Exam 9: Language and Thought

The more characteristics an object shares with a prototype,the more likely it will be excluded from a category that already contains a prototype.

Family resemblance theory holds that all members of a category share at least one feature in common.

People believe that,compared with other people,they are more likely to experience positive events and less likely to experience negative events in the future.This phenomenon is termed _____ bias.

Jasper is 11 months old and has a vocabulary of approximately 10 words.He is able to distinguish between the colours red and yellow.When Jasper's mother asks him to bring her a blue block that was mixed among red and yellow blocks,Jasper immediately identified a colour that was in contrast to the colours he recognizes.Which process does this scenario illustrate?

Babies begin to use single words at an average age of _____ months.

Use the following to answer questions : Scenario I The scenario is based on and presents results consistent with the following studies: Snedeker,J. ,Geren,J. ,& Shafto,C.L.(2007).Starting over: International adoption as a natural experiment in language development.Psychological Science,18(1),79-87.doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01852.x Snedeker,J. ,Geren,J. ,& Shafto,C.L.(2012).Disentangling the effects of cognitive development and linguistic expertise: A longitudinal study of the acquisition of English in internationally-adopted children.Cognitive Psychology,65(1),39-76.doi:10.1016/j.cogpsych.2012.01.004 Language development occurs in orderly stages,beginning with one-word utterances and progressing to two-word utterances,simple sentences containing function morphemes,and the emergence of grammatical rules.Psycholinguists have attempted to determine if language development is a consequence of cognitive development or if it reflects linguistic processes that occur independently of general cognitive development.Studies on the acquisition of a second language in internationally adopted children have provided insight into this research question.In a series of studies,Snedeker and colleagues (2007,2012)studied the acquisition of the English language in adopted preschoolers from China.These children had no exposure to the English language before being adopted by families in the United States. Figure 9.1 -(Scenario I)Which statement is an example of interpreting orderly changes in language development as a result of emerging cognitive skills?

Instead of being spontaneously generated,insightful solutions appear to be the result of incremental unconscious processes.

The exemplar theory of categorization holds that:

Use the following to answer questions : Scenario II The scenario is based on and presents results consistent with the following study: Bechara,A. ,Damasio,H. ,Tranel,D. ,& Damasio,A.R.(1997).Deciding advantageously before knowing the advantageous strategy.Science,275(5304),1293-1295.doi:10.1126/science.275.5304.1293 Bechara and colleagues (1997)studied risky decision making on a gambling task in patients with brain damage in an area critically involved in executive functions such as planning and decision making.They compared this performance with the performance of control participants without brain damage.All participants were given a starting bankroll of $2,000 in facsimile dollars.In the baseline condition,participants chose cards from among four decks.Selecting cards from decks A and B sometimes resulted in a win of $100.Selecting cards from decks C and D sometimes resulted in a win of $50.No losses were incurred in this condition.In the subsequent experimental condition,however,some cards in all decks produced losses.The losses in decks A and B were large and occurred frequently enough to possibly result in bankruptcy.The losses in decks C and D were considerably smaller.Bechara and colleagues measured deck selection and the galvanic skin response (GSR)both prior to (anticipatory)and after (post-outcome)turning over each card. In the baseline condition,all participants in both groups showed a clear preference for decks A and B.Both groups showed small but reliable anticipatory and post-outcome GSRs.In the experimental condition,with continued play,the controls exhibited a clear preference for decks C and D,while the patients continued to play more from decks A and B.Relative to the baseline condition,controls exhibited a much larger anticipatory GSR prior to each decision,whereas the patients' anticipatory GSR was small and similar to that obtained under the baseline condition.The post-outcome GSRs were similar in the two groups and occurred to both wins and losses. Interestingly,the investigator systematically interrupted play during the experimental condition and asked all participants if they had developed a game strategy.With continued play,most of the control participants labelled decks A and B as "the bad decks." Among the patients with brain damage,only half eventually labelled decks A and B as "the bad decks." Remarkably,in both groups,this realization did not affect game play.The minority of the control group who did not express a negative opinion about decks A and B nevertheless tended to avoid those decks.Similarly,the patients who acknowledged that decks C and D were risky nevertheless preferred those decks. -(Scenario II)Which factor was NOT a dependent variable?

In one set of studies,participants classified prototypes faster when the stimuli were presented to the right visual field,meaning that the:

Japanese infants cannot distinguish between the "l" and "r" phonemes.

Rodrigo has genetic dysphasia.Which statement about Rodrigo is NOT true?

According to Skinner's theory of language acquisition,an infant learns to say "ma-ma" in the presence of her mother because:

The most common way of forming categories is by specifying the necessary and sufficient conditions for membership.

Agnes suffered a stroke that resulted in brain damage.While she has little problem understanding others,she herself can barely utter telegraphic sentences,such as "give blanket" and "Monday appointment doctor." Agnes's symptoms are consistent with:

The surface structure of a sentence is more likely to be remembered than its deep structure.

Thad suffered a stroke that resulted in brain damage.Thad is overheard saying,"The rain came before my feelings.I think the funny TV is cold.But it needs help with the scissors." Thad probably has suffered damage to the _____ cortex.

Morphological rules and syntactical rules are part of grammar.

When asked what he did at preschool earlier in the day,3-year-old Harry said that he "runned on the playground." This error illustrates:

Cindy has pumped over $850,000 into a small business that has consistently lost money every year it has been open.She reasons that she has to continue investing time and money in her business because she's "already put so much into it" (instead of selling the business and cutting her losses).Cindy's reasoning illustrates: