SDSU PSY 211 Exam 5 Kappenman

hierarchal structure of language

the idea that language consists of series of small components that can be combined to form larger units

example: words-> phrases-> sentences-> story

What was Swinney's experiment on context and lexical access, and what did he find?

1. listen to a passage of a text

2. when presented with text on a screen, decide if it's a word or nonword

3. mesure reaction time

What did Swinney's experiment on context and lexical access find?

condition 1: lexical decision immediately after task

conclusion: initially, get priming of both meanings

condition 2: lexical decision delayed from time of ambiguous word

conclusion: after time passes (about 1 sec) "bug" primes only the relevant meaning

What did Swinney's experiment results demonstrate?

hypothesis 1: "dumb retrieval" is correct

-all possible meanings of a word are retrieved from the lexicon; context then guides selection of correct meaning

hypothesis 2: "smart retrieval" is incorrect

-contexts guides access to the lexicon so only retrieve one meaning for the word

the levels of hierarchical structure of language

phoneme-> morpheme-> word-> phrase-> sentence

lexical ambiguity

when a word can have more than one meaning

syntactic ambiguity

same words can be grouped together into more than one phrase structure

referential ambiguity

same word/phrase can refer to two different things within a sentence

lexical ambiguity example

he was bothered by the cold.

the weather or his sickness?

syntactic ambiguity example

they are cooking apples.

(they are) (cooking apples)

(they are cooking) (apples)

referential ambiguity example

John grabbed his lunch, sat on a rock, and ate it.

ate the rock or sandwich?

sound/phoneme errors

York library - Lork yibrary

Snow Flurries > Flow Snurries

morpheme errors

self-destruct instruction --> self-instruct destruction

word errors

writing a letter to my mother -> writing a mother to my letter

anticipation

Initial consonant of first word is replaced by the initial consonant of the latter word

Examples:

phoneme: reading list -> leading list

word: sun is in the sky -> sky is in the sky

preservation

When someone repeats words, phrases, or sounds

Examples:

phoneme: beef noodle -> beef needle

word: class will be about discussing the text -> class will be about discussing the class

Addition/Insertion

One or more extra sounds are added into a word

Example:

to strain it --> to strained it

deletion

Certain sounds are omitted/deleted

Example:

I just wanted to ask that -> I just wanted to that

substitution

One or more sounds are substituted which may result in loss of phonemic constraint

Example:

Liszt's second Hungarian rhapsody -> Liszt's second Hungarian restaurant

blend

tennis athlete/tennis player -> tennis athler

word errors example

syntactic category rule: nouns replace nouns, verbs replace verbs

possible: writing a mother to my letter

sound errors examples

phonological rules: -sound errors follow rules of phonemes

-never see "tl" at beginning of word

consonant vowel rule: consonants replace consonants, vowels replace vowels

example: beef noodle -> beef needle

dell's spreading activation model

Lexical Bias: A phonemic error is more likely if the error results in a word than if the error results in a non-word

Ex. barn door - darn bore, more likely than, dart board - bart soared

No top-down activation for non-words

lexicon

persons knowledge of what words mean, how they sound, and how they're used in relation to other words

lexical

relating to the words or vocabulary of a language

semantic

meaning of words and sentences

syntactic

grammatical

What were Chomsky's arguments/observations for refuting Skinner's theory of language acquisition?

Chomsky went beyond phrase structures and distinguished surface and deep structure

surface structure: phrase structure that applies to order in which the words are actually spoken

deep structure: fundamental underlying phrase structure that conveys the meaning

What are the stimuli, responses, and outcome measures used in the lexical decision task?

The participant presses a 'word' key to indicate a word and a 'nonword' key otherwise. The experimenter takes note of the response time, from when the target stimulus appeared until the response key is pressed, and whether the response was correct. Response time and accuracy are the performance measures.

analogy

Making a comparison in order to show a similarity between two different things.

analogical problem solving

use of analogies as an aid to solving problems. typically a solution to one problem (source problem) is presented that's analogous to solution to another problem (target problem)

what are situations where analogies in problem solving are/are not used successfully?

-solve new problem using the solution to the old problem

-people tend to miss deep similarities between problems, because they tend to focus on surface similarities

Luchins water-jar problem

participants had to measure out 100 units of water using only 3 different size pitchers

what did Luchin find with his water problem?

Luchins found that subjects kept using methods they had applied in previous trials, even if a more efficient solution for the current trial was available.

what types of errors did people make in the Luchin water problem?

"stuck in set"

insight

a sudden realization of a problem's solution

What was the Metcalfe and Wiebe experiment on insight? What was the purpose of this experiment? What did they find?

-had participants do algebra and insight problems

results:

algebra: gradual increase in warmth ratings when they got closer to the solution

insight: no increase in warmth until immediately before solution

functional fixedness

See an object as having only a fixed, familiar function

how does functional fixedness affect problem solving?

by only looking at the objects as functioning in their usual ways, can prevent us from seeing the full range of ways in which an object can be used.

what are the basic steps involved in solving a problem?

1. Form a representation

2. Construct a plan

3. Execute plan

4. Checking/evaluation

experts

Person who, by devoting a large amount of time to learning about a field and practicing and applying that learning, has become acknowledged as being extremely skilled or knowledgeable in that field.

novices

beginners

What are the differences in how experts and novices solve problems?

-rich, organized schemas

-spend more time on representations

-recognize subcomponents

-less means-end analysis

-move forward, not backward

Experts often no better than novices on problems outside their area of expertise

gambler's fallacy

the belief that the odds of a chance event increase if the event hasn't occurred recently

inductive reasoning

Conclusions are likely, but not necessarily true

deductive reasoning

Based on rules of logic. Conclusions must be true given the facts

What was the "lawyers/engineers" experiment? What were the conditions? What were the results? What were the conclusions?

The lawyers/engineers experiment involved base rates which are basically probabilities of something happening. They gave a problem "Matt has a family and two kids" and they said that in a group where Matt is a part of it, there are 10 engineers and 50 lawyers; which is he MOST LIKELY? Normally, looking at the probability it is MOST likely that he is a lawyer. However, when another group was presented with counter evidence "Matt has a family and two kids, loves math and builds model cars in his free time" the group would MOST likely pick that he is an engineer, completely ignoring the base rate (probability) altogether. This experiment showed that when there is a "current evidence" they will most likely use that evidence to compare what engineers are normally like and ignore that there is probably a higher probability he is a lawyer based on the base rate.

normative theories of reasoning

how we should reason.

descriptive theories of reasoning

how people actually reason.

base rates

Likelihood events occur across a large population

heuristics

Mental shortcuts or "rules of thumb" that often lead to a solution (but not always).

why do we use heuristics

because they simplify things

representativeness heuristic

Judge wether A comes from class B by relying on the similarity of A to B

availability heuristic

events that are more easily remembered are judged to be more probable than events that are less easily remembered

How does top down control influence our perception of speech?

Top down helps us understand the big picture from the context. Like reading a paragraph with bad hand writing, the words around help determine the entire sentence.

How does top down control differ for languages we are familiar with versus languages we are unfamiliar with?

• functional fixedness: see an object as having only a fixed, familiar function. trapped by an easy or familiar perspective

• ex. nine-dot problem