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91 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Give a brief overview of how humans hear. |
Pinna: collects sound waves.
-then, sound waves pass through ear canal -> tympanic membrane or eardrum -movements of eardrum set into motion chain of 3 tiny bones: hammer, anvil, stirrup -movement of these bones compresses fluid in cochlea -causes vibrations of basilar membrane (located inside cochlea) -part of the basilar membrane that vibrates = depends on frequency of auditory stimulation -basilar membrane's actions activate sensory cells: hair cells (connected to auditory nerve fibres) |
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What are two primary methods used to investigate infants' auditory perception? |
1. Preferential looking -Head-turn preference procedure 2. Habituation -High amplitude sucking |
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What is language and what are signs? |
Language: a system of signs and rules used to convey meaning Signs: things that stand for something else We generate sounds, and those sounds stand for concepts that we have created in our world (love, fairness, hope) Goal: put the same ideas in everyone's minds! |
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What are the three properties of language? |
1. Arbitrariness: signs do not resemble what they stand for (signs that we articulate through sounds - just a sequence of sounds resonating in the air)! -the word "cat" does not actually resemble the physical object of the cat that it stands for) 2. Displacement: signs that convey meaning in the absence of their referent. We an take away the sign from the immediate context in which it refers -ex: word "cat"- might not be any cats near you, but you still understand what the word "cat" refers to. 3. Generativity: potentially an infinite number of sentences -the rules of language allow us to generate an infinite number of meaning units (or sentences) |
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Can animal communication relate to the three properties of language? |
1. Arbitrariness: some resemblance from animals to humans (ex: birds tweet, apes grunt) 2. Displacement: bees signal direction of where the honey is when they are back at the beehive (the dance) 3. Generativity: this is most difficult to detect in animal systems; animals work with much more limited signs. This is what makes HUMAN communication unique |
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What are phones? |
-All possible speech sounds -Two different types of sounds: Consonants: b, v, s, d -obstruction of air -involve impediments by tongue, teeth, and lips, as well as by the vocal cords Vowels: a, o, e -air flows freely, unobstructed -only impediment to airflow comes in the vocal cords (no further blocking by tongue, teeth, or lips) |
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What are phonemes? |
-the sound categories that matter in language -40 in English (26 letters but 40 phonemes) -phonemic distinctions = important for meaning! -ex: lip vs. rip ('l' vs 'r'): those sounds do not exist in Japanese (they would not be able to perceive it) |
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What are morphemes? |
-the smallest meaningful units in a language 1. Content morphemes: cover, rain 2. Grammatical morphemes: -un, -ed, but, the -un = reverse or opposite -ed = the past |
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Define: words |
-language units made up of one or more morphemes that can stand alone (free morphemes) Content words: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs Grammatical words: articles, prepositions, conjunctions So: morphemes (smallest units) vs. WORDS (words can stand alone) |
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Define: sentence |
-A sentence contains a verb and an explicit or implied subject -subjects are mandatory in English (except in imperative sentences) -can have an infinite number -RECURSION: specifying a structure through the same structure -ex: The child thinks (S -> noun phrase + verb phrase) -The child thinks the man came (S -> NP + VP + S) -the sentence can be extended: fully embedded in that larger sentence; we are able to process these and make these combinations |
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Define: grammar |
-the rules that specify permissible arrangements of units at one level to produce a unit at the higher level -phonemes on bottom level (th, e) -then, words or morphemes (the) -then, phrases (the boy) -then, sentence (the boy hit the ball) -there are permissible and impermissible phoneme combinations |
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Morphology vs. Syntax |
Morphology: deals with how morphemes are combined to form words/phrases Syntax: how to combine the words to create sentences |
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What is the structure of sign languages? |
-hierarchical structure -signs combined by rules -> to express meaning -units at one level combined in lawful way to provide meaning |
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Explain sign morphology |
ex: signs in ASL for SIT vs. CHAIR 3 simple "phonemes" in sign language: -1. Hand shape -2. place of articulation -3. Manner of movement -same hierarchical organization as spoken languages |
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What is the overarching goal of language learning? |
-successful communication and interaction with people -consists of learning a set of conventions (ex word meanings, grammatical rules) shared by a community |
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How do people speak? |
When silent, air passes freely through the windpipe, nose, and mouth in the process of breathing -We speak by impeding the airflow -two fundamental classes of speech sounds: vowels and consonants |
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What kinds of communication do children engage in by 4 months? |
1. Crying: communicates they want something to be different. Parents must infer cause of crying from the context, rather than the precise sound 2. Cooing: between 1-2 months, infants begin to make sounds other than cries. Coo by placing their tongue near the back of their mouth and rounding their lips 3. Simple articulation: around 3 months, infants substantially increase the number of consonant sounds they make. Repetitive production of similar syllables (ma ma ma/ba ba ba)... begin to modify simple vowel production |
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What kinds of communication do children engage in by 6 months? |
4. Babbling. -combine consonants and vowels, and thus produce syllables -syllables are often repeated in sequences such as babababa -intonations of babbling increasingly resemble those of speech |
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What kinds of communication do children engage in by 10 months? |
-Babbling reveals native language (kids are dropping from their production repertoire combinations of consonants and vowels that are not a part of their language) |
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What kinds of communication do children engage in by 12 months? |
-One-word stage. Vocabulary explosion 5. Patterned speech: towards end of first year, infants increase their production of sounds that appear in their language and decrease production of sounds that do not. -near first bday - most say their first words! |
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What kinds of communication do children engage in by 24 months? |
-Two-word stage: -sometimes kids omit certain words (conjunctions and prepositions) -BUT: the way they combine rules still seems to reflect the rules of their language |
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What kinds of communication do children engage in beyond 24 months? |
-rapid development of complex language: possession: 'mommy bottle' qualification: "pretty baby" subject-verb combination: "mommy go" Beginning to integrate grammatical words in their sentences after age 2 Possessives: "mommy arms" - helps their expression of thought as they are able to be more precise Narratives: beginning to tell jokes, stories, narratives, tease |
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How do infants acquiring signed languages compare to infants not acquiring signed languages? |
-a similar progression is observed in infants acquiring signed languages -dear babies cry, coo, and produce vocal babbling on about the same timetable as hearing babies Manual babble: consist of rhythmic, repeated motions of the hands -thought to serve a function of spoken languages |
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What is metalinguistic awareness? |
-awareness of what you know, and don't know about language -young children choose their words carefully - will tend to select the term that is easier to pronounce. But once they become able to produce a sound pattern - they increase their use of terms that make use of that phonological pattern |
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What range of stimulus do children seem to prefer at birth? |
-At birth, seem to prefer stimulus at 1000-3000Hz -seem to be particularly interested in this range - range of human voices -possibly an innate predisposition to human speech |
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Do infants prefer sounds that include range of frequencies or pure tones? |
-react to more sounds that include a range of frequencies than to pure tones -infants are predisposed to attend to info that helps them learn about other people |
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Do infants prefer to listen to their native language or other languages? |
-prefer to listen to their own language -can discriminate b/w snippets of diff languages, even when both languages are unfamiliar -BUT: the unfamiliar languages must be from distinct language families (French infants can discriminate English from Japanese but not English and German which have similar rhythmic patterns) |
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How do we know that the fetus can respond to noise? At what age to they respond to noise? |
-fetuses respond to noise 4 months after conception -fetus surrounded by noisy environment which helps tune the perceptual system -experiment: speakers against pregnant women's stomach; play sounds to see how the fetus reacts. -loud sounds? fetus jumps around -soft sound: less extreme reaction -we know they are responsive to the sounds and can hear them |
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Can babies learn a language pre-natally? |
-apparently yes -infants as young as 3 days can identify their mom's voice and prefer it to other voices -can discriminate their language from other languages, and languages from diff families (might be explained from diff rhythmic organization of languages) |
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What is the Cat in the Hat story experiment? |
-mom's read same passage from Cat in the Hat before babies were born -right after birth - either played to newborn the same passage that was read by their mother, or same passage read by another mother -the newborns could distinguish which one was their mom and could also distinguish the passage (cat in the hat vs some other book) when their mom was reading |
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Explain the High Amplitude Sucking Procedure (HASP) |
-pacifier in baby's mouth (attached to polygraph machine showing how hard baby is sucking on pacifier -how much pressure) -find baseline sucking rate and introduce speech sound. play speech sound every time baby makes hard suck on pacifier -begin to suck harder to hear sounds, but after a few mins they get bored and sucking rate declines (habituation) -THEN: introduce NEW phase into experiment (either play same sound or NEW sound) -novelty = expected that sucking rate will INCREASE -Does baby remember sound? Introduce 2 min wait period with no sound -if they remember - they will suck harder and react to sound if played again |
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Using the HASP, were infants able to manipulate what they were listening to? |
-yep -by either increasing/decreasing their sucking rate -one group was played mom's voice when they increased their sucking rate -another group played mom's voice when they decreased their sucking rate -both groups adjusted their sucking rate based on when they could hear their mom's voice |
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What is motherese? |
aka infant-directed speech -when adults talk to infants and young children -high pitch and exaggerated intonations -used in a wide variety of cultures and language communities -infants as young as 2 days old seem to prefer infant directed speech! (look longer at a checkerboard pattern when reward for looking is hearing tape of a woman speaking simple sentences in infant-directed speech than when reward is hearing same woman speaking same sentences she would to an adult) |
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Can infants detect music? |
-yes, they can perceive the distinctions between some types of musical sounds categorically (just like colours and speech sounds) -plucks on bows on violins = difference known as rise time -two month olds discriminate b/w plucks and bows, but not b/w stimuli equally discrepant in rise time that adults hear as two types of plucks or two types of bows |
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How do infants attend to the pitch of the sounds they hear? |
-they can discriminate between intervals (pairs of tones) that are consonant (pleasant-sounding) and those that are dissonant (unpleasant-sounding): they prefer to listen to pieces that include more consonant intervals |
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What are the types of pitch, and which ones do infants encode? |
-infants are sensitive to relative pitches of adjacent tones. Infants are also able to encode pitch in absolute terms -relative pitch: ie intervals between adjacent tones -absolute pitch: ie, exact tones like A and C |
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explain the experiment that tested what kinds of pitches infants could discriminate between. |
-test of whether infants could discriminate between pairs oftones that had consistently occurred together in the exposure sequenceand pairs of tones that had the same relative pitches, but that had notconsistently occurred together The 8 month olds could make the discrimination, and they preferred thenovel pairs. Indicates that infants encoded the exact tones that they heard in theexposure sequence But adult’s performance was at chance (suggests they encoded theintervals between adjacent notes, rather than the exact tones) Suggests there’s a developmental shift from an early focus on absolutepitch to a later focus on relative pitch - Appears to be a developmental shift in the type of info that is mostsalient |
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What are some other developmental changes regarding music? |
-as with speech discrimination abilities: music perception abilities = become increasingly sensitive to the types of sounds to which infants are exposed in their home environments -infants' abilities to discriminate between unfamiliar sounds diminish with time -6 month olds could discriminate the deviations in melody (for melody either in commonly used major scale or rarely used augmented scale) BUT 12 month olds and adult's discrimination skills more limited... noticed deviations within the familiar major scale but not in rarely heard augmented scale |
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What is Categorical Perception? |
-Speech acoustics vary along a continuum -VOT: voice onset time -many distinctions we make between phonemes are actually quite arbitrary -"ba" vs. "pa" - quick release of lips for 'p' but for 'b' - more of a pause ('b' is voiced). Same with 'da' and 'ta': diff is how long there is vibration in mouth before sound is released -so: ba and pa differ only in VOT: the time when speakers begin to vibrate their vocal cords to make a sound |
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How are infants tested for categorical perception? |
-2 month olds discriminate between such similar speech sounds as ba and pa, ma and na, s and z -appears to be categorical, just like colours -1 and 2 month olds: after hearing ba repeatedly, they dishabituate more when they hear a pa than when they hear a different ba, one who's VOT is equally far from the original ba but in the opposite direction -infants may enter world with sensitivities attuned to particular boundaries... but these predispositions don't persist forever (eventually they lose sensitivity to these features)! |
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Do children ever lose sensitivity to sound differences? |
-in the course of acquiring their native language, children group together sound that differ physically but for which these differences do not affect meaning -show considerably heightened sensitivity to the sound patterns of their native languages in period just before they lose sensitivity to sound diffs that do not matter in their language -9 month olds but NOT 6 month olds: 1. Prefer listening to words that have sequences of phonemes common in their language to ones that are uncommon 2. Prefer listening to words that have stress patterns common in their language to ones that are uncommon 3. More likely to integrate novel two-syllable sequences into a single unit like a word when the two syllables conform to the stress pattern typical of their language 4. Are sensitive to similarities in the beginning sounds of syllables |
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What is evidence of auditory localization in infants? |
-from birth, infants look to the source of sounds -indicates some ability to localize sounds within the side from which they came, as well as to locate them as generally being to the right or left -cue they rely on: interaural time difference (the diff in time it takes sounds to reach the two ears) -use sound to infer direction and distance -newborns seem better able to localize sounds than 2 to 3 month olds, but not better than 4 month olds |
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Explain the U-shaped curve and why it is significant. |
-At first, performance at high level, then drops, then returns to high level -Suggests that diff mechanisms are responsible for the same behavior at diff points in development -Longitudinal study: repeatedly examined four infants over first four months of their lives -Found that 3 infants showed a u-shaped pattern of auditory localization – first showed high levels of head turning toward side from which the sounds came, then showed reduced levels, and then by about 4 months, returned to the prior high levels -Suggested that auditory localization in the first month after birth reflects primarily subcortical functioning -In second and third months- cortical activity INCREASES and it replaces subcortical activity as the dominant influence on infants’ auditory localization -But at this point: the cortical activity is not sufficiently well developed to produce highly accurate performance, as the subcortical mechanisms had previously -Only in the fourth month does cortical activity become sufficiently mature to reinstate accurate localization |
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Are differences between categories experienced as greater than the physical differences? |
-Yes -we make a categorical distinction between 'd' and 't' -"bill" vs. "pill" - doesn't have as pronounced vibration -our perceptual system imposing a boundary -VOT of like 20 ms for "pa" and "ba" |
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What is a categorical boundary? |
-what separates categories from each other. Thus category boundaries are lines of demarcation between what is inside the category and what is outside the category -where we PERCEIVE a difference (not necessarily where the difference is) -think about COLOUR in the world of vision: it's a continuous dimension (see diffs b/w colours but imposing differences in physical signal where they seem larger than they actually are) |
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What is the purpose of categorical boundaries? |
-to focus on the relevant meanings -get rid of irrelevant info in the articulation we hear |
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Describe an experiment that demonstrates clear dishabituation |
-when the test stimulus is 10 ms different from the habituation stimulus and crosses a categorical boundary: clear dishabituation -when there is an equivalent acoustic change but no crossing of categorical boundaries: no disabituation -important we have this tool because it allows us to organize our noisy environment |
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How do we measure phonemic discrimination? |
Conditioned Head Turn Preference Procedure -how we distinguish b/w diff phonemes -first year of life = attunement to native language experiment: -kids reinforced to do a certain action when they hear a difference between sounds (teach them to turn head)- young babies can discriminate sounds from ANY language -6-8 months of age: "da" and "da" - Hindi language (babies can detect but adults can't) -10-12 months of age: English learning baby no longer responds to diff in Hindi "da" and "da' but Hindi learning infant CAN detect it |
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Discuss the discrimination abilities for the Hindi and Salish k's |
-accuracy in discriminating gradually decreases -age 1: infants pretty much performing at level of an adult speaker (don't hear sounds as diff anymore) -gradual attunement of perceptual system over first year of life -perceptual system tries to focus on the SIGNAL of the auditory environment. Focus on the meaningful variation |
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Intersensory integration plays a role in all three of the major functions of perception. Name all 3! |
1. Attending 2. Identifying 3. Locating |
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Elaborate the function of Attending. |
-the orienting reflex exemplifies how intersensory integration influences infants' attention -they use auditory info to guide visual attention -they follow looking "Rules" based on auditory info -ex: when you hear a sound and looking somewhere else, look toward the source of the sound -already looking at apparent source of sound? center attention closely on that source |
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Explain how we know that infants learn info presented multi-modally before they learn info that is available in only one modality |
-Ex: infants learning rhythm – learn more effectively when it was presented both auditorally andvisually than when it was presented in either modality alone -This bias to attend to multi-modal info may help infants link faces and voices. (when ppl speak,their lips and faces move in a fashion that’s synchronized with the sounds in both tempo andduration, and infants’ attention is drawn to such multimodal displays) |
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How do infants identify objects and events? |
-Both sights and sounds are used to identify objects and events -four month olds also integrate tactile (tough) and visual info in identifying objects |
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Elaborate on the function of Locating |
-vision and audition = coordinated from birth -vestibular (balance) info, involved in maintaining and controlling posture and the location of the body in space -less obvious: visual info is also involved -studies using a "moving room": participants sits or stands on stationary floor, and ceiling and surrounding walls move -infants who have just learned to stand will sway or stagger when the walls move, indicating they adjust their posture in response to visual info -sitting infants sway trunks when they see walls move :P |
