cognitive psyc exam 3

which side of the brain is more responsible for language processing?

left

wernicke's area

comprehension and speech monitoring

broca’s area

language production and speech planning

syntax-first theories

the brain initially analyzes grammatical structure before fully using meaning and context

interactionist theories

syntax, meaning, and context work together during sentence comprehension

can a sentence be grammatical but meaningless?

yes

syntax

grammatical rules and structure

semantics

meaning of words and sentences

sentence superiority effect

WORDS are recognized more easily in meaningful sentences than when they stand alone or in a random order

word superiority effect

LETTERS are recognized more easily in meaningful words than when they stand alone or in a random order

phonemic restoration effect

when the brain fills in a missing or masked speech sound using context

phoneme

the smallest unit of sound that can change the meaning of a word

morpheme

the smallest unit of language that carries meaning

mental lexicon

brain’s internal dictionary of known words and information about them

unbound morphemes

meaningful units of language that can stand alone as complete words

EX: happy, dog

bound morphemes

meaningful parts of words that CANNOT stand alone and must be attached to another word

EX: -ing, -ed

what types of knowledge would be difficult to communicate to another person effectively using

language, and explain why?

how to do things, sensory experiences, and emotions because words can not fully capture how something is done, experienced, or felt

what is the major assumption of a hierarchical semantic network model?

knowledge is organized hierarchically, from general categories to more specific

priming

when one stimulus automatically influences the processing of another stimulus

spreading activation

when activating one concept in your memory makes related concepts easier to access

principle of cognitive economy

the shared semantic features for any category should be stores at the highest possible level to reduce redundancy

sentence verification task

an experiment where participants decide whether statements are true or false while researchers measure their response time

what sentence verification results support hierarchical organization?

more levels between categories = slower response time

what sentence verification results provide evidence against hierarchical organization?

response time stays the same regardless of how many levels separate the categories

what sentence verification results support cognitive economy?

people take longer to verify sentences when they have to go through more levels in the memory hierarchy

what sentence verification results violate cognitive economy?

regardless of how many levels, people respond just as fast to verify sentence

wernicke’s aphasia

can speak fluently but struggle to comprehend and words do not make sense

broca’s aphasia

can comprehend but struggle to form complete sentences

global aphasia

impaired comprehension and speech

proposition

the smallest unit of knowledge that can be judged as true or false

EX: the sky is blue

mental imagery

knowledge or information represented in your brain as mental images or pictures

how does propositional knowledge differ from mental imagery?

propositional knowledge represents facts or statements that can be true or false, while mental imagery represents information through mental pictures in the mind

what is the common finding in mental scanning and mental rotation studies?

the greater the mental distance or rotation required, the longer it takes to complete the mental task

how do the propositional and spatial explanations of mental scanning differ?

spatial: we mentally scan images like real physical spaces propositional: we use stored facts or knowledge about the relationship between locations

what is the functional equivalence hypothesis of mental imagery?

mental images function similarly to actual physical perception

which explanation of mental scanning agrees with the functional equivalence hypothesis?

the spatial explanation