Psyc 440 Exam 3

What is Language?

Communicative, referential and meaningful, structured, and creative

Mental lexicon

The library of words we use; is the collection of all words we use to function in the world

Semantics

Meaning of a word or phrase

Syntax

Rules about how to structure words into sentences

Language has a hierarchical structure of

Sentences, words, morphemes, and phonemes

Morphemes

The smallest units of language that carry meaning

Phonemes

The smallest units of sound that serve to distinguish morphemes

Speech segmentation

The process through which a stream of speech is "sliced" into words

What is active process

Parsing speech. And speech is often continuous with no real gaps between words

Coarticulation

When a sound that is produced is slightly altered by the sounds immediately preceding or following it

Phonemic restoration effect

A pattern in which people 'hear" phonemes that are not actually present

Sine-Wave speech

A type of degraded speech with key parts replaced with beeps and whistles

Speech production is a mix of

Bottom-up sensory input and top-down expctations

McGurk effect

Conflicting auditory and visual information about speech leading to perception of a sound that differs from what was actually heard

Fast mapping

A young child’s ability to identify a word’s meaning after only one exposure to it.

With fast mapping, how likely are 1 and 2 year olds likely to learn a meaning of a word

1 year olds — 10x to learn meaning

2 year olds — 1x to learn meaning

Critical period for language development

Children not exposed to language early in life do not develop typical language abilities; language development seems to have a critical period in development

What are garden path sentences

Sentences begin by suggesting one interpretation only to present another interpretation later in the sentence

Prosody

Is the pattern of intonation in a sentence. Helps coney meaning beyond the words themselves

Pragmatics

Rules that govern how language is used in conversation

Key principles of pragmatics

Relevance - we say things that are relevant to the conversation

Quantity - we provide just enough information (no more, no less); listeners and speakers work together to convey meaning

Common Ground

Belief and knowledge shared by conversational partners

Why does common ground matter?

We rely on shared knowledge to communicate effectively and understand each other

What does the McGurk effect suggest about how we perceive speech?

Visual information can influence what we hear

Referential communication task

A task in which a speaker tries to describe the layout of various object to a listener; Used to study the role of common ground and adjustments needed to achieve it in communication

What role does the LEFT hemisphere play in language?

Plays a dominant role in language processing for most people (especially right-handed individuals)

Wada test

In which an anesthetic is injected that paralyzes one hemisphere at a time.

Broca's Aphasia

Damage to the left frontal lobe that causes deficits in language production

What is the impairment that involves the inability to produce or understand language

Aphasia

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis suggests that:

Differences among languages reflect and contribute to differences in underlying thought processes

How does language influence cognition

Influences cognition by shaping how we perceive, categorize, and think about the world

What does the evidence suggest regarding bilingualism and cognition?

That bilingualism can enhance certain cognitive abilities, especially those related to executive functioning, attention control, and mental flexibility

Which experimental task requires one participant to describe how they have organized various objects to another participant who cannot see their arrangement in order to test how people establish shared understanding in communication

Referential communication task

A patient is able to understand speech but has difficulty speaking and producing fluent sentences. Their speech is often slow and effortful, and they tend to omit smaller words

Broca's aphasia

A patient has no trouble producing speech, but their sentences are often nonsensical. Seem aware that their speech isn't making sense

Wernicke's Aphasis

A patient is unable to speak, and they also have severe difficulty understanding spoken and written language.

Global aphasia

A patient is able to speak fluently and understand both spoken and written language, but they often pause, struggle to find the right word, or use vague descriptions

Anomia

Which of the following about English versus Japanese language/speech is true?

The sounds for /l/ and /r/ are in two separate phonetic categories for English speakers but not for Japanese speakers.

Which of the following statements best describes the role of the right hemisphere in language processing?

The right hemisphere plays a significant role in understanding the emotional tone, prosody, and figurative of language

Which of the following describes use of difference in intonation in language?

Prosody

What refers to the false assumption that a combination of conditions is more likely than either condition by itself

Conjunction fallacy

Dual-process theories

Assume that there are distinct systems for automatic and controlled processing

According to the textbook, what refers to a decision making process that is rapid, automatic in nature and effortless

System 1

According to the textbook, what refers to a decision-making process that is slow, deliberate, and effortful

System 2

Argumentative theory

Reasoning evolved for argumentation rather than truth-seeking

How does argumentative theory relate to System 1 and 2?

According to argumentative theory, what is the main function of reasoning?

Being able to produce effective and evaluate arguments

Schwarz et al. (1991) asked participants to recall either 6 or 12 examples of a trait-related behavior (e.g., times they acted assertively). What did the results reveal about self-evaluation?

Participants who recalled 12 examples rated themselves lower on the trait because recalling that many examples felt difficult

Prospect theory

People treat losses as psychologically larger than gains

According to prospect theory, which of the following best describes how people behave when making decisions involving potential losses?

They tend to be risk-seeking, preferring to take a gamble that could avoid a loss entirely, even when the gamble risks a larger loss

What does prospect theory suggest regarding risk taking for losses?

That we are risk seeking (more willing to gamble to avoid a loss)

What does prospect theory suggest for gains?

We are risk averse (reluctant to gamble, choosing to hold tight what we have)

Heuristics

Are shortcuts, or rules of thumb, for making decisions; helps to simplify our world

Availability heuristic

Tendency to judge the likelihood of event based on ease with which it comes to mind; influenced by vividness, recency, attention

Representative heuristic

Tendency to judge someone or something based on how representative it is of a particular category

Anchoring and Adjustment heuristic

Tendency to use initial information as a starting point and then adjusting (often insufficiently) to make decisions

When are we more likely to use heuristic?

When there is uncertainty, are in a hurry, and when we are tired

Cognitive reflection test

Designed to assess individuals’ abilities to suppress an intuitive and spontaneous (type 1) wrong answer; associated with increased analytical (type 2) thinking

Confirmation Bias

Are more likely to seek evidence that would confirm our belief than evidence that would disconfirm it. Have better memory for confirmatory evidence and take at face value.

What is the decoy effect?

Introduction of a more (or less) desirable option can influence the perceived value of other options

How does the decoy effect influence evaluations

By shifting preference toward a target option when a third, inferior option is added

Zero price effect

Free options are especially enticing

How does the hospital problem illustrate people’s misunderstanding about the role of sample sizes in reasoning?

That people underestimate the impact of sample size and wrongly assume that small samples will behave like large ones

How does the organ donation example illustrate the impact of default options (framing) on decision making?

Default options serve as powerful nudges, people tend to stick with the default, especially when decisions are emotionally charged or complexed.

Gambler’s fallacy

Mistakenly believing that recent past events will impact immediate future events

An example of the gambler’s fallacy would be believing that:

A coin flip is more likely to be heads after the previous five flips were tails.

Law of sample sizes

Smaller sample sizes produce more variance

Keisha is trying to choose between two muffins. One is advertised as 95% fat free, and the other is marketed as 5% fat. Keisha chooses the first one because it sounds better, even though the fat content in both muffins is the same. What phenomenon does this most clearly illustrate?

Framing effects

In this study, 3 options are presented, most chose the Print +Digital option. However, when the Print-only was removed, people preferred the Digital-only subscription over the Print + Digital option. Wha explains this shift in preferences?

The print-only subscription serves as a decoy, making the Print + Digital option appear like the better deal when all 3 options are listed.