Language and cognition Flashcards
Cognitivism
focus on mental processes and representations. Information processing: humans = limited capacity information processors. - input/processing/memory/output
working memory
A cognitive workbench. Complex system dependent upon attention resources and governed by a central executive. The central executive regulates attention (limited capacity) to the buffers. Phonological loop., visual-spatial sketchpad, episodic buffer
Central executive
phonological loop, visa-spatial sketchpad, episodic buffer. This model proposes different memory buffers for different modalities; information decays rapidly
Evidence for central executive
modality-specific interference versus cross-modality interference. Word length effect. If tapping the same modality, performance goes down. If different, no effect. WM capacity correlated with Stroop task performance
Worming memory in reading
espcecially important for word learning and morphology. Negatively correlated with math anxiety; positively correlated with language/reading
Different types of long term memory
procedural memory and declarative memory (episodic and semantic). In language use, all components of memory come together.
Semantic memory and the lexicon
concepts interconnected. Nodes/each with a resting state and activation threshold. Associations = links. Concepts accessed through spreading activation. Quantify connections (x,y,z) and see how often they occur.
Evidence for network of interconnected concepts
importance of priming studies, indicate that when you hear/read a word, you partially activate “connected” words. Make decision faster if banana after fruit.
Decay is ____ and ____ for network of interconnected concepts
temporal and spatial
Not all connections are facilitatory. Inhibition
from word form/sound similarity (the neighbouhood densityy is the number of similar sounding words. Oe phoneme difference rule. Testing neighbours, slower to respond if more neighbours. Have longer processing time for words that have more neighbours
Types of connections
semantic, phonological, lexical, morphology, syntax
Types of syntactical relations
paradigmatic relation (can substitute for each other in phrase/sentence.
Syntagmatic relation: occur together in phrases/sentances
Semantic networks may relate to neurological organization. Evidence
Selective impairment in adult neurogenic patients. Issues identifying one particular group of things (animals, fruits, etc.) and nothing else
Central issues in language processing (4)
1) serial versus parallel processing
2) top-down and bottom-up processes
3) Automatic versus controlled processe
4) Modularity
Serial veruss parallel processing
Serial isn’t accurate. Parallel distributed processing (PDP). Parallel ~simultaneously. Simultaneous rather than.or in addition to spreading activation.
~distributed: information stored as a pattern of activity rather then as a single node.
- the triangle model - influential working model of word recognition; parallel activation for letters, sounds, words, meaning. Parallel processing -encodes statistical relations between patterns of letters and their pronunciation/ Helps us understand anomia (cat probably made up of 10s of thousand of neurons. More complicated than branc model)
