Deck 10: Language Comprehension

Question 1

Which of the following statements describes an assumption of the standard pragmatic model?

A) Literal meanings are always accessed before non-literal meanings
B) Several literal meanings are generated in Stage 3
C) Literal and non-literal meanings are accessed simultaneously
D) Non-literal meanings are generated in Stage 1
E) Non-literal meanings are always accessed before literal meanings

Answer 1

Literal meanings are always accessed before non-literal meanings

Question 2

The measure of reading span has been used to test:

A) Working memory capacity
B) Motivation
C) IQ
D) Long-term memory capacity
E) Prosodic cues

Answer 2

Working memory capacity

Question 3

In the garden-path model of parsing, the notion that new words encountered in a sentence are attached to the current phrase, if grammatically permissible, forms the basis of which principle?

A) The principle of minimal attachment
B) The principle of late closure
C) The principle of common ground
D) The principle of good-enough representations
E) None of these

Answer 3

The principle of late closure

Question 4

The findings of McKoon and Ratcliff (1992) are more consistent with which account of text processing?

A) The minimalist position
B) The constructionist position
C) Constructionist-integration theory
D) Script-pointer-plus-tag hypothesis
E) Search-after-meaning theory

Question 5

A statement making an assertion or denial that can be true or false is technically referred to as a[n]:

A) Independent query
B) Circular reasoning
C) Maxim
D) Preposition
E) Proposition

Question 6

A word referring back to a person or object previously mentioned in a text or speech is an example of:

A) Topographic
B) Anaphor
C) Phonological
D) Lemma
E) Transitive

Question 7

Häuser et al. (2016) applied rTMS to which network, which they hypothesised provides cognitive control to resolve semantic conflicts?

A) BA 22
B) BA 17
C) BA 45
D) BA 41
E) BA 40

Question 8

If an entire sentence has two or more possible interpretations we say that it is ambiguous at the:

A) Basic level
B) Local level
C) Meaning level
D) Global level
E) Subordinate level

Question 9

Graesser et al. (1997) argued that Kintsch's theory ignored two levels of discourse representation: text genre and which of the following levels?

A) Communication
B) Letter genre
C) Transmission
D) Subliminal
E) Perceptual

Question 10

According to Keysar (2000), information about common ground is used to correct any misunderstandings resulting from the use of:

A) Ambiguous sentences
B) Prosodic cues
C) The egocentric heuristic
D) Body language
E) None of these

Question 11

MacDonald et al.'s (1994) constraint-based theory of parsing is based on:

A) A stage-theory model
B) Freudian ideas
C) Neuropsychological data
D) Behaviourist ideas
E) Connectionist architecture

Question 12

MacDonald et al.'s (1994) constraint-based theory predicts difficulty in reading sentences such as "The professor read the newspaper had been destroyed" when the sentence structure is inconsistent with what?

A) Anthopomorphism
B) Limited capactity constraints
C) Brain damage
D) Verb bias
E) Word superiority

Question 13

Which of the following statements describes one of the key assumptions of the garden-path model of parsing?

A) Semantic processing is necessary to construct initial syntactic structure
B) Semantic processing occurs prior to syntactic processing
C) Semantic processing does not influence the construction of the initial syntactic structure
D) Semantic and syntactic processing