Psych 240 Exam 3

Front 1

What are the two basic tasks of language?

Back 1

We have to comprehend and produce speech/language. In essence, language is an arbitrary intermediate that simply conveys abstract ideas.

Front 2

Why does Daniel say that words are arbitrary? Are sounds arbitrary?

Back 2

The physical sounds do not give words meanings. We assign meanings to sounds based on our culture and/or the language we speak.

Probably not, there are physical properties to sound that we can make associations with.

Front 3

What are the levels of language? (There are 5).

Back 3

Sentence --> Phrase --> Word ---> Morpheme --> Phoneme

Front 4

Do phonemes always correspond to letters?

Back 4

No.

Front 5

What are phonemes? Are phonemes universal across different languages?

Back 5

The smallest unit of SOUND. There are 40 in english. There are different phonemes in different languages.

Front 6

What are morphemes?

Back 6

The smallest unit that signals meaning! This can be entire words.

Front 7

What is a content morpheme? What is a function morpheme?

Back 7

A functional morpheme (as opposed to a content morpheme) is a morpheme which simply modifies the meaning of the word, rather than supplying the root meaning of the word.

Front 8

Are words good enough to unambiguously convey meaning?

Back 8

Nope. Phrase structure is really important too. Different phrase structures have different meanings, and the inflection cues that distinguish these meanings may be subtle (think: micropauses)

Front 9

What is syntax?

Back 9

The rules that determine word order

Front 10

What is meant by phrase structure descriptions?

Back 10

a

Front 11

What are some problems with phrase structure approach to meaning?

Back 11

Ambiguities remain: one phrase can mean different things, and different phrases can mean the same thing.

Front 12

Surface Structure

Back 12

The (valid) phrase structure of the current utterance

Front 13

Deep Structure

Back 13

A (valid) canonical phrase structure that has the same meaning as the surface structure.

Canonical phrase structure is stored in memory. This is like... an exemplar/cognitive economy approach to recognize phrases.

Front 14

Transformational grammar

Back 14

Rules that transform a deep phrase structure into surface phrase structures with the same meaning.

Front 15

Lexical ambiguity

Back 15

Word has two different meanings

Front 16

Syntactic Ambiguity

Back 16

Words can be grouped together into more than one phrase structure

Front 17

Swinney Experiment

Back 17

Primes people using a sentence, then asks people to judge whether a word is real or not (lexical access point) and words that were related to the lexical access point.

Immediately after primer word, people get both meanings of word. After a little bit of time, though, people only get contextually appropriate meaning.

Front 18

What is the subject-verb-object order experiment related to?

Back 18

People respond to active voice faster than passive voice when the action (verb) is reversible. But they respond/comprehend active and passive sentences equally when the verb is non-reversible.

Front 19

Broca's Aphasia:

Back 19

Difficulty with production: Slow, halting speech.
Simple grammar: no function words (be, of, the).
Comprehension largely intact.

Front 20

Wernicke's Aphasia:

Back 20

Fluent speech, but makes little sense (word salad).
Made-up words, word substitutions.
Difficulty with comprehension

Front 21

What happens in language acquisition?

Back 21

We have to learn how to distinguish language sounds from other sounds.

We need to be able to parse sounds into phonemes -- atomic units of language sound -- and then parse phonemes into words.

Then, once we have the words, we need to assign meanings to words.

Front 22

What are some problems in assigning meanings to words?

Back 22

The same sound can refer to different things, and different sounds can refer to the same thing.

Front 23

What are rules we need to learn for language?

Back 23

We must learn how words are combined
We must generalize to novel sentences (so we can't just memorize wordings)
We need to acquire rules that can be applied to new sentences.

Front 24

Do children receive feedback on their grammar?

Back 24

Nope! Adults only correct meaning, not grammar. Furthermore, correcting grammar/pronunciations doesn't even help. Kids correct themselves despite no negative feedback.

Front 25

So, if kids aren't getting feedback on their grammar, what does this suggest?

Back 25

This suggests that there are linguistic universals. Aka, this means that there are general language principals that are embodied in every language.

Front 26

Development: Phonemes

Back 26

In first year, infants can discriminate all phonemes from all languages. Gradually lose discriminations that are not important in their own language.

Front 27

What's "Motherese?"

Back 27

The way moms talk to their kids. They speak with higher pitch, slow rate, exaggerated intonations, pausing signals, and phrase boundaries. This aids with parsing.

Front 28

Holophrastic

Back 28

One word stage. No syntax, need context to disambiguate. Undergeneralization AND overgeneralization for first 75 words. Do UNDERSTAND some phrases

Front 29

Telegraphic Stage

Back 29

Two word stage. Correct use of word order. Can convey a lot of information succinctly.

Front 30

Learning Syntax/Rules/Generalization

Back 30

Start learning past tense, and nonsense words.

Learning for irregular past tense is U-shaped. Initially use right form, but then overgeneralize to -ed.

Children are able to apply general rules to nonsense cases, which implies that language learning is generative, not just imitation.

