Exam 8: Thinking, Reasoning, and Language

What do we call the hypothesis that language influences what we think?

The term dialect is used to indicate

The __________ account of language development emphasizes the ability of the child to make inferences about language, based on the context of conversation.

Your friend sends you a text message on your cellphone that says, "This is just horrible!" In order to interpret what your friend is meaning, you often need __________ to help you understand what is going on.

Which of the following research findings causes problems for the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of language and cognition?

John Gottman and his colleagues were able to predict divorce rates of couples with startling accuracy after observing 15 minutes of interaction. This technique is known as

June is trying to decide on which car to buy. She is overwhelmed by all of the information about various aspects of all of the different makes and models and she can't even create a short list of her top preferences. It could be said that June lacks __________ that would allow her to only attend to the information she needs for decision making and minimize the rest.

There are specific areas of the brain that are specialized for processing language. This fact supports the view of language acquisition that emphasizes the importance of

Studies using sign language or lexigram boards to teach chimpanzees language have found that

__________ is a phenomenon where deaf children appear to develop their own system of communication that is often a combination of basic language components with invented components.

In the English language, we typically add the suffix 'ed' at the end of words to indicate the past tense. What aspect of syntax is this?

Which of the following individuals would most likely be able to learn a second language more easily than the others?

If you wanted to teach a nonhuman animal to communicate using language, which of the following animals does research suggest would be the best choice?

Newborn infants show a preference for

A recipe that uses a clear, step-by-step process is an example of an __________ .

George dropped his keys into a grate on the sidewalk in front of his house. He could see them, but couldn't reach them. He went back into his house and noticed that his son was using the vacuum cleaner to pick up some cereal that was spilled on the floor. This gave George the idea to put the long hose of the vacuum into the grate to pick up the keys. This sort of thinking relies on which of the following?

Language requires tremendous resource use on the part of the brain. For this reason, __________ theorists believe that language must offer adaptive advantage.

Almost all words in any language contain more __________ than __________.

Research on the relation between cognition and language suggests that

The Dani language has only two words for colour ("light" and "dark"), but the Dani are just as good at recognizing and remembering different colours as North Americans are. This is strong evidence against