PSY 357 Exam 2 GVSU

Understand how the assumptions made by Orwell in 1984 illustrate the concept of linguistic determinism.

The words that are available to us will determine how we think. If these words go away, we won't have those thoughts. Linguistic determinism is the concept that language and its structures limit and determine human knowledge or thought, as well as thought processes such as categorization, memory, and perception.

How many words do Eskimos have for snow, according to Whorf? How many words to

Eskimos have for snow, according to Pullum? Is it truly different than the number of words that

any other culture has for snow?

Whorf believes there are at least 7 different words for snow that Eskimos use.

Pullum believes that there are 2 different words for snow that Eskimos use.

It is not truly different than what other cultures have for snow. In fact, English may have more words than Eskmos do, such as snow, slush, sleet, blizzard, etc. Pullum suggests that this is the case because Eskimos expect snow to be their background. Even beach bums, Pullum says, only have one word for sand.

What sequence of events led to so many reputable sources being wrong about the number of

Eskimo words for snow? What role did Whorf himself play in this sequence? What have been the

consequences of this sequence of events, in terms of common cultural (mis)understandings about

the facts of this phenomenon?

According to Laura Martin:

People are very apt to believe anything about other cultures that are unfamiliar, so it is not surprising that the rumor continues.

Franz Boas started the rumor by likening the multitude of words to using the same root in English for various forms of water.

Then, Benjamin Whorf made bold claims that Eskimos have far many more words for snow than English does and he inflated Boas' number from four to seven.

This claim was reprinted many times.

It ended up being refuted by Roger Brown who said there are only three words for snow (even tho his claim is misguided according to Pullum, perhaps because he read the report wrong).

Carol Eastman- there are many words. False reports then continued.

Martin documents 9-200 words. Pullum says that it is an unpopular opinion to say the truth now with all of this false info.

Know in detail how each of these supports or does not support the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis:

__a) Whorf's observation that Eskimos have many words for snow

Doesn't support the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis because they don't actually have more words than in English for snow. He does not discuss an enriched knowledge about snow, which should be present if the Inuit population has all of these other words for snow, making their "snow thought" more intense and knowledgeable as a population.

_3) Know in detail how each of these supports or does not support the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis: __b) Rosch's color categorization study

This study does not support the weak version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. This is because light or dark is perceived equally.

__3) Know in detail how each of these supports or does not support the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis: __c) The English/Chinese bilingual categorization study (with cows, chickens, grass)

Supports the weak version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. This is because the categorization depended on the language used/culture based on.

__3) Know in detail how each of these supports or does not support the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis: __d) Roberson et al.'s color categorization study

Roberson et al.'s color categorization study supports the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis as Britons could distinguish better than the Berinmo tribe between green and blue (think of the tree thing we did in class)

Understand how each of the following provide evidence on the issue of language and thought. What

version of what hypothesis is supported and/or refuted?

__a) the video we watched in class about the sea lion Rio

Rio had numbers and letters. If language is required for thought, the animal wouldn't have been able to decide (think) of which symbol was a letter an which was a number due to its lack of language. Since Rio could, we have proof that animals do think. Strongest form of linguistic determinism not true.

Linguistic Determinism

Thought is determined by language: All thoughts must first be words. People's thoughts, perceptions, and memories are determined by the categories and structures made available by language. We perceive a difference between green and yellow because we have different words for them.

Linguistic Relativity

Differences among languages cause differences in thoughts of their speakers.

__4) Understand how each of the following provide evidence on the issue of language and thought. What

version of what hypothesis is supported and/or refuted? __b) the textbook's anecdote about "the fearless Smith"

Smith gave himself a dose of curare to paralyze his body. If thought was determined by the use of language, he wouldn't have been able to think without being able to use his vocal cords (as they found electrical activity in the vocal apparatus even when just thinking). He was able to think and calculate math while his body was paralyzed, refuting that language dictates thought.

__5) Given a description of an experiment, and a set of results that were found upon conducting the

experiment, be able to interpret its results as supporting or failing to support either the weak or strong

version of the Whorf Hypothesis.

Strong:

Thoughts, perceptions are determined by language.

Orwellian concept for freedom is determined by word.

Language explains ALL variance in thought

Weak:

Thoughts and perceptions influenced by language.

Language affects how you think

Strong:

Frozen throat experiment, preverbal children think, people without language think, and animals think

Weak: Bernimo with the trees and colors. Supports the weak hypothesis.