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What are the key properties of language development? (hint, there are three according to the textbook) |
1. They communicate meaning 2. When kids first learn to speak, they include only the essentials 3. The language is internally motivated |
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What three mental activities to kids engage in that enable them to comprehend and produce speech? |
1. Speech segmentation (can divide speech into individual words) 2. Ability to imitate other speakers (learn to pronounce words correctly) 3. Pay attention to and remember the order of words they hear in particular phrases, while searching for generally applicable grammatical rules |
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According to the textbook, what are the four main aspects of language? |
1. Phonology: concerns the structure and sequencing of speech sounds; develops soon after birth 2. Meaning: emphasizes the correspondences between particular words and phrases, on the one hand, and particular object, properties of objects, events and ideas on the other. Many infants understand a few simple words by 6 months; produce first words around first bday. 3. Grammar: focuses on the system of rules through which people form sentences (middle of age 2; most kids demonstrate some understanding among various syntactic constructions and start stringing together phrases of two or more words) 4. Communication: involves the way that phonology, syntax, and semantics are used to convey messages to other people and to understand what they have in mind |
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In general, what precedes production for all aspects of language? |
-COMPREHENSION! and often by a substantial margin |
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Why is language special?? |
Universality: occurs and occurs quickly, across a wide range of environments 1. Self-motivating properties: desire to communicate. Humans seem to be only animals who are interested in communicating info that is of no direct importance for survival 2. We try to speak grammatically 3. Relation to disorders that affect thinking in general, such as Down Syndrome and Williams Syndrome |
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Explain how disorders that affect thinking in general (ex: Down Syndrome and WIlliams Syndrome) suggest that language and thought can also be distinct. |
-Kids with these syndromes tend to have lower-than-normal IQs (usually between 50-70) -language skills of kids with Williams Syndrome - tend to be much better than those of kids with Down Syndrome -Kids with Down Syndrome often succeed on Piagetian tasks designed to measure reasoning, that kids with Williams Syndrome consistently fail While language and thought are complexly interdependent, the patterns of performance of kids with these syndromes suggest they are also DISTINCT. |
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Give a brief overview of the Biological Basis of Language |
1. LOCALIZATION: idea that he brain activity that underlies a specific cognitive function is concentrated in a particular part of the brain -for most people - middle of left hemisphere of the brain (Broca's and Wernicke's area) -studies of patients with brain lesions -> damage to those areas harms language competence -particular linguistic functions tend to be located in particular part of left hemi (ex - naming of colours in brain-damaged patients); lesions to Wernicke's area cause inability to say colour names -evidence that words with specifically grammatical functions - processed at diff locations in brain than other words (Ex, the word "the" is processed primarily at the front of the left temporal lobe) 2. PLASTICITY: idea that brain function changes in response to experience -the brain's plasticity in the face of damage decreases with age -Hemispherectomy: remove entire hemisphere that causes seizures in infants born with brain abnormalities - people who have undergone left-side hemispherectomies before age 1 develop quite normal intelligence |
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What are the three clues that infants use to segment words? |
1. Speech Segmentation: use their knowledge about the sounds of their native language to help them identify individual words within the stream of speech 2. Transitional Probabilities: how often a particular sequence appears relative to all sequences involving the first term 3. Phonotactic Information: constraints on the sequences of sounds that are allowable within individual words in the language |
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Elaborate on Speech Segmentation |
-"where are the silences between words?" - most utterances don't contain pauses between words-acoustic silences aren't necessarily word boundaries! -Strategies (stress on certain syllables - English place stress on first syllable vs. French - stress placed on 2nd syllable). At 7.5 months - English-learning infants successfully segment words that begin with a stressed syllable; common in English (doctor, candle) but tend to mis-segment words beginning with unstressed syllable (guitar, surprise); infrequent pattern in English -kids not born with this - have to learn through exposure |
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Elaborate on Transitional Probabilities |
-The probabilities with which sounds follow one another in the language -forward and backward transitional probability -think about what makes words different from non-words (some syllables are glued together - hence, high frequency of co-occurence b/w those two syllables) Pretty baby: where are the boundaries in the phrases? -English: syllable pre very likely to be followed by syllable ty = always occur together in the word pretty (fairly common English word) -"pretty" vs. "ttyba" - 4/5 compared to 4/20.(ratio). It is statistically more probable. -(the high probability with which pre is followed by ty suggests that pretty is likely to be a word, whereas the low probability with which ty is followed by ba suggests that tyba is unlikely to be a word -studies have shown that by about 8 months - infants are capable of extracting such statistical info from a stream of fluent speech and using it to identify words |
