9. Language Production Flashcards
(115 cards)
1
Q
What are the 2 main forms of language production?
A
Speaking and writing
2
Q
What are characteristics of speaking and writing?
A
Both are goal-directed activities - communication
3
Q
What are the 4 main differences between speaking and writing?
A
1) Speaking is more spontaneous than writing
2) Nature of audience – speakers know precisely who is receiving the message, but writers often don’t
3) Feedback – speakers receive immediate feedback but writers don’t
4) Access to what has been produced –Writers usually have direct access to what have been produced so far, but speakers do not.
4
Q
How do we know that speaking is quite undemanding of our processing resources?
A
We can speak very fast! Around 3 words per second.
Our ability to process speech despite its rapid rate tells us that it is relatively easy
5
Q
What are 3 strategies we use to reduce processing demands?
A
1) Preformulation – Reduce processing costs by producing phrases used before. Repeat many expressions
2) Underspecification – Using simplified expressions
3) Syntactic Priming – Occurs when a previously experienced syntactic structure influences current processing. Common in speech because processing on demands on speech production are reduced when a heard syntactic structure is copied
6
Q
Which is harder to produce - monolog or dialog? Why?
A
Monolog is harder than dialog.
Dialog – can copy phrases or sentences of the other person. The other person’s words serve as a prime/prompt.
Monolog – speakers must generate their own ideas
7
Q
The _____ principle is they key to successful communication.
A
Cooperative. Ensure smooth switches between speakers, around 500ms pause.
8
Q
What are the 4 maxims of communication?
A
1) Maxim of quantity
2) Maxim of quality
3) Maxim of relation
4) Maxim of manner
9
Q
What is the maxim of quantity?
A
Speaker should be as informative as necessary, but not more so. Necessary to know the object(s) from which the referent must be distinguished from.
10
Q
What is the maxim of quality? What does flouting of this maxim entail?
A
Speaker should be truthful.
Flouting the maxim of quality results in sarcasm or irony.
11
Q
What is the maxim of relation?
A
Speaker should say things relevant to the situation
12
Q
What is the maxim of manner?
A
Speaker should make his/her contribution easy to understand. (brief and unambiguous)
13
Q
What is an adjacency pair?
A
When both speakers have each taken a turn (eg. qn and answer) It is a common way a conversation moves from one speaker to another
14
Q
In real life, how successful are people in adhering to the maxim of quantity?
A
Only moderately successful at adhering to this principle. ⅓ of the time, speakers produce an unnecessarily detailed sentence.
Cognitively demanding to work out that listeners don’t need the additional information and omit that information.
15
Q
In nonlinguistic (“the larger bat”) vs linguistic ambiguity (“the baseball bat”) situations, which situations do participants do better in?
A
nonlinguistic ambiguity
In linguistic ambiguity situations, there is no similarity between the two bats in terms of visual shape and meaning. The only similarity is at the phonological (sound) level and that becomes apparent only later in processing when the speaker is about to name the object.
16
Q
How do gestures enhance communication?
A
Increases listeners’ ability to make sense of the speaker’s message
17
Q
When the speakers knew that the listeners could not see the visual stimulus, they used more gestures to describe it. What does this suggest?
A
Suggest that speakers can be quite responsive to listener’s needs.
18
Q
Gestures were far more effective than words at communicating what sort of information?
A
visual spatial information
19
Q
Speakers tend to _____ the value of gestures as a means of communication.
A
underestimate
20
Q
Why do speakers use gestures when speaking on the phone?
A
gestures may help us to retrieve words we want to say, making it easier to communicate. When participants ability to make gestures were suppressed, they were less able to guess uncommon words from word meanings.
21
Q
What are some examples of discourse markers?
A
“well”, “oh”, “uhhh”, “you know”
22
Q
What is the purpose of:
- “oh”, “uhh”
- “you know”
- “like”
A
“oh”, “uhh” - indicate that speaker is experiencing problems in deciding what to say next
“you know” - check for understanding and to connect with the listeners
“like” - indicate discrepancy between what someone says and what they mean
23
Q
Which discourse markers are used to indicate moving to the next topic?
A
“oh” - new topic related to speaker
“so” - new topic related to listener
24
Q
Which 2 discourse markers are more used in casual situations than formal ones?
A
“oh” and “well”
shouldn’t use “like” during interviews as it reduces chance of being hired
25
What are prosodic cues?
Include rhythm, stress, and intonation
| They make it easier for listeners to understand what speakers are saying
26
Do speakers use prosodic cues appropriately?
nope. speakers often fail to provide prosodic cues even when they are needed. Speakers used prosodic cues limitedly as they tend to overestimate the listener’s understanding of the intended meaning.
