cognitive processes final review

Language

A system of symbols and rules used to communicate thoughts, feelings, ideas, and experiences

Arbitrary Property of Language

Word forms have no natural connection to their meanings and can differ across languages

Structured Property of Language

Language is organized into rule-governed levels such as phonemes, morphemes, words, sentences, and discourse

Generative Property of Language

Infinite new sentences can be created from a finite set of elements and rules

Dynamic Property of Language

Language changes over time as words and grammar evolve

Universal Tendencies of Language

All human languages include core functions such as nouns, verbs, negatives, questions, and tense markers

Sign Languages

Full natural languages with their own grammar systems, not simplified versions of spoken language

Psycholinguistics

Study of the mental processes involved in acquiring, understanding, producing, and representing language

Skinner’s View of Language

Language is learned through reinforcement and environmental conditioning

Chomsky’s View of Language

Humans are born with an innate capacity to acquire grammar and language

Universal Grammar

Chomsky’s idea that humans have built-in grammatical principles that support language learning

Evidence for Innate Language Ability

Children produce novel sentences and grammar rules without direct teaching

Overregularization

Applying grammar rules too broadly, such as saying “throwed” instead of “threw”

Current Consensus on Language Acquisition

Humans likely have an innate readiness for language, though no single language gene has been found

Animal Communication

Use of calls, gestures, or signals by animals to share information

Human Language vs Animal Communication

Human language is distinguished by generativity, grammar, and displaced reference

Displaced Reference

Ability to talk about things not present in the current time or place

Alex the Parrot

Famous animal communication case showing labeling, counting, and property judgments, though debated as true language

First Words Milestone

Around 12 months, children typically begin producing first words

Two-Word Stage

Around 24 months, children begin combining words into simple phrases

Grammar Development

Children gradually acquire complex grammar without formal instruction

Universal Language Development Patterns

Similar developmental timelines appear across many cultures

Invented Sign Systems

Deaf children may create their own sign systems when not exposed to a conventional sign language

Sex Differences in Early Language

Girls often reach language milestones earlier on average

ASL

American Sign Language, a complete natural language with its own grammar

BSL

British Sign Language, a distinct language separate from ASL and spoken English

Mental Lexicon

Internal store of known words and associated information

Semantics

Study of word meanings and concepts

Syntax

Rules for combining words into grammatically correct sentences

Lexical Decision Task

Task where people judge whether a letter string is a real word, used to study word recognition

Phoneme

Smallest sound unit that can distinguish meaning in a language

English Phonemes

English contains about 47 phonemes

Morpheme

Smallest unit of language that carries meaning or grammatical function

Example of Morphemes

“de-tox-ify” contains three morphemes

Letters vs Phonemes

Alphabet letters do not always match speech sounds directly

Language Hierarchy

Phonemes combine into morphemes, morphemes into words, words into sentences, and sentences into discourse

Speech Perception

Process of interpreting spoken language from acoustic input

Speech Perception Challenges

Listeners must overcome noise, variable pronunciation, unclear boundaries, and ambiguity

Coarticulation

Speech sounds are influenced by surrounding sounds, causing variability in pronunciation

Speaker Variability

Speech differs by age, gender, accent, and speaking style

How Ambiguity is Resolved

Listeners use context, expectations, statistical learning, visual cues, and multimodal input

Multimodal Perception

Speech understanding combines auditory and visual information such as lip movements

McGurk Effect

Visual mouth movements can change what sound a listener hears

Importance of Seeing a Speaker

Visual cues improve comprehension, especially in noise or with unfamiliar accents

Consonants in Written Language

Consonants often provide strong cues to word identity in writing

Vowels in Spoken Language

Vowels carry much of the acoustic energy in speech

Speech Segmentation

Determining where one word ends and another begins in continuous speech

Segmentation Cues

People use syntax, context, and statistical knowledge rather than only pauses to find word boundaries

Statistical Learning

Learning patterns and probabilities in language input to detect structures such as word boundaries

Lexical Ambiguity

A word has multiple meanings, such as bank, saw, or bug

Initial Meaning Access

Multiple meanings of an ambiguous word may be activated rapidly at first

Contextual Selection

Context helps choose the intended meaning after initial activation

Meaning Dominance

More common meanings of a word are accessed faster than less common meanings

Balanced Ambiguity

When meanings are equally common, both may be strongly activated

Eye-Tracking Studies of Ambiguity

Eye movements reveal activation of dominant and subordinate meanings during comprehension

