Language and Cognition

Question 1

From how long after onset can you identify words?

Answer 1

200ms

Question 2

What is the segmentation illusion?

Answer 2

we feel like we hear pauses between words but this is an illusion

Question 3

Why is there no definitive acoustical pattern for a phoneme?

Answer 3

coarticulation

Question 4

What are content words and what are function words?

Answer 4

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

Question 5

What is the metrical segmentation strategy?

Answer 5

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

Question 6

What is categorical perception?

Answer 6

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.)

Question 7

What are factors that can influence categorial perception?

Answer 7

• 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

Question 8

When does word recognition occur?

Answer 8

word recognition occurs after phenome recognition

Question 9

explain template matching models

Answer 9

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

Question 10

explain analysis-by-synthesis models

Answer 10

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

Question 11

Describe the top-down versus bottom-up theory that is debated today?

Answer 11

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

Question 12

Explain Cohort model:

Answer 12

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.

Question 13

What are the three stages of the cohort model?

Answer 13

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

Question 14

According to cohort theory, what happens in the processing of words in late and early uniqueness words?

Answer 14

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

Question 15

What was claimed by the early version of the Cohort model that was then disproved?

Answer 15

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

Question 16

Evidences of Cohort Model:

Answer 16

-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

Question 17

What is the TRACE model of word recognition?

Answer 17

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.

Question 18

what are concepts?

Answer 18

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

Question 19

Explain the dictionary definition approach:

Answer 19

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

Question 20

what is the average member of a category called?

Answer 20

protypes

Question 21

are all prototypes strictly in a set category?

Answer 21

there are no strict boundaries, objects are more or less in the category. not all category members are equal

Question 22

True or false: The assumption is that the memory search starts with the prototype and works outwards

Answer 22

true

Question 23

What is the exemplar theory?

Answer 23

we categorise objects by comparing them to examples of a category in memory compared to a standard prototype

Question 24

Which theory argues it is likely we use both prototype and exemplars?

Answer 24

Exemplar theory

Question 25

What would developmental theory say happens when a child first encounters a dog?

Answer 25

there is a movement from exemplar to prototype reasoning

Question 26

What is a problem with typicality?

Answer 26

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.

Question 27

What is the developmental perspective?

Answer 27

children evolve theories about categories through childhood

Question 28

What are two limitations from word concept theories thus far?

Answer 28

-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

Question 29

explain Linguistic determinism:

Answer 29

characteristics of our language determine the way we think, remember, and perceive

Question 30

explain linguistic relativism:

Answer 30

as different languages map onto the world in different ways, different languages will generate different cognitive structures

Question 31

What is an alternative hypothesis to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis?

Answer 31

language does not determine our perceptions of the world as it is merely the system we use to describe it

Question 32

Describe the strong, weaker, and weakest version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. Whish is mot believed today?

Answer 32

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

Question 33

According to Whorf, since the language Hopi contains no words or grammatical constructions referring to time what does this mean for their perception?

Answer 33

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

Question 34

What is a focal colour?

Answer 34

prototypical colours which are easily categorised

Question 35

define relative term and absolute system in spatial reference:

Answer 35

relative term- e.g. English, fork is left of knife absolute system- e.g. Tzeltal;, fork is north of knife

Question 36

What are the two interpretations (Levinson 1996) of Tzeltal language saying 'fork is north of the knife'?

Answer 36

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

Question 37

What is the difference in number systems between English and Chinese? How does this effect language learning in children?

Answer 37

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)

Question 38

How is Piraha (amazon) unique from other languages in the number system?

Answer 38

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

Question 39

how does language impact performance in memory tasks?

Answer 39

Language does boost performance when memory is required

Question 40

Due to Jahai speakers having specific words for smells, how was their performance in a smell describing task compared to English speakers?

Answer 40

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.

Question 41

What are the three stages of memory?

Answer 41

encoding, storage, retrieval

Question 42

What was found in early memory research by Carl Lashley about memory in brain regions ?

Answer 42

memory is not localised, it has equipotentiality which means parts all a cross the cortex contribute to memory.

Question 43

Name the test that Hermann Ebbinghaus utilised in one of the first ever scientific studies of memory:

Answer 43

nonsense syllables as test materials

Question 44

According to computational neuroscience what is the mathematical modelling of brain activity?

Answer 44

electrical activity is experienced in the form if sensory, motor and cognitive experiences. This causes neuronal and synaptic modifications leading to learning and memory. 'cells that fire together, wire together'

Question 45

Explain Long Term Potentiation:

Answer 45

The process of strengthening of synapses leading to a longer lasting increase in signal transmissions between neurons.