Front 31

Learning Word Meanings: Parts/Wholes

Back 31

Input gives clues about parts/wholes
“This is a rabbit; these are his ears”
“his” cues the fact that “ears” is a part

Front 32

Learning Word Meaning: Bias toward Shape

Back 32

Inherent bias that new words refer to shape
If something is a “biff”, children will claim other objects with same shape also “biffs

Front 33

Critical Period Effects: Social Isolation

Back 33

Remember Jeanie -- After critical period (age 10-12) she could not learn english.

Front 34

Critical Period Effects: 2nd Language

Back 34

You are way better at learning languages when you are younger than the critical period.

Front 35

Critical Period Effects: Sign Language

Back 35

See the same critical period effects.

Front 36

What are the two basic problems in motor skill acquisition?

Back 36

Skill and Serial order acquisition

Front 37

Fitts Power Law of Learning

Back 37

A Mathematical idea that the same amount of practice doesn't necessarily buy you the same amount of skill every time.

Front 38

What are the stages of skill learning?

Back 38

Cognitive, Associative, Autonomous

Front 39

Cognitive Stage of Skill Learning

Back 39

Declarative knowledge.
Commit facts to memory.
Rehearse as you try to perform.
Requires attention--can’t do second task.
May be independent of skill: the best teacher may not be the most skillful, but rather someone who knows how to describe the cognitive stage well.

Front 40

Associative Stage of Skill Learning

Back 40

Strengthen connections that lead to desired result
Feedback is important: See which actions lead to desired result
Get rid of actions that lead to errors

Front 41

Autonomous Stage of Skill Learning

Back 41

Fast
Executed with less attention/consciousness
Less verbalization
Less dependent on verbalization
Declarative knowledge less available
Feedback
Less important
Lower level (proprioceptive not visual)
Need for consistent practice
where a stimulus always gets the same response

Front 42

ACT-R (anderson)

Back 42

Computational model -- adaptive control of thought

Explains how we go from declarative knowledge to implicit procedural knowledge.

Proceduralization: Take declarative knowledge and turn into productions
Composition: Take several productions and join them together into one

Front 43

Response Chaining

Back 43

Feedback from one movement triggers the next one

It's wrong. It takes too long. Movements occur too quickly.

Front 44

Motor Program

Back 44

Representation of the plan for movement and movement sequences
Fast, doesn’t require feedback
Abstract
Hierarchical - Abstract high level, specific low level
Composed of subprograms -- Less abstract representations of movement sub-parts

Front 45

Rosenbaum experiment

Back 45

Evidence for Hierarchical motor programs.

Brought people into lab, taught them a sequence of drumming their fingers.

You can break down motor program into subprograms based on reaction time. Jagged reaction time curve.

Front 46

Evidence for Subprograms: speaking

Back 46

Reaction time to say first word increases when the number of words to be said increases

Front 47

Fitts Law (#2)

Back 47

Speed/accuracy tradeoff.

Front 48

What are 2 types of problems?

Back 48

Well-structured and Ill-structured

Front 49

Well-structured problems:

Back 49

Completely specified starting conditions, goal state, and methods for achieving the goal (proofs)

Front 50

Ill-structured problems:

Back 50

Some aspects are not completely specified -- finding the perfect mate, etc.

Front 51

What are the stages of problem solving?

Back 51

You have to
1. form a representation
2. construct a plan
3. execute plan
4. check/evaluate yourself

Front 52

What is a problem space?

Back 52

It's the WHOLE range of possible states and operators, ONLY some of which will lead to the goal state.

Operators: actions that move in between states.

So what we do in a problem space is: we try to navigate the states and operators in the best way possible.

Front 53

What do we mean when we talk about problem representation?

Back 53

For many problems, the representation may make it easier or harder to solve

For example, geometry problems are easier graphically, but algebra problems are easier to represent as equations.

Front 54

What is an isomorphic problem?

Back 54

An isomorphic problem is a problem where we can rephrase/re-explain/represent the problem in a different way, to make it easier. E.g. the monk problem.

Front 55

How do we use analogies to solve problems?

Back 55

We retrive a representation of a problem from meory that is similar to the problem we currently face.

Front 56

How do we mess up analogies?

Back 56

We tend to miss deep similarities between problems, because we focus on surface similarities.

We can use analogies, but we FAIL to notice them -- military ray experiment.

Front 57

Top-down preconceptions

Back 57

When we look at a new problem, we tend to encode it in a way consistent with long term memory.

Front 58

Functional fixedness

Back 58

We see an object as having only a fixed, familiar function.

Front 59

How do we get trapped by a familiar perspective?

Back 59

We like to take the point of view of the familiar process.

Front 60

Stuck in Set:

Back 60

Improper applications of analogous situations.

Front 61

Algorithm

Back 61

Completely specified sequence of steps that is guaranteed to produce AN answer (usually guaranteed to produced correct answer)

Can be slow and laborious

Front 62

Heuristic

Back 62

Short cut/ Rule of thumb. Never guaranteed to produce correct answer, but usually quick and easy.