Priming Studies of Ambiguity

Faster responses to related meanings show which word meanings were activated

Word Frequency Effect

High-frequency words are recognized faster than rare words

Reaction Time (RT)

Measure of how quickly a person responds in a task, often used in language experiments

Pseudo-Words

Pronounceable letter strings that are not real words, used in lexical decision studies

Non-Pronounceable Strings

Random letter strings that do not follow language patterns, often easiest to reject in lexical decision tasks

Sentence Comprehension

Understanding how words combine into meaningful propositions and ideas

Story/Text Understanding

Higher-level language processing involving integration of sentences into coherent meaning

Phonology

Sound-based linguistic information in language

Orthography

Vision-based linguistic information used in reading and writing

Communicative Property of Language

Language allows individuals to share information with others

Creativity of Human Language

Human language allows novel combinations that create new meanings, sentences, and stories

Hierarchical System of Language

Smaller units combine into larger units such as phonemes to words to sentences to conversations

Rule-Governed Nature of Language

Language follows rules that determine which combinations are acceptable or meaningful

Universality of Language

All human cultures develop language and children learn it naturally without formal instruction

Unique but the Same Principle

Languages differ in sounds and words but share common grammatical functions like nouns, verbs, tense, and questions

Mental Dictionary

Another term for the mental lexicon, the stored knowledge of known words in memory

Levels of Speech Processing

Multiple stages of processing speech including phonemes, words, meaning, and sentence interpretation

Signal Problem in Speech

Spoken language is difficult to process because the acoustic signal is noisy and variable

Sentence Ambiguity

Sentences can have more than one possible interpretation and require context to understand

1:1 Correspondence Problem

Speech perception would be easier if each phoneme always had one fixed sound pattern, but it does not

McGurk Effect (Watkins et al., 2003)

Auditory and visual speech information combine so what is seen can change what is heard

Multisensory Integration in Speech

The brain combines information from multiple senses to understand spoken language

Context Effect in Speech Perception

Sentence context can cause listeners to miss mispronunciations or interpret unclear sounds correctly

Cole (1973) Mispronunciation Study

People often fail to notice altered sounds in meaningful sentence contexts because context guides perception

Foreign Language Segmentation Problem

It is harder to divide continuous speech into words when the language is unfamiliar

Pauses in Speech

Natural pauses do not always match actual word boundaries in spoken language

Why Wreck a Nice Beach?

Example showing how continuous speech can be segmented incorrectly and create a different phrase (“Why recognize speech?”)

Understanding of Sound Rules

Knowledge of legal sound patterns in a language helps listeners identify words

Understanding of Syntactic Rules

Knowledge of grammar helps listeners and readers interpret language correctly

Detoxify Example

Demonstrates morphemes because detoxify contains three meaningful parts: de-, tox, and -ify

Unpronounceable Nonword

Letter string that does not follow language sound/spelling rules, such as rcta

Pronounceable Nonword

Letter string that follows sound rules but is not a real word, such as krat

Pseudoword

Pronounceable nonword that resembles a real word, such as kart

Word Frequency Effect

Common words are recognized and processed faster than rare words

Rayner and Duffy (1986)

Eye-tracking study showing readers fixate longer on low-frequency words than high-frequency words

Fixation Duration

Length of time the eyes remain focused on a word during reading

Gaze Duration

Total time spent looking at a word before moving on

Context Effects in Reading

Readers actively use sentence meaning while reading to interpret upcoming words

Lexical Priming

Exposure to a word activates related meanings or concepts in memory

Swinney (1979) Lexical Priming Experiment

Showed that both meanings of an ambiguous word are briefly activated before context selects the intended meaning

Biased Dominance

Ambiguous word with one meaning used more often than the other, making the dominant meaning faster to access

Balanced Dominance

Ambiguous word with meanings used about equally often, causing both meanings to be activated

Meaning Dominance Effects

Access to ambiguous word meanings depends on both frequency of meanings and sentence context

Semantics

meanings of words and sentences

Syntax

rules for combining words into grammatical sentences