Constants

Impede air flow to some capacity

Vowels

Air flows from lungs unobstructed

Bilabial

Produced by the shaping or stopping the flow of air at the lips. /p/ /b/ /m/ /w/

Labiodental

Taking the bottom lip and touching the front top teeth. /f/ /v/

Dental

Tongue under the front teeth. /th/

Alveolar

Touching tongue to alveolar (back of front teeth) /t/ /d/ /s/ /z/ /n/ /l/

Palatal

Touching tongue to the hard palate /sh/ /aZure/ /ch/ /j/ /r/ /y/

Velar

Touching tongue to the soft palate /k/ /Get/ /sinG/

Glottal

Friction at the glottal site /h/at

Stop

Airflow completely stopped. /p/ (pat) and /b/ (bat)

Fricative

Airflow obstructed, not completely stopped. f(fat), v(vat)

Voiced

Vocal chords are vibrating.

One of the biggest sources of variation (and hence contributors to the lack of invariance problem) in the acoustic signal comes from the fact that acoustic information that specifies a phoneme will change based on preceding or following phonemes. Be able to identify:

__ the name of this source of variation

Context-conditioned variation (/d/ is pronounced differently when it's following by /u/ or /i/

One of the biggest sources of variation (and hence contributors to the lack of invariance problem) in the acoustic signal comes from the fact that acoustic information that specifies a phoneme will change based on preceding or following phonemes. Be able to identify:

__the adaptation that the perceptual system seems to have made to accommodate this problem

Categorical perception of the same phoneme can be pronounced so many different ways, but they are immediately replaced by the categories. Simplifies the input for us.

Be able to identify the aspect of speech sound that is the primary factor in determining if one

perceives the /ba/ sound or the /pa/ sound, as well as a pattern of results that would support categorical

perception of such sounds.

VOT (voice onset time) showed a delay between releases of air and beginning of vocal cord vibration/voicing

We are able to see a clear distinction between the times people perceive /b/ (which we see first) and /p/. The graph is not a linear relationship, it is 2 plateaus

Be able to identify a description of a speech signal (a record of the physical energy) produced by

conversational speech in terms of breaks between different elements of the sentence. (Can you see breaks

between words?)

You can not look at a word and decide this word starts here and stops there. In WAVELENGTH FORM, you still cannot tell when a word begins or ends. It is a continuous string of sounds that goes on until the sentences are done. We are mentally imposing breaks between words that aren't there.

Understand the implications of the "Best Buy" demo, and know how the original speaker might

perform on the demo as well.

The original speaker might not be able to understand the individual parts presented in the sentence. The demo seemed to show that context helps us distinguish where words end and begin. "Did you go to Best Buy?" Couldn't distinguish go and to by themselves. Context is important when segmenting individual words from each other.

Be able to identify the principles of speech perception or name of the theory supported by the

McGurk Effect.

Suggests that the perceptual system is aligned with the production system; we perceive speech according to how we could imagine ourselves producing it. This theory was originally supported by the motor theory of speech perception (it's what you just described). The McGurk effect is that we are watching someone's mouth moving a different way than what the actual words are, so we then combine what we think and what we actually hear. It is what it was originally supposed to support.

Be able to identify the broad category of processing that explains both phonemic restoration and

successful speech segmentation of first languages

Top-down Processing: Uses contexts or the surrounding words and phonemes as well as experience and prior knowledge of language to complete phrases and aid in overall understanding of the sentence.

Phonemic Restoration: Top-down processing effect in which even though the bottom-up signal is incomplete, we perceive it to be complete by filling in the gaps

Be able to identify descriptions of the results and implications of Neisser's 1964 study of visual

search. Is it an example of bottom-up or top-down processing? How?

Showed participants a list of letters, and had to find Z. In lists with letters that have similar features to Z (no curved lines, etc.), participants were slower to find Z. This signals bottom-up processing since we perceive letters as a combination of features.

Given a description of an experiment involving the word superiority paradigm, be able to identify

the most likely pattern of results that would emerge

Word Superiority Effect: Evidence that we identify letters as part of words.

They flashed words or random strings of letters, and asked to recall certain letters. Being a part of words greatly helped recollection in comparison to randomness.

Be able to identify the implications of the word superiority effect. Is it an example of bottom-up or top-down processing? How?

The word superiority effect is an example of top-down processing. This is because the context of words helps determine the smaller parts (such as the letters themselves).

Based on research conducted by Johnson, Perea and Rayner (2007), be able to identify word-

scrambling methods that would, and would not, lead to easily identifiable word strings

As long as the first and last letters are in place for the specific word and used in a context that matters, then the order of the letters doesn't matter. This goes AGAINST BOTTOM-UP PROCESSING.

Orthography

Mapping of sounds to written symbols, different writing systems.

