Language Basics
This is the smallest unit of sound in a language.
What is a phoneme?
This area of the brain is responsible for speech production.
What is Broca’s area?
A step-by-step procedure that guarantees a correct solution to a problem.
What is an algorithm?
The smallest unit of meaning in a language.
What is a morpheme?
Damage to this area causes difficulty understanding language.
What is Wernicke’s area?
A mental shortcut used to solve problems quickly but not always perfectly.
What is a heuristic?
The set of rules that determine how words are arranged in sentences.
What is syntax?
This imaging technique is commonly used to study brain activity during language tasks.
What is fMRI?
This type of problem solving occurs suddenly with a feeling of an “aha!” moment.
What is insight problem solving?
The study of how people understand and produce language.
What is psycholinguistics?
This concept refers to how certain functions, such as language, are primarily controlled by one hemisphere of the brain.
What is lateralization?
The inability to see a new use for an object because of its usual function.
What is functional fixedness?
The meaning of words and sentences in language.
What is semantics?
These neurons activate when we perform an action and when we observe someone else performing the same action.
What are mirror neurons?
A problem-solving bias where people continue using a strategy that worked before even if it no longer works.
What is mental set?