Defining Human Language
Define language.
Language is a shared system of communication using sounds or symbols that enables us to express our feelings, thoughts, ideas, and experiences.
In humans, there is a ________ need to communicate.
universal
___-____ processing is critical for perceiving words.
Top-down
What is Speech Segmentation?
Perceiving individual words even though there are often no pauses between words in the sound signal.
What does the Spair-WHorf Hypothesis propose?
Language determines thought.
How does Anthropomorphizing Bias lead people to assume animals understand language when they learn to perform tasks like signing or pressing buttons to communicate?
We interpret the words to be meaningful, and thus automatically assume the animals do as well.
What is some evidence for the universal nature of human language?
Language exists in all cultures.
All humans develop language and follow grammatical rules (deaf children creating their own sign)
Language learning occurs at same time across cultures.
All languages have nouns and verbs, have a system for making things negative, asking questions, and referring to both past and present.
How does voice onset time allow us to distinguish between phonemes?
Some phonemes that are mouthed the same are sounded out differently, allowing them to remain distinct.
(Ex., ba vs pa)
How good are people at understanding words (even their own words) out of context?
Very bad. Subjects of one experiment could only identify about 50% of the words that they had spoken out of its original context (played in isolation).
How well do people discern between colors that are across their language's color categories?
(Ex., blue vs purple)
Better/easier
What is the "Clever Hans" Effect in terms of animals communicating with humans?
The human may give unconscious cues about the behavior they want an animal to perform, which the animals can pick up on.
Words are defined by their ________ and _________, not by letters.
phonemes; morphemes
How does phoneme perception act categorically?
Categorical Perception: all-or-none category membership (ot either is the sound or it isn't)
Describe the Phonemic Restoration Effect and explain why it happens.
Phonemes are still perceived in speech even when the sound of the phoneme is covered by extraneous noise. The brain assumes the sound was just missed/not perceived and fills in the blank automatically.
How well do people discern between colors that are within their language's color categories?
(different, but similar shades of blue)
More difficult
How does operant conditioning relate to the illusion that animals who sign or press buttons are communicating?
Animals may learn that pressing button or signing gets them attention, but they do not without understanding meaning of what they are communicating.
What are phonemes versus morphemes? Give examples of each.
Bonus: how many phonemes exist in the English language?
Phonemes: the shortest segment of speech that if changed changes the meaning of a word; talking about sounds, not letters (ex., phone -> ph/o/n)
- 44 English phonemes exist
Morphemes: smallest units of language that have a definable meaning or grammatical function (ex., cowboy -> cow/boy; -ed, -s)
Describe the McGurk Effect.
Perception is influenced by auditory and visual information (what you hear and what you see their mouth doing).
How do context help resolve ambiguity of bottom-up processing of language?
Once you know what something is or should be, its easier to percieve it.
Describe the Gopnik & Choy Experiment and its findings.
Bonus: what is one theory for why these results were observed?
Korean-speaking children & English-speaking children were given an Object Permanence & Means-Ends task
- Object Permanence: English > Korean
- Means-Ends: Korean > English
Theory: 1st words learned in Korean are verbs (action); 1st words learned in English are nouns (discernment)
What three traits does human language have that allows us to communicate beyond the more simple ways animals do?
Human language is hierarchal, governed by rules, constructive, and has the capacity to communicate information about the past and future as well as the present.
WHat are bound morphemes? Give examples.
Not meaningful on their own, but change the meaning of words (ex., -s, -ed).
Why can't we simple rely on bottom-up processing to process phonemes and perceive words?
There are too many ambiguous way to pronounce simple words.
What is Speech Segmentation and how does knowledge of typical sound patterns aid in learning this?
Learning that certain sounds are more likely to follow one another within a word, whereas other sounds are more likely to be separated by a space between words.
(Ex., prettybaby -> pre-ty ba-by)
Describe the Weaker Sapir-WHorf Hypothesis.
Language influences though. Language can affect what you attend to, influencing what seems important.