Logography

Words correspond to individual pictorial symbols (Chinese) one symbol per word

Syllabary

Each syllable would have its own symbol

Alphabet

Letters represent phonemes

Given a list of words, be able to identify the one that would be characterized as having an

"irregular" or "regular" spelling-to-sound correspondence in English.

Steak is irregular to "sneak, speak, leak"

Pint is irregular to "hint, lint, mint"

Have is irregular to "gave, rave, save"

Dual-Route Model:

Pronouncing strings of letters based on their sounds, and pronouncing irregular words based on their specific lexical information.

Lexical Route:

Direct access to irregular pronunciations. Memory system, based on learning words, uses memory of other similar words to make out the weird pronunciation.

Sub Lexical Route:

Bypasses lexical access, computes grapheme-to-phoneme conversion, allows pronunciation of nonwords. Rule system based on learning regularities of language.

Understand how evidence from acquired dyslexia helps resolve the dual-route/connectionist

debate in reading

Some people have Phonological dyslexia: They can't read non-words, but they can read real ones. This suggests that the dual route model is right, since one path works but the other doesn't. Can only go down lexical route.

From a list of statements concerning changes in eye movement patterns (fixations duration,

fixations per 100 words, percent of regressions) with age and experience (e.g., from 1st grade to adulthood), identify a statement that best characterizes those changes. Also understand the implications of

these changes.

-Less regressions as you get older.

-Fixation duration will decrease as we get older.

-Fixations per 100 words will decrease.

-We have more skill/familiar with the words so we don't need as much time with them.

Perceptual span:

Idea that we can perceive more than just the words we're fixating on. A window to the right and to the left of the letters we're looking at from which we can gather information

Be able to identify either the name or a description of the methodology that allows researchers to Perceptual span

Moving window Paradigm: Region around your fixation point: normal text is available. Everywhere else around the region: replace the letters with "garbage." Moving window controlled by reader's eye movements.

Be able to identify a) ways that perceptual span varies across languages and b) why it does so

Left to right (english): much farther perceptual span towards the right

Right to left (hebrew): much farther perceptual span towards the left

Chinese: very small perceptual span in either direction, much more info encoded in each symbol so no need for large perceptual span

Language Production

Cognitive processes that allow humans to create linguistic products.

Speaking writing, signing, words, sentences, discourse, meaning -> sounds (or written words, or signs)

Language Comprehension

The cognitive processes that allow humans to understand other people's productions.

Listening, reading, receiving signs, words, sentences, discourse, sounds -> meaning

Also be able to identify how the two differ with regard to the order in which their processes move from sound to meaning vs. meaning to sound

-Sound -> Meaning = Language Comprehension

-Meaning -> Sound = Language Production

Interactionist Approach

Model is parallel (syntax and non-structural information considered at the same time), interactive (not separate units), and has an algorithmic approach (all information evaluated, exhausted)

Syntax-First Approach

-Model is serial (syntax first), modular (separate systems), and has a heuristic approach (simple principles and best guesses).

-Heuristic approach has minimal attachment and late closure.

Understanding the definition and having seen several different examples, be able to identify an

example of a garden path sentence (that you have not seen yet specifically)

-The horse raced past the barn fell.

-Because he always jogs a mile seems like a short distance to him.

Know how the principle of late closure would suggest that people initially parse the sentence

"Since he always jogs a mile seems like a short distance to him."

Late closure is a syntactic strategy that keeps the current phrase open longer rather than closing it off. This would be incorrect in this case because it results in a garden path. "A mile" begins a new clause.

Know what kind of strategy late closure is (Hint: does it use all available information?)

-Late closure is a syntactic strategy that keeps the current phrase open longer rather than closing it off. This would be incorrect in this case because it results in a garden path. "A mile" begins a new clause.

-It is a syntax-first approach to parsing. It is modular and serial.

The minimal attachment preference seems to be strongest when reading sentences with main

verb/reduced relative clause ambiguities such as "The dog walked to the park chewed the bone". Be able

to identify:

where the ambiguity arises in these kinds of examples

The ambiguity arises at the first verb presented. This causes the main verb vs reduced relative clause interpretations.

The minimal attachment preference seems to be strongest when reading sentences with main

verb/reduced relative clause ambiguities such as "The dog walked to the park chewed the bone". Be able

to identify:

which interpretation of the ambiguity is supported by minimal attachment

The interpretation often prefers the Main Verb interpretation because it creates a much simpler structure.

The minimal attachment preference seems to be strongest when reading sentences with main

verb/reduced relative clause ambiguities such as "The dog walked to the park chewed the bone". Be able

to identify:

how garden-path theory explains this strong preference. Why does the parser have the preference that it does, and why is that preference so strong?

The parser prefers the first verb first because it creates a much simpler structure. We want to have the easiest time when reading something.