Question 46

Name two brain areas associated with long term potentiation in memory and learning

Answer 46

hippocampus and amygdala

Question 47

What are the steps of the multistore model (Atkinson and Shiffrin 1971) in order?

Answer 47

environmental input > sensory registers> short term store > long term store

Question 48

what happens to sensory memory when it is not attended to?

Answer 48

info rapidly decays

Question 49

What are the five types on sensory memory?

Answer 49

visual (sight) auditory (sound) olfactory (smell) tactile (touch) gustatory (taste)

Question 50

On average, in George Sperling's experiment on iconic memory, how many letters did the average participant recall out of 12 and why?

Answer 50

4.5. if info in the iconic memory decays quickly, participants don't have enough time to report it

Question 51

In sperling's partial; report technique regarding iconic memory, what conclusion did he come to?

Answer 51

participants have on average about 9 out of 12 letters available in their iconic memory

Question 52

How long can iconic memory last?

Answer 52

about one second

Question 53

In echoic memory, how long does partial report advantage last for?

Answer 53

four seconds

Question 54

Which memory capacity is larger; echoic or iconic?

Answer 54

iconic memory

Question 55

which memory lasts longer; echoic or iconic?

Answer 55

echoic, lasts about 4 seconds

Question 56

Short term memory holds ------- info from -------- memory for further processing

Answer 56

short term memory holds *activated info from *sensory memory for further processing

Question 57

explain 7=/-2 in context of memory

Answer 57

(miller 1956) magic number 7 plus or minus two as a rule for capacity in STM in chunks of information

Question 58

what is a chunk?

Answer 58

groups of items that have been collected together and treated as a single unit

Question 59

In what way do chunks rely on long term memory?

Answer 59

chunks rely on previous knowledge stored in long term memory

Question 60

describe decay v interreference

Answer 60

in a memory duration task, forgotten factors are caused by decay or interference. while items may decay due to lack of rehearsal, they could also be interfered with during the retention interval

Question 61

What is the difference between the role of the short term memory and the working memory?

Answer 61

working memory provides short term storage info however it also manipulates this information comprehensively

Question 62

what is the rehearsal process and word length effect in the phonological loop?

Answer 62

rehearsal process: recall decreases when the words are phonologically similar word length effect: recall decreases as word length increases

Question 63

Two parts of the phonological loop:

Answer 63

- phonological store. holds auditory info passively online -rehearsal process. phonological store item by item

Question 64

patient PV acquires a phonological loop deficit as an adult. this results in having a digit span of two items. How does this affect her comprehensive ability, ability to learn a foreign language, and capacity to learn pairs of meaningful words?

Answer 64

comprehensive ability: very minor language comprehensive issues foreign language learning: inability to learn a new language words capacity: learning pairs of meaningful words was unimpaired, but still unable to learn foreign language vocabulary

Question 65

two subcomponents of the visuospatial sketchpad:

Answer 65

visual cache- visual info about form and colour inner scribe- processing spatial and movement info

Question 66

What is the central executive in working memory?

Answer 66

the flexible system responsible for control and regulation of cognitive processes. this does not store information but is the most important component of working memory

Question 67

What is the function of the episodic buffer?

Answer 67

holds integrated information from the phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad and long term memory in unified representations with a maximum capacity of around 4 chunks

Question 68

how will an aeroplane noise affect recall of a prose passage in a low WM individual?

Answer 68

these individuals will be interrupted more by the noise and recall will be harder

Question 69

in a sustained attention task would a low or high WM individual sustain focus more?

Answer 69

low WM individuals will engage in more task unrelated thought than high WM individuals

Question 70

What is a factor which can affect the capacity of the working memory?

Answer 70

fluid intelligence

Question 71

What is the function of Executive Function?

Answer 71

mental processes for regulating and controlling other cognitive processes, in particular in relation to complex actions. manages task processing and is not actually involved in performing the task

Question 72

Describe the three major executive functions:

Answer 72

inhibition- controlling ones behaviour, thoughts, and emotions. inhibition of attention and action shifting- switch flexibility between tasks or mental sets updating: monitor and engage in rapid addition or deletion of working memory contents

Question 73

Which executive function is measured by the Stroop task (Stroop, 1935)?

Answer 73

inhibition of attention

Question 74

which executive function is measured using the Stop Signal Task (Logan and Cowan, 1984)?

Answer 74

inhibition of action

Question 75

Describe the number-letter task used for the executive function 'shifting':

Answer 75

participant see numbers and letters that appear on the top of the screen and say whether the numbers are odd or even. however, numbers and letters will also appear on the bottom screen and participant determines if they are consonants or vowels

Question 76

How would the executive function 'updating' be tested?

