (story)
We need to make inferences about larger meaning to understand (as opposed to just comprehend) a story.

Question 29

describe coherence

Answer 29

Representation of the text in one’s mind that creates clear relations between parts of the text and between parts of the text and the story’s main topic

Question 30

what is anaphoric inference

Answer 30

The assumption that characters in a story are coherent. Personal pronouns refer to previously mentioned characters

Question 31

what is instrument inference

Answer 31

We use knowledge about tools and actions to infer instruments, e.g. if someone is being stabbed, you infer a knife being used

Question 32

what is causal inference

Answer 32

There is a causal connection between the events in a narrative

Question 33

what is theory of mind

Answer 33

the understanding that another person has beliefs, thoughts, feelings, perspectives, knowledge, and other mental states that are different from your own.

Question 34

why is ToM important

Answer 34

Critical for making inferences about other’s intentions to correctly interpret what they say

Question 35

Sapir-Whorf hypothesis:

Answer 35

The nature of a culture’s language influences the way people think (short: language influences thought)