Where in the brain is language lateralized
Left
Where is Broca’s area located
A region in the left central cortex that is important for grammer
where is Wernicke’s area located
the left temporal lobe that is important with semantic content of speech
What aspect of natural languages do linguists study
Field of study that attempts to characterized the structure of language
linguists focus with productivit
The fact that an infinite number of utterances are possible in any language
linguists focus with regularity
The fact that these utterances are systematic in many ways
What aspect of language is captured by syntax
word order and reflection
What aspect of language is captured by semantics
meaning of sentences
What aspect of language is captured by
phonology?
sound structure of sentences
What are lexical ambiguities, and when do they arise?
A Lexical ambiguity is when a single word has two meanings, there is often no structural difference in the two interpretations of a sentence.
How are language and thought related
Thought depends in various ways on language. Language depends in various ways on thought. They are two independent systems.
What is the difference between the level of a person’s abstract knowledge of
language, and a person’s actual application of that knowledge in speaking and
listening?
Competence and Performance
How is a person’s abstract knowledge of his or her language referred to?
Competence
How do speakers correct themselves, do people tend to refer only incorrect words or
entire phrases?
They tend to repeat or correct the whole phrase
What are the three critical features that are considered making human language
different from any other communication system?
Semanticity and arbitrariness of units- the relationship between signs and meaning is arbitrary. Displacement in time and space- human language can be used to communicate over time and distance. Discreteness and productivity- human language contains discreet components
What is special about human language, in terms of how widespread human language
is?
No other species spontaneously uses a communication system anything like human language
Who is Kanzi, and how did he start using lexigrams?
Kanzi is a bonobo monkey and started using lexigrams by accident after witnessing studies with his mother
What did Chomsky hypothesize about the genetic endowment of humans when it
comes to learning language?
That the number of formal possibilities for a natural language is so great that learning the language would be simply impossible unless we processed some innate information about the possible forms of natural human language
When children learn to speak a language, do they first learn to speak certain sentences
perfectly, and then move on, or do they start out with telegraphic style?
Children gradually approximate adult speech by producing even larger and more complex constructions
What is meant by the critical period for language acquisition, are younger children
better at mastering a new language than older children
The critical period for language acquisition is from about 2 to 12 years old and it is claimed to be the easiest time to learn a language. Younger children do not learn language faster than older children but greatest mastery is achieved by those who start very young
Are Broca’s and Wernicke’s area the only brain regions involved in language
processing?
no
What are the three stages of language comprehension?
Perceptual stage- encoding the message.
Parsing stage- words are transformed into mental representation of the meaning.
Utilization stage- the mental representation is used.
What are the basic units of a sentence?
constituents
When reading, do people fixate on every word, almost every word, only familiar
words, or only unfamiliar words?
Almost every word
What is phrase structure, and what is the relation between phrase structure and
sentence meaning?
Phrase structure is the understanding the syntax of natural language.It is concerned with the way that sentences are broken up into linguistic units
When reading, what happens if the reader hits a phrase boundary?
People tend to pause briefly after each meaningful unit of speech
What is the dominant syntactic cue in English?
word order
What is a center-embedded sentence?
A sentence where one clause is embedded in another clause
What are the two types of ambiguity that can exist in sentences?
Permanent ambiguity and transient ambiguity
When an ambiguous word in a sentence is presented, which meaning is activated?
One interpretation is adopted and will retract it if it is later contradicted.
What is a bridging inference, how does such inference relate to a current and
preceding utterance?
Inferences in sentence comprehension that connects the sentence to to prior context
What is an elaborative inference, how does such inference relate to a current and
future utterance?
Inferences in sentence comprehension that anticipate things not yet asserted
Are there any limits to the number of elaborative inferences that can be made?
no
What did the Loftus and Zanni (1975) experiment show us about the role of ‘the’ and
‘a’?
Comprehenders take the definite article such as “the” and “a” to imply the existence of a reference for the noun
How do comprehenders determine which referent a pronoun refers to, and what cues
do they use?
Comprehenders consider multiple possible candidates for a referent of a pronoun and use syntactic and semantic cues to select one of the referents
How do comprehenders process a negative? What is processed first, the embedded
supposition, or the negation itself?
Comprehenders process a negative by first processing its embedded supposition and then the negation
What are the three levels of representation in a text according to Kintsch, and what do
each of them refer to in a text?
The surface level- the representation of the exact sentence.
The propositional level- checking for understanding.
The situation level- this consists of the major points of the story.
What is abduction
the creation of meaning and or knowledge.
why is abduction an interest within the field of
development of Cognition?
Abduction is unique for humans, it occurs from the day we are born to the end of our lives and it does not change throughout the life span, it may be what the mind does in any higher order cognitive function
Abduction is hypothesized to be caused by two competing
forces (local and global order), how do these two forces relate and when does abduction
occur?
Abduction is hypothesized as a balance between local order and global order only when there is ambiguity. Noise on the local level does order on the higher level occur. higher level order is more abstract meaning. Local level order is more detailed and specified
Specifically, when does language learning occur in children with respect to local and or global order?
When there is ambiguity on a local level children will better discover the order on a higher level. Local ambiguity is caused by the fact that young children lack the cognitive ability to fully understand spoken language yet higher level order is the inherit structure of natural language.