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Elaborate on Phonotactic Information |
-involves constraints on the sequences of sounds that are allowable within individual words in the language -ex: the sequence nt is found in many English words (ant, tent) BUT: the sequence mt is found in only a few -the sound sequence nt signals that the sounds are probably within a single word, but the sound sequence mt signals that there is probably a boundary between words (as in, "come to me") -infants use such cues to segment words from fluent speech by 9 months of age |
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Explain how a head turn reference study works. |
-Record amount of time infants attend to stimuli -parent and infant sit on chair in room; infant on lap. Look towards green light. -flash green light. When infant looks toward green light; red light begins flashing. Then speech plays from speaker behind green light. Continues to play till infant gets bored -Infants will pay more attention to a word/sentence/paragraph if they notice something familiar in the paragraph (Ex: if familiarized with "doctor" - will pay more attention to phrase containing word "doctor" than other phrases) -not used with kids under 4 months of age, but can be used for infants up to 24 months. |
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Explain Saffran et. al's pabikutibudogolatudaropi experiment. |
-Artificial language constructed that used 4 words (3 unique syllables) -7 month old infants were exposed to 2 minutes of this speech -within word, the transitional probability of syllables = 1.0: because each syllable was unique -across word boundaries: transitional probability of syllables = 0.33 (repetition of the same word was not allowed) -head turn reference study Test: pabiku vs. tubiro -fixation point in the middle -infant hears from one side or another the stimulus of interest -simply keeping track of statistical information can reveal to kids the word units of the language. -"part word" (ex: tubiro). -Kids pay longer attention when presented with a part-word (or a new item) = looked longer in direction of that flashing red light when presented with a word -very short exposure to an artificial language was sufficient for them to extract the statistical structure of this language and identify likely word candidates. |
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Explain the novelty effect that was presented in the movie for the pabiku vs. tubiro experiment |
-some researchers find familiarity effects than to novel information or novel items. -in this experiment: NOVELTY EFFECT: kids interested in the new things -but: kids are still making a distinction between the two items (must have learned something about the structure of the stimulus) |
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When can children distinguish their names? |
-as early as 6 or 7 months! -can also distinguish "mommy" and "daddy" -can also distinguish context and grammatical words -have emerging vocabulary (Ex: body parts) |
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What does the riddle of induction refer to? |
-looks into how kids find the meaning of word units that they have identified. -ex: presented with a word, we need to induce its meaning (forming hypotheses) -ex: when shown a picture of a rabbit. We are told it is a "rabbit". But what part of the picture does it refer to? The animal? background? fur? colour? -some have hypothesized that kids are born with language specific supports for solving this problem |
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Apply the riddle of induction to words that are not object labels (like verbs) |
Give: whenever someone GIVES something, another person GETS something -thus: whenever the word "give" is used, the word "get" could also apply to the situation. -thus = situation is even more complicated |
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What is some evidence of children's ability to understand words? |
-by 6 months: link words "mommy" and "daddy" to the appropriate individuals = suggests that infants may begin to form their lexicons by linking names to significant individuals in their social sphere -9 months old: when they hear a label paired with an object = more likely to attend to objects from the same category than to other objects from a different category -also begin to respond appropriately to commands, such as "get the ball" |
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When do children typically produce their first words? |
-between 10 and 13 months -18 months: a productive vocab of three to one hundred words is typical. (ex: one year olds use words like "ball", "doggie", "more" -refer to objects and actions that interest them, that are relatively concrete, and that they want |
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Do children around the world differ in terms of their first words? |
-children throughout world refer to same types of objects with their earliest terms: -ex: people "dada, mama"; vehicles, food, clothing, household implements -first 50 signs produced by kids acquiring ASL are also comparable |
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What is the noun bias? |
-nouns are prevalent in children's early lexicons -"noun bias": learn nouns more readily than verbs -may not be universal though (ex: verbs may outnumber nouns for kids learning Mandarin) |
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What are holophrases? |
-they express the meaning of an entire phrase -cognitive demands of production= appear to limit meanings that toddlers can express! -compensate for these limitations by choosing single words that convey larger meanings "BALL" = word seems to imply an entire thought like "GIVE ME THE BALL", "THAT IS A BALL", "THE DOG TOOK THE BALL;" -both context and the particular words they choose make these one-word statements understandable (they'll choose the more informative term) |
