Language and Cognition Flashcards
From how long after onset can you identify words?
200ms
What is the segmentation illusion?
we feel like we hear pauses between words but this is an illusion
Why is there no definitive acoustical pattern for a phoneme?
coarticulation
What are content words and what are function words?
content words: convey meaning in a sentence i.e. nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs
function words: words that do grammatical work of language eg. determiners and prepositions
What is the metrical segmentation strategy?
if you hear a strong syllable it is likely to be at the start of a content word, if you hear a weak syllable it is likely to be towards the end of a content word or start of a function word
What is categorical perception?
humans are better at hearing differences between categories of sound as opposed to within a category. (sensitive to difference between b and p. insensitive to difference between variations of b.)
What are factors that can influence categorial perception?
- individual differences: voice-onset time slightly different between people
-speech rate: perceptual system adjusts to fast rates of speech. sounds with short voice onset times that should be perceived as b will be perceived as p when spoken quickly
-context: we tend to report the phenome that creates a word if we are unsure
When does word recognition occur?
word recognition occurs after phenome recognition
explain template matching models
early models of word recognition. targets are stored as templates. a template is an exact description of word and sounds searched for. identification occurs when match is found
explain analysis-by-synthesis models
speech is recognised by referencing actions to produce a sound. upon hearing sound we produce or synthesize a succession of speech sounds until we match what we hear
Describe the top-down versus bottom-up theory that is debated today?
top-down processing involves knowledge coming from high levels e.g. context, experience. bottom-up processing involves processes that are data driven i.e. influenced by environmental stimuli
Explain Cohort model:
cohort- set of candidates that a heard word could possibly be.
uniqueness point: the point where a word could be distinguished uniquely from all other words.
What are the three stages of the cohort model?
Access stage: perceptual representation used to generate a candidate set of items
Selection stage: one item chosen from set
Interrogation stage: semantic and syntactic properties of word are accessed
According to cohort theory, what happens in the processing of words in late and early uniqueness words?
Late uniqueness words get stuck at access stage due to a large number of competitors. Early uniqueness words experience no competitors at the cut off point and can proceed to selection and interrogation stages
What was claimed by the early version of the Cohort model that was then disproved?
the idea that sensory and context information are used simultaneously (as an element of top down processing), and that we only listen to complete words when there is no useful sentence information. The later version found that context does not influence the cohort.
It was also said that activation of words are all or nothing meaning if the beginning of a word in mispronounced the cohort model cannot recognise it. It was the proved that the elimination of candidates are not all or nothing and that words can recover
Evidences of Cohort Model:
-listening for mispronunciation task. found that participants are more sensitive to changes at beginning of words than the end.
-semantic priming task. proved it was easier to recognise a word if you have just seen or heard a word related in meaning
What is the TRACE model of word recognition?
model involves computer simulations with many simple processing units. assumes that top down and bottom up processes interact flexibly using all sources of information and emphasises the role of context on word recognition.
what are concepts?
concepts are mental representations of categories, all words have an underlying concept and not all are labelled by a brown dog e.g. brown dog
Explain the dictionary definition approach:
proposed that members of a category have a family resemblance to each other and characteristic features. the more features an object has the more likely it is to be in a category
what is the average member of a category called?
protypes
are all prototypes strictly in a set category?
there are no strict boundaries, objects are more or less in the category. not all category members are equal
True or false: The assumption is that the memory search starts with the prototype and works outwards
true
What is the exemplar theory?
we categorise objects by comparing them to examples of a category in memory compared to a standard prototype
Which theory argues it is likely we use both prototype and exemplars?
Exemplar theory
What would developmental theory say happens when a child first encounters a dog?
there is a movement from exemplar to prototype reasoning
What is a problem with typicality?
Keil 1986 study with children found when they were asked to turn a toaster into a coffee pot they acknowledged int was possible. but, when they were asked to turn a skunk into a cartoon they understood you could paint a skunk as a racoon but would not accept it as a racoon.
What is the developmental perspective?
children evolve theories about categories through childhood
What are two limitations from word concept theories thus far?
-they don’t account for ability to understand novel combinations of concepts
-focus on literal language raising the question of how we understand metaphorical phrases
explain Linguistic determinism:
characteristics of our language determine the way we think, remember, and perceive
explain linguistic relativism:
as different languages map onto the world in different ways, different languages will generate different cognitive structures
What is an alternative hypothesis to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis?
language does not determine our perceptions of the world as it is merely the system we use to describe it
Describe the strong, weaker, and weakest version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. Whish is mot believed today?
strong version: language determines thought
weaker version: language affects only perception
weakest version: language differences affect processing on certain tasks where linguistic coding is important
According to Whorf, since the language Hopi contains no words or grammatical constructions referring to time what does this mean for their perception?
they therefore had no general notion of times, time would be a flowing continuum in which the universe proceeds at and equal rate.
however in disproving this, the language does include examples of past present future, and unit of time as days and months
What is a focal colour?
prototypical colours which are easily categorised
define relative term and absolute system in spatial reference:
relative term- e.g. English, fork is left of knife
absolute system- e.g. Tzeltal;, fork is north of knife
What are the two interpretations (Levinson 1996) of Tzeltal language saying ‘fork is north of the knife’?
One: Tzeltal language has a system of describing relative to the terrain hence causing them to think that way
Two: Tzeltal speakers habitually reckon directions with respect to the terrain which is reflected in their language
What is the difference in number systems between English and Chinese? How does this effect language learning in children?
English has 13 primitive terms (0-12), plus teens and special ones beyond 100. Chinese has 11 basic terms (0-10) and three special terms.
English children struggle to learn teen numbers whereas Chinese children do not (Hunt and Agnoli, 1991)
How is Piraha (amazon) unique from other languages in the number system?
they have no words to describe numbers only one word for few and one for many. they can perform exact matches of large numbers implying language is not essential for numerical tasks, however the performance is inaccurate when information needed to be remembered
how does language impact performance in memory tasks?
Language does boost performance when memory is required
Due to Jahai speakers having specific words for smells, how was their performance in a smell describing task compared to English speakers?
Jahai speakers were able to use a word to describe abstract smells 99% of the time, which is as consistent as they are with colours. English speakers struggled to describe the same smells and gave long answers.
