Chapter
Language
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Language
Translation
✤ Language involves translating
information from many
different forms into word
✤ Sound is LOU
✤ Food is SPIC
✤ Emotion is HAPPY
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Language Organization
Morphemes
✤ The smallest unit of language
to carry meanin
✤ Free: can stand alone as
words. Ex. Girl, Happy
✤ Bound: must be attached to
another word. Ex. Include,
Sleeping, Boys, Listened
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Phonemes
✤ Smallest unit of sound that can
serve to distinguish words in
language.
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Speech
Production
✤ Speech results from
disruptions in air o
✤ Voicing is caused by
opening and closing of
the vocal folds
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Categorizing
Speech Sounds
✤ Manner of Productio
✤ How air ow is constricte
✤ Voicing
✤ Still or vibrating vocal fold
✤ Place of Articulation
✤ Where air ow is constricted
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Speech
Perception
✤ Linked to Speech Productio
✤ Phonemes that differ in only
one production category are
often mistake
✤ Coarticulation
✤ Phonemes overlap during
production
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Aids to Speech
Perception
✤ Speech is limited in rang
✤ Top-down processing
✤ Phonemic Restoration Effect
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Categorical
Perception
✤ It is easier to perceive
differences between categories,
than differences within
categories.
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McGurk Effect
✤ Visual information can aid, or
distort speech perceptio
✤ McGurk Effect - combining the
auditory component of one
sound, with the visual
component of another sound,
leads to the perception of a
third sound.
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Combining
Phonemes
✤ Rules govern how we combine
phonemes to produce
morphemes, and then word
✤ Book
✤ Bag
✤ Wugs
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Words
✤ The average graduate will
know 75,000-100,00
✤ For each word we know its
✤ Phonological Representatio
✤ Orthograph
✤ Synta
✤ Semantic Representation
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Building New
Words
✤ Language is Generativ
✤ We are able to create endless
combinations of morphemes
without being explicitly taught
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Word Frequency
Effect
✤ We respond faster to high-
frequency words like “home,”
compared to low-frequency
words like “hike.”
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Lexical Decision Task
Rea Ye
Frankle N
Tourgont N
Mileston Ye
Shee Ye
Courish No
o
Lexical Decision Task
Gambasty Volubl Mulvo Grdo
Rever Boovl Professo Norv
Voitl Chal Bles Bus
Char Awr Tuglet Effor
Wef Signe Gar Garvol
Cratil Trav Relie Matc
Deco Croc Reftil Sar
Puldo Crypti Histor Pleasan
Fa o Ew Pindl Coi
Oriol Himpola Develo Maisle
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Syntax
✤ Most sentences contain ~20
word
✤ that means there are
~100,000,000,000,000,000,000
possible sentence
✤ Syntax: rules governing the
sequence of words in sentences
and phrase
✤ Dictates what is a sentence
and what is not
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Syntax Rules
✤ Phrase Structure Rule
✤ Elements that must
appear in a phras
✤ Ex. A sentence must
include a noun phrase
and a verb phrase.
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Syntax Rules
✤ Prescriptive Rule
✤ Rules about how language “should be
✤ Ex. Don’t start a sentence with “and.
✤ Descriptive Rule
✤ Rules that characterize how language is typically used
✤ Ex. Phrase Structure Rules
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Benefits of
Phrase Structure
✤ Aid in comprehensio
✤ Guide interpretation of the
sentence
✤ Actor + Action + Recipien
✤ The dog chased the cat
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Phrase Structure
Ambiguity
✤ Students Cook & Serve
Grandparent
✤ Visiting schools can be stressfu
✤ The cooking of the teens was
terribl
✤ I saw the spider on my shirt
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Linguistic
Universals
✤ All languages use nouns,
verbs, and pronoun
✤ The subject precedes the
object in 98% of the worlds
languages
✤ Maybe language rules are
heritable?
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Sentence
Parsing
✤ Parsing: Figuring out the
syntactic role of each word in
an sentence.
✤ We tend to begin this process
before the sentence is complete,
aiming for ef ciency over
accuracy.
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Garden Path
Sentences
✤ Temporary Ambiguit
✤ The old man the ships
✤ The secretary applauded for
his efforts was soon promote
✤ Drunk gets six months in
violin cas
✤ Guided by background
knowledge & probability
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Extralinguistic
Context
✤ The physical and social setting
in which you encounter
sentences
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Prosody
✤ Prosody: the rise and fall,
or intonation, of speech, as
well as the pattern of
pauses.
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EEG & Sentence
Comprehension
✤ N400 - Detects Semantic
Violation
✤ P600 - Detects Syntactic
Violations
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Aphasia
✤ Disruption of language due to
brain damage
✤ Fluent and Non-Fluent
Subtypes
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Non-Fluent
Aphasia
✤ “Broca’s Aphasia
✤ Left Frontal Lobe Damag
✤ Inability to produce or
write words/ phrases
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Fluent Aphasia
✤ “Wernicke’s Aphasia
✤ Posterior Superior
Temporal Gyrus Damage
✤ Inability to comprehend
words/ phrases
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Language
Learning
✤ Biological Factor
✤ Environmental Factor
✤ Based on imitatio
✤ Overgeneralization Errors
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Linguistic
Relativity
✤ The language you speak
in uences your thoughts.
✤ The language you speak
in uences your colour
perception?
✤ Language guides attention
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Bilingualism
✤ Children born in bilingual
homes learn both languages as
quickly as monolingual
children learn their single
language
✤ May encourage better
executive control
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