27
When are prosodic cues more likely to be provided?
when the context fails to clarify the meaning of an ambiguous sentence.
28
Speakers provided prosodic cues regardless of whether the listener needed them. What does this suggest?
Speakers' use of prosodic cues did not indicate any particular responsiveness to the listener.
29
Speakers and listeners work together to maximize common ground. What is common ground?
mutual beliefs, expectations, and knowledge. (ie. speakers and listeners try to get on the “same wavelength”)
30
What are 2 types of assumptions that speakers make about listeners to establish common ground?
1) Global assumptions
| 2) Local assumptions
31
What is the difference between global and local assumptions?
Global assumptions: Listener’s preferred language; Listener’s general knowledge; Shared personal experiences
Local assumptions: Relates to what the listener knows or is attending to at any given moment
32
Comparing global and local assumptions, which ones are speakers more likely to make mistakes for?
Speakers are more likely to make incorrect local assumptions than global ones because the local assumptions keep changing
33
What are 2 problems with the use of common ground?
1) Cognitively demanding to keep focusing on precisely what the listener knows. Limits the influence of common ground speaker’s utterances. So speakers just focus on their own knowledge until listeners tell them something is amiss.
2) Speakers often produce utterances that are easy for them to say rather than easy for their listeners to understand, neglecting common ground, especially when in urgent situations.
34
In the Horton and Keysar experiment, dot moving from speakers side to listeners side for shared vs unshared conditions, and speeded vs unspeeded conditions, what were the findings?
Explain in terms of unspeeded vs speeded conditions.
Unspeeded condition: participants used common ground and utilised contextual information in their descriptions only in the shared-context condition.
Speeded condition: participants included contextual information in their descriptions regardless of its appropriateness. (ie. they assumed contextual knowledge from listeners even if they knew the listener did not have access to that knowledge). There was insufficient time for cognitively demanding monitoring processes to operate.
35
Comparing interaction vs no interaction condition in the lego construction (director & builder) experiment, which condition had more common ground?
interactive condition
Directors often very rapidly altered what they said to maximize the common ground between themselves and the builders in the interactive condition. Hence fewer errors were made.
36
What are 2 strategies speakers take with respect to the common ground?
1) shared responsibility - Speaker expect the listener to volunteer information if he/she notices a problem with the common ground
2) cognitive overload - Speaker may try to keep track of the listener’s knowledge as well as his/her own, but generally finds that this requires excessive cognitive processing.
37
In what circumstances do speakers make more use of common ground? (3)
1) Time is not limited
2) Interaction is possible
3) Listeners state that they have a problem
38
Give 2 limitations of current research on common ground.
1) lab setting, participants' common ground is harder to keep track as they don't know each other beforehand. Not the case in real life.
2) In the lab, common ground generally involves information presented in visual displays. In real life, common ground typically refers to past events or knowledge of mutual acquaintances, or current information available.
39
Can liars be distinguished more easily via their verbal or nonverbal behavior?
Verbal behavior!
40
How to use content of a speech to tell if someone is lying?
Deceptive communicators used fewer first-person singular pronouns (eg. “I”) and fewer exclusive words (eg. “but”, “except”, “without”). Thus, liars distanced themselves from their lies and presented a simple account.
Truthful accounts were more logical and coherent and also contained more details. Liars speak more slowly, with more pauses.
41
How do we detect lying since we know that lying is cognitively demanding?
1) add a cognitive load while the suspect tells his story
| 2) ask the suspect to say his story in reverse order
42
What are the 4 levels involved in speech production?
1) semantic level (representation of ideas)
2) syntactic level (grammar and sentence structure)
3) morphological level (vocabulary)
4) phonological level (pronunciation)
43
What is the tip-of-the-tongue state?
Refers to a frustrating situation where we have a concept or idea in mind but cannot find the right word to describe it.
44
When does tip-of-the-tongue state occur?
Happens when semantic processing is successful but phonological processing is unsuccessful. Have problems accessing phonological information
Occurs with relatively rare words. Especially words that don’t sound like any other word (eg. apron, vineyard). The unusual phonological forms of words make them hard to retrieve.
45
What can be done to assist people to produce the correct word when they are in the tip-of-the-tongue state?
Present them with words sharing the first syllable with the correct word
46
Why do bilinguals experience the tip-of-the-tingue state more than monolinguals? (2 possible explanations)
1) Bilinguals’ attempts to find a word in one language could be disrupted by interference from the phonological representations of words in their other language.
2) bilinguals use many words somewhat less frequently than monolinguals. Hence the connections between meanings and phonological form are less well established.
47
To what extent do speakers plan their utterances in advance? (2 levels)
1) Phrase level -- group of words expressing an idea
| 2) Clause level -- subject + verb
48
Describe 1 piece of evidence to show planning at the phrase level.
simple ("the boy") vs complex initial phrase ("the boy and the tree")
Participants took longer to start speaking for the complex initial phrase condition, which indicates them planning the initial phrase before speaking.
49
Give 2 reasons why there is no simple answer to how much speakers plan in advance:
1) Planning can occur at any of the 4 levels. More advanced planning occurs at semantic level, less advanced planning occurs at phonological level.
2) Amount of planning can depend on several factors. (eg. sentence complexity, time available for planning)
50
What do speech errors reveal about planning?
It reveals the extent of forward planning at different processing levels.
51
Name 2 types of speech errors.
1) Word exchange errors
| 2) sound exchange errors (spoonerisms)
52
What are some key features of word-exchange errors?
Involves two words changing places
Words exchanged typically come from same clause, but some way apart in the sentence
eg. "my chair seems empty without my room."
"Chair" being spoken much earlier than intended suggests some aspects of planning can be extensive. Shows clause-level planning
53
What are some key features of sound-exchange errors (spoonerisms)?
Involves two sounds changing places
Eg. “she fainted the pence” vs “she painted the fence”
Occur over short distances within the sentences
Suggests that sounds of words are only planned shortly in advance. Supports the notion that phonological planning is less extensive than planning at other stages
54
Describe 1 piece of evidence to show that planning at the semantic level is more extensive than planning at the phonological level.
"The arrow is next to the bag" Distractor is presented to either first (arrow) or second noun (bag). Distractor is either similar in meaning or sound to the noun.
- When distractor was similar in sound to first noun, time taken before speaking is longer. Doesn't apply to second noun.
- When distractor was similar in meaning to either noun, the time taken was longer.
Hence during planning, the meanings of all words must be finalized before speaking. Presenting a distracter with a related meaning to either noun impairs this planning. In contrast, only sounds of early words have to be finalized before speaking. Presenting a distracting word that sounds like the second noun does not impair the planning.
55
Wagner's notion of Grammatical advance planning proposes that people who speak more slowly tend to engage in _______ planning.
more
56
Speakers engage in ______ planning before producing simple sentences than complex ones.
more
57
Speakers engaged in ______ planning when operating under a low cognitive load than when burdened with a huge cognitive load.
more
58
What does the spreading activation theory propose about speech production?
Proposed that the processes involved in speech production occur at the same time. So when we plan an utterance, we activate several sounds and words in the intended sentence before we speak.
59
What does spreading activation theory propose about when speech errors occur?
Speech errors occur whenever an incorrect item is more activated than the correct one
60
The spreading activation theory of speech production was motivated by anticipatory, perservatory, and exchange errors. Briefly describe these errors.
Anticipatory: "the sun is in the sky" --> "the sky is in the sun"
Perservatory: "beef noodle" --> "beef needle"
Exchange error : "clear blue" --> "glear plue"
61
What is the lexical bias effect in relation to speech errors?
Our phonological speech errors generally form words rather than non words.
62
What is a Freudian Slip?
A motivated error in speech revealing the speaker’s true desires. Freud emphasized speech errors related to sex.
63
What are 2 reasons explaining the lexical bias effect?
1) Speakers generally produce the sounds most highly activated at any given moment. These sounds are usually correct, but occasionally they are not because phonemes and words can be activated at the same time and they get mixed up. Activation at the word level helps to explain the lexical bias effect.
2) We monitor our own internal speech before speaking out loud to eliminate any nonwords. Participants frequently started to produce a spoonerism but then stopped themselves and produced the correct words.
64
What is a mixed-error effect?
Occurs when an incorrect word is semantically and phonemically related to the correct word.
Eg. “lets stop” → “lets start”
65
What does the existence of the mixed error effect say about the levels of processing in speech production?
Suggests that the various levels of processing interact flexibly with one another. Specifically, it suggests that semantic and phonological factors can influence word selection at the same time.
66
What are semantic-substitution errors?
Correct word is replaced by a word of similar meaning.
| In 99% of cases, nouns substitute for nouns, and verbs substitute for verbs
67
What are number-agreement errors?
Singular verbs are mistakenly used with plural subjects, or vice versa. “The family of rats”; “the family of mice” → verb should be singular!
Many people use a plural verb with such sentences because family is a collective noun.
Insufficient processing resources to avoid such errors. Higher cognitive load makes it harder for people to make accurate decisions concerning subject-verb agreement.
68
What is a blending error?
A blending error is when more than one item is being considered during speech production. As a result, both intended items fuse together to form an error.
Eg. person/people --> perple
69
What is a morpheme-exchange error?
A morpheme-exchange error refers to a situation where two morphemes switch places.
“He has already trunked the packs” → “He has already packed the trunks”
70
What is a problem with the spreading activation theory by Dell in explaining speech errors?
Predicts more speech errors than is actually the case. Predicts too many errors in situation in which 2 or more words are activated simultaneously
71
What does the “Syntactic traffic cop” do to ensure accurate speech production.
Avoids chaos by monitoring what we intend to say and inhibits any words not belonging to the appropriate syntactic or grammatical category.
Explains why we nearly always replace a noun with a noun, and a verb with a verb when we make mistakes when speaking.
72
Patients with aphasia (impairment in language impairment abilities) show damage to the ______. What kind of speech errors do they make?
"syntactic traffic cop"
Healthy controls tend to replace a noun with a noun, and a verb with a verb during speech errors but for them their errors are distributed randomly between nouns and verbs.
73
What are the 2 main categories of speech errors? Briefly describe them.
1) anticipatory (wrong word comes BEFORE correct word) - reflect inefficient planning. [eg. “cuff of coffee”]
2) preservatory (wrong word comes AFTER correct word) - reflect failure to monitor what one is about to say (planning failure) [eg. "beef needle"]
74
Expert make more of ______ errors. Why?
anticipatory
| they are more likely to plan ahead of time so they have an increased activation of future sounds and words.
75
Provide 1 evidence to show that anticipatory errors increase with expertise.
1) number of anticipatory errors increase as a function of age for tongue twisters (age 8 vs 11 vs young adults)
2) People who were given extensive practice for tongue twisters showed an increasing proportion of anticipatory errors despite an overall decrease in number of errors.
76
According to the spreading activation theory, what produces facilitation effects?
information about several words is often processed at the same time
77
Participants were asked to name target pictures while ignoring simultaneous distractor pictures.
Condition 1 -- Names of objects in both (target & distractor) pictures were phonologically related.
Eg. dog-doll; ball-wall
Condition 2 -- Names of objects in both pictures were phonologically unrelated.
What were the findings for this study in relation to facilitation effects?
Naming of target pictures was faster when accompanied by phonologically related distractors. Indicates that the phonological representations of the distractors were activated at the same time as those of target names.
78
Facilitation effect is often constrained by _______.
Word order
79
Give one evidence to support that facilitation effect is constrained by word order.
when you say "rake", the colour "red" is activated
but when you say "red", the object "Rake" is not activated.
no facilitation effect when asked to name the object colour, because there was little or no activation of the object name. colour adjectives are typically processed before object names.
80
What is writing and what does it involve?
Writing involves retrieval and organization of information stored in LTM. Also involves complex thought processes. It is basically a form of thinking and is not separate from other cognitive activities.
81
Most expert writers also possess excellent ______ skills
reading
82
Name the 3 key writing processes:
1) Planning
2) Sentence-generation
3) Revision
83
What does the planning process in writing involve?
Involves producing ideas and organizing them into a writing plan to satisfy the writer’s goals
84
What does the sentence-generation process in writing involve?
Involves turning the writing plan into actual writing of sentences
85
What does the revision process in writing involve?
Evaluate what has been written. Its focus ranges between individual words and the overall structural coherence of the writing.
86
Do writers normally stick to the "natural sequence" of writing? (ie. planning --> sentence generation --> revision)
NOPE. Writers often deviate from this “natural sequence” if they spot a problem with what they are writing midway.
87
Poets who committed suicide used more _____ words than poets in the non suicide group. However, they used fewer ______ words. What does this show?
first-person singular words (eg. I, me, my)
first-person plural words (eg. we, us, our).
shows less social integration
88
What are some benefits of expressive writing?
1) improved psychological wellbeing. free our minds of unwanted thoughts
2) improved physical health
89
What are 2 possible reasons why expressive writing improves psychological wellbeing?
1) Allows individuals to make sense of their negative life experiences. Those who benefited most from expressive writing showed a subsequent increase in the use of causation words (eg. because, cause, effect) and insight words (eg. consider, know)
2) More exposure to negative thoughts and feelings reduces their impact
90
Was the length of time spent on average for each writing process short or long? What does this show?
Short
Suggests the various processes involved in writing are heavily interdependent and much less separate than we might imagine. Writers who shifted rapidly among the various writing processes tend to produce the best-quality texts.