Front 63

Think aloud protocol

Back 63

When we're solving a problem, the experimenter just asks us to try it aloud.

Note: protocols do not reflect all of the reasons why a person tried a specific configuration

Front 64

What is difference reduction?

Back 64

SAME THING AS HILL CLIMBING

At any point in a problem space, we always try to select the operator that moves us closer to the goal state.

This doesn't really work (orc/hobbit problem)

Front 65

Means-end analysis:

Back 65

We identify the largest difference between current state and goal state. We set a subgoal to reduce that difference. We find and apply an operator to reduce the difference. etc etc.

Front 66

Problem Solving: Working backwards

Back 66

Transform goal state so it is more similar to it is the initial state! (reverse of means-end). Useful if too many paths leading from initial state.

Front 67

How can expertise harm your ability to problem solve?

Back 67

Can sometimes harm:

Functional Fixedness
Water jug ‘mental set’

Front 68

Chess Study

Back 68

In chess study, experts memory was no better than beginners.
Memory for meaningful configurations much better.
Memory for random configurations slightly worse (probably hindered by schemas)
Chess masters know 50,000 chess patterns.
Chess masters intentionally study these patterns.

Front 69

Do experts spend more time on representation or less?

Back 69

More time. They take less time to complete it.

Front 70

Do experts use more or less means-end analysis?

Back 70

Less! They have more pre-stored solutions in LTM

Front 71

What is deterministic/Deductive reasoning?

Back 71

Predetermined that if the premises are true, the conclusions must be true.

Front 72

What is probabilistic/inductive reasoning?

Back 72

This is what's PROBABLY true. I can REASON that this is true.

Front 73

What's normative reasoning?

Back 73

How one ought to reasons -- rules of logic

Front 74

What's descriptive reasoning?

Back 74

How people actually reason -- heuristics

Front 75

What two things you need to draw probabilistic conclusions?

Back 75

Current evidence and base rates

Front 76

Bayes Theorem

Back 76

A normative theory of probabilistic reasoning

Front 77

Availability Heuristic

Back 77

A heuristic we employ when we estimate frequencies or probabilities by the ease with which instances or associations are brought to mind

Front 78

Simulation Heuristic

Back 78

Base judgements on how easily you can imagine: how things will turn out in the future, and how things would have turned out in different circumstances

Front 79

Conjunction Fallacy

Back 79

Occurs when people mistakenly believe that a conjunction of events is more probable than a single event.

Front 80

What are 3 causes of conjunction fallacy?

Back 80

Availability
Simulation
Representitiveness Heuristic

Front 81

Framing Effect

Back 81

The same information presented in different forms can lead to different decisions

Front 82

Non-Normative Heuristics

Back 82

a

Front 83

Risk Behavior

Back 83

In a positive frame, people are going to be risk averse
In a negative frame, people are going to be risk seeking

Front 84

Deductive Reasoning: Quantifier

Back 84

Categorical Syllogisms

A = B. B=C. A=C.

If premises are true, conclusion is true. Quantitatively define a category

Front 85

Deductive Reasoning: Comparative

Back 85

A<B. B<C. A<C.

This time we are comparing things.

Front 86

Deductive Reasoning: Conditional

Back 86

If you do A, then you will get B.

You do A. Therefore you should expect B.

Front 87

Sound Argument

Back 87

Both deductively valid AND the premises are true.

Front 88

Content Effects

Back 88

The content affects whether we endorse the syllogism or not, despite the "correctness" of the syllogism.

Front 89

Atmosphere Effect

Back 89

If either premise is particular, prefer particular conclusion
If either premise is negative, prefer negative conclusions

Front 90

Figural Effect

Back 90

We like our terms in linear order.

Front 91

Conversion Effect

Back 91

We infer bad conclusions from premises. We convert the premise into a deductively invalid conclusion.

Front 92

Pragmatic Reasoning Schema

Back 92

Humans are not built to follow abstract logic problems -- but we are rational. We've evolved to reason in PRAGMATIC situations.

Front 93

Formal Rules

Back 93

People are logical, but make mistakes. Assume that formal rules of logic are built in.

Errors occur because we misinterpret premises, some rules are unavailable, and we can't find proof for the conclusion.

Problem: why does content matter, then? Why would formal rules be built in, if they only apply to infrequent tasks?

Front 94

Mental Models

Back 94

People construct mental models (representations) that correspond to the premises, describe them, and then try to falsify conclusion by constructing alternative models.

Errors arise from WM limitations
Problem: Constructing counterexamples is a very complex process that is specific to deduction. Would subjects with no training use it?

Front 95

Verbal Reasoning

Back 95

Repeatedly use linguistic processes to try to extract more information from problem statement
Rather than applying formal rules or searching for counterexamples

Errors arise because linguistic processes are adapted to demands of communication, not deduction

Includes inferred information that may not be deductively valid
May exclude deductively valid information that wasn’t emphasized