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Explain overextensions, underextensions, and overlaps |
1. Overextensions: involve using a word to refer not only to the standard referents but to others as well. -Ex: using the term “doggie” not just to refer to dogs, but also lambs, cats, wolves, cows -Most dramatic of all the errors! 2. Underextensions: limiting the use of a word to a subset of its standard referents -Ex: using “bottle” to refer only to plastic drinking bottles, not with other bottle like Coke bottles. -A less dramatic error although studies have shown that underextensions actually are more common than overextensions. -Beginning language learners tend to be conservative in extending newly acquired words to novel referents 3. Overlaps: involve overextending a term in some ways and underextending it in others § Ex: underextending term “brella” by refusing to apply it to a folded umbrella, butsimultaneously overextended it to kites and to a leaf keeping rain off of a ladybug |
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What is the significance of form and function on development of word meanings? (2 points) |
1. The perceptual appearances of objects -round things = "balls" -share few functions with balls, but do share a similar appearance 2. The purposes they serve -when kids hear an unfamiliar word, they cannot be sure which aspect of the situation it labels Interesting forms and functions = increases the likelihood of children being sufficiently intrigued by an object or action to try to guess the right word for it and use the word early on |
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What is the vocabulary spurt? |
-when word learning accelerates! -avg vocab size more than doubles between 18 and 21 months and again between 21 and 24 months = this rapid growth continues for years -by first grade: typical child understands at least 10 000 words; by 5th grade: 40,000 -1 yr olds = often can identify a new word's meaning (or at least a good approximation) from fewer than 10 exposures to it -2 and 3 year olds: can often approximate the correct meaning after a single exposure! |
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According to the textbook, what four broad classes of solutions have been proposed for the riddle of induction? |
1. Constraints on learning 2. Grammatical cues 3. General cognitive processes 4. Social cognitive skills |
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What is the constraints on learning solution and what are the three main constraints on word learning? |
-something that kids are born with (they never consider the vast majority of logically possible hypotheses about word meanings): they focus on meaning adults are most likely to have in mind -their hypotheses about word meanings: constrained in ways that narrow the range of possibilities and that often lead to their first guesses being correct 1. WHOLE OBJECT CONSTRAINT: the word refers to object as a whole rather than its colour, texture, or parts 2. TAXONOMIC CONSTRAINT: tendency to assume that when a new word is used to label an object, the word can also be used to refer to other objects in the same class -kids tend to assume, unless given evidence to the contrary, that unfamiliar words involve basic levels of description (ex- when -they associate words with WHOLE CATEGORIES 3. MUTUAL EXCLUSIVITY: a new word refers to a new object -if an object has a known name, then a novel word probs refers to a diff object -happens as early as 13 months of age -also applies to verbs |
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What happens when these constraints conflict with one another?!? |
-in one experiment – kids were faced with such conflicts between objects’ shape and their taxonomic class (shown bday cake and told puppets called it a “fep” – are the other two objects – a pieshaped differently from bday cake and a hat shaped like it – a fep too?) -3 year olds more likely than 5 year old to choose the similarly shaped object (the hat) as a “fep,”whereas 5 year olds – more likely to choose the object from the same taxonomic class (chose the pie) -With age, belonging to the same category (such as sweets) and serving the same function (suchas being good to ear) became more important |
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What are the critiques to these suggested solutions? |
-seems like it's innate, but maladaptive in the long run -Limiting: if you only learn the basic level of everything (you have to learn that a rabbit can also be an animal or a cottontail rabbit!!!) -we're not focusing all the time on the whole object = we do need to learn words to focus on parts -need to learn words for actions as well and that you can refer to one thing in multiple ways -gradually: these constraints fall away. but good for early scaffolding! |
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What is the difference between the grammatical cues perspective and general cognitive processes perspective |
GRAMMATICAL CUES PERSPECTIVE: emphasizes characteristics of the language input as a source of early world learning GENERAL COGNITIVE PROCESSES PERSPECTIVE: emphasizes characteristics of the language learner -basic processes of perceiving, attending and remembering = themselves sufficient to enable kids to rapidly and effectively learn new words -DOMAIN-GENERAL processes: applicable to learning many diff kinds of info (not only language) domain-general: key dimension of contrast with the constraints perspective (holds that what enables kids to learn so many words so quickly are constraints that are specialized for language learning) |
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Explain the General Cognitive Processes perspective in terms of the effects of language experience (think of an experiment) |
-Novel objects: new word “koba” – presented with two objects -One condition: “new word koba” vs. other condition “this was given to me by my uncle” -Results: 3 and 4 year olds and adults were pretty good at remembering the new word “koba”. Performed better than in the “uncle” condition (only 70/80% correct) -Were tested immediately after, a week after, and a month after -Learning by exclusion is a more general learning principle that we can apply across domains |
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Explain the Markson and Bloom experiment that shows that general learning and memory processes can allow rapid word learning |
-Shows that general learning and memory processes can allow rapid word learning. -3 and 4 year old children – used six novel objects. -Told one of the objects was called a “koba” and that another one of the objects had been given to the experimenter by her uncle -then, kids presented with array of objects and had to find both koba and object the experimenter got from her uncle -most kids learned with object was koba, and retained this new label over a one-week and a one-month delayo they were equally good at learning and remembering which object was given to the experimenter by her uncle! -The fact that learning was comparable for the novel word and the novel fact suggests thatgeneral cognitive processes, rather than processes specialized for language, produced thelearning. |
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What is evidence to prove that general cognitive processes may also be responsible for the development of constraints on word meanings? |
-study with 17 month old kids - young enough that they didn't generalize novel words based on novel shape -7 weekly sessions: kids in the trained group were taught names for objects that had one of four shapes o repeatedly labeling instances of the category with a novel word “look, a zup”!) and “oh, that’snot a zup”! -Results: Kids in the trained group generalized the new words to other objects on the basis ofshape, but kids in the untrained group did not. shape bias: used shape to infer word meaning and generalized the importance of shape tonovel objects and words o large effect of training on children’s vocabularies -kids in trained group showed a dramatic increase in the number of object names in their productive vocabs over the course of the study suggest that learning to attend to the shape of objects actually brought on the vocab spurt for these children!
-More natural settings: kids may initially learn a few words for shape-based categories (ball, cup, shoe) then generalize over these instances to infer thatshape is an important property for determining which words label which objects |
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How do 17 and 18 month olds with different linguistic backgrounds respond to labeling? |
Study: "hey kid, LOOK AT THE BALL! ball!" (how much do they look at the target object)? then a shoe and a novel object ("look at the nil! Nil!)
Trilingual kids: no preference at all to look at the novel object Our language learning experiences seem to affect this! Can't imply mutual exclusivity |
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What is cross-situational word learning? |
-another explanation for riddle of induction -rule of induction based on ambiguity of the moment -looking at how language is used in diff situations - naturally limits the range of hypotheses that can be generated in the moment about what the word could mean -eg: pictures of cat and dog vs. picture of bear and dog... have to revise your environment -naturally narrows down hypothesis and allows for correction if error was made -have to rely on memory to use cross-situational statistics: have to relate to the new situation you are experiencing - brain needs to be able to make those calculations |
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What are three aspects related to cross-situational word learning? |
1. CROSS-SITUATIONAL WORD-TO-OBJECT MAPPING -Smith and Yu: 6 made up objects and 6 made up words. Presented objects two at a time to kids along with the corresponding words - but no correlation b/w labels and their references. Kids do associate the labels with the targets (appear to be able to use cross-situational statistics to infer meaning of words) 2. SOCIAL EXPECTATIONS: ERROR AVOIDANCE - A great deal of language learning takes place in social interactions, including situations that involvejoint attention between child and adult, scripted activities such as book reading, and routines andgames such as peek-a-boo -Infants attend to objects that interest them, and adults often label the objects to which children areattending. -pay attention to some speakers than to other speakers (kid will choose label provided by previously reliable speaker over the previously incorrect speaker) 3. SOUND SYMBOLISM : there isn't enough info in the language itself to support children's learning -ex: arbitrariness in the language: word forms of language don't resemble the referent -kiki vs. bubu (kiki =spikey and bubu = bulbous) -ex: systematic relationship between physical relationship of shapes and sounds (vowels and consonants) - some physical resemblance between shape of mouth and shape of object (even if in abstract way) -ex: li-ttle vs. laaaarge (large opening in mouth) |
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How does understanding of other people's intentions aid children's language learning? |
-By their second year, infants realize that language generally refers to what the speaker isattending to, even if it isn’t what they themselves are attending to -Adult looking at one novel object and an 18 month old at another, when the adult said“a modi”! the children shifted their attention to the object that the adult was looking at -When later asked to get the modi – toddlers more likely to choose toy that the adulthad been looking at other than the ones they themselves had been looking at -Understanding of other people’s intentions also aids their language learning -If adult appears to perform novel action accidentally while saying a word, toddlers don’t associate the action with a word -But they do associate the word with the action if the adult appears to performthe same action intentionally |