91
In what ways are writers unaware about how they allocated time?
Most overestimated the time spent on reviewing and revising, and underestimated the time spent on generating text
92
What are the effects of producing an outline before writing?
Spend more time in sentence generation, but less time in planning and reviewing or revising. Producing an outline increased the quality of the writing. Because they didn’t have to devote so much time to planning, which is the hardest part of writing.
93
In the planning stage of writing, what are the 3 types of relevant knowledge writers use?
1) Conceptual knowledge -- information about concepts and schemas stored in LTM
2) Socio-cultural knowledge -- information about social background or concepts
3) Metacognitive knowledge -- Knowledge about what one knows
94
What is strategic knowledge in writing concerned about?
Concerns ways of organizing the goals and subgoals of writing to construct a coherent writing plan.
Good writers use strategic knowledge flexibility to change the structure of writing plan if problems arise
95
The length of an average sentence was _____ for expert-writers than average writers.
longer
96
In terms of the revision process, what do expert-writers focus on?
Expert writers devote more of their writing time to revision
Expert writers focus more on coherence and structure of the arguments expressed
97
How can practice improve writing abilities?
1) increase relevant knowledge
| 2) increase ability to write faster (demands on WM decrease, allowing spare capacity to increase quality of writing)
98
What are the 2 major strategies used during planning stage?
1) knowledge-telling strategy
| 2) knowledge-transformation strategy
99
Describe the knowledge-telling strategy.
Involves writers simply writing down everything they know about a topic with minimal planning. Regurgitate whatever you have in LTM and hope it is the answer.
100
With increasing expertise, most adolescents shift from the _______ strategy to the _______ strategy.
knowledge-telling
| knowledge transformation
101
Describe the knowledge transformation strategy. (hint: 2 spaces)
Involves use of a rhetorical problem space and a content problem space
- Rhetorical problems -- achieving the goals of the writing task (eg. strengthening the argument)
- Content problem -- specific content information
There should be movement of information in both directions between the content space and rhetorical space. This happens more with skilled writers.
Reflecting on what you know and engage with what you know. Consider the audience by placing yourself in the perspective of the potential reader.
102
Which strategist will be able to produce higher level main points in an essay?
knowledge-transformation
103
How did expert writers produce goals and subgoals in their planning?
They produced more goals and subgoals
| their goals were also more interconnected
104
Revision at which point of the writing process is most important?
Revisions made towards the end
105
Very expert writers attain the _____ stage.
knowledge-crafting
106
What is most characteristic of the knowledge-crafting stage compared to the other stages?
It focuses on the reader's needs
107
What is the knowledge effect?
the tendency to assume that other people share the knowledge we possess. Individuals familiar with technical terms greatly overestimated the knowledge other people would have on these terms. When feedback is provided to consider readers’ needs, their texts were made more understandable.
108
Writing heavily relies on which part of the working memory system?
Central executive - organize and coordinate cognitive activities
109
What does Kellog's WM theory propose about the writing and the working memory?
All main processes involved in writing depend on the central executive of WM. Hence if any writing process is made more difficult, writing quality will suffer.
110
Assessing the involvement of central executive in writing has shown that:
high-level processes (planning) and lower-level processes (writing) can occur at the same time.
but when participants were asked to write in an unfamiliar handwriting, it was more effortful. Hence they were less likely to combined planning with actual writing, because using an unfamiliar handwriting was cognitively demanding
111
Reviewing or revising was _____ demanding than planning and translating
more
112
How did individuals with the most effective central executive functioning fare on writing performance at the general (planning, revision) and specific level (eg. grammar, punctuation)?
They had the best writing performance at both levels. They also had the best performance on all stages of writing (planning, translation, revision)
113
How do we know that the phonological loop plays an important role in writing?
Articulatory suppression impairs writing performance in both complex and easy writing tasks, even on easy tasks such as copying and transcribing texts.
114
In a study, students were asked to write descriptions of concrete (eg. chair, pencil) and abstract (eg. freedom, duty) nouns while performing a detection visual spatial task. What were the findings and what does it show about the role of the visuo-spatial sketchpad?
The writing task slowed detection times for visual stimuli only when concrete words were being described. Suggests that the visuospatial sketchpad is more involved when writers are thinking about and producing concrete nouns
115
Compared to longhand, how did students who wrote using word-processors fare in terms of their writing performance?
Their essays were of higher quality, especially for students who struggle with writing.
Word-processed essays tend to be better organized because it is much easier to change the organisation and structure
Word processing involved more effortful planning and revision than writing in longhand