Answer 76

tone monitoring task where three different tones are played, after the fourth tone of each particular pitch was presented participants had to raise their hand

Question 77

what are the components of EF (executive functions) which make them alike but also differentiated?

Answer 77

each EF has a component common to all Ef and one that is unique to the particular EF ability= unity + diversity

Question 78

What is the component that all executive components have in common?

Answer 78

the ability to maintain task goal related information and use this to effectively bias lower-level processing

Question 79

How is the unity/diversity framework tested for executive functions? what did the test reveal?

Answer 79

identify either global (large letter) or local (small letter) level on each trial as cued by colour. there was considerable overlap in brain areas associated with inhibition and shifting

Question 80

What symptoms might a person with dysexecutive syndrome display?

Answer 80

impaired response inhibition impaired rule deduction and generation impaired maintenance and shifting of sets impaired information generation

Question 81

How would someone with good executive functioning play the Iowa Gambling Task ?

Answer 81

they would recognise that some decks are good via rewards and that some are bad, and they would be able to distinguish which deck is good or bad

Question 82

Briefly describe the two separate brain networks found during the Iowa gambling task:

Answer 82

Cognitive control network- associated with response inhibition, conflict monitoring and switching Value-based decision-making network- associated with emotion and value judgements

Question 83

During Kimberley and William's (2004) executive function training task, which group out of karate group and traditional pe group led to greater gains?

Answer 83

The karate group achieved greater gains in all three domains, particularly cognitive and self-regulation via techniques such as meditation and self monitoring

Question 84

When are executive function training tasks more likely to generalize to other executive function tasks ?

Answer 84

When the EF tasks are more demanding, pushing limits of one's skills

Question 85

How did bilingual infants react in comparison to monolingual infants in a test of inhibition of habitual responses (Kovacs and Mehler, 2009)?

Answer 85

after the switch rule change, monolingual infants hardly learned much whereas bilingual infants were able to significantly improve

Question 86

How may bilingualism change responses to ageing in older adults?

Answer 86

-Bilinguals preserve executive functions longer during the aging process -Age related increase in inhibition costs is greater for monolinguals than for bilinguals

Question 87

True or False: Gathercole et al. 2014 found results that consolidated bilingualism reducing the affects of brain ageing in a card sorting task

Answer 87

False. These results actually challenged previous findings. The bilingual and monolingual group performed equally well

Question 88

In the debate as to whether bilingualism has positive effects on executive functions during aging, what are two explanations of the conflict of such findings?

Answer 88

-publication bias where people are more likely to publish positive findings of bilingualism -control groups are hard to match regarding background and status for both parties

Question 89

In judgement tasks why do most people get the answer wrong?

Answer 89

people ignore base rate information (relative frequency where an event occurs in a population)

Question 90

What is a heuristic?

Answer 90

a heuristic is the considerable rules of thumb people make using judgements. it is a mental shortcut that aids people to make judgement decisions quicker with less effort

Question 91

Define representative heuristics:

Answer 91

when we estimate the probability of an event based on its similarity of a known situation/an existing prototype

Question 92

Define availability heuristics:

Answer 92

people make judgements about the likelihood of an event based on how easily an instance comes to mind

Question 93

Which judgement theory argues that more explicit descriptions increase subjective probability ?

Answer 93

support theory

Question 94

Mandel 2005 asked people during the first week of 2003 Iraq war to assess the risk of a terror attack. One group were given brief info and another group were given more explicit info. Which group was more likely to assign a higher probability to terror attacks?

Answer 94

the group where explicit info was given

Question 95

In what instance can explicit event descriptions reduce subjective probability?

Answer 95

if it leads people to focus on low probability causes

Question 96

Name one strength and one weakness of support theory

Answer 96

strength: shows availability heuristics can lead to errors in judgement weakness: does not take into account the role of emotion during judgement

Question 97

What are fast and frugal heuristics?

Answer 97

rapid processing of relatively little information. take the best heuristic system where person rapidly uses own search cue and stops after finding a discriminatory cue before then choosing the outcome.

Question 98

What is one strength and one weakness of fast and frugal heuristics?

Answer 98

strength: effective but simplistic weakness: underestimates the value of local reasoning

Question 99

Explain the systems in the dual process model and how they interact:

Answer 99

system one: fast, automatic, effortless, difficult to control, emotionally charged info. system two: slower, serial, more consciously monitored, effortful, flexible information. system 1 will first make intuitive judgements, then system 2 will monitor and evaluate the judgements

Question 100

What assumption regarding the dual processing theory is incorrect?

Answer 100

the assumption that answers on base rate info always involve system 2 and that representative heuristics always involve system 1

Question 101

What is one strength and one weakness of dual processing theory?

Answer 101

strength: evidence to support weakness: unclear if system 2 can detect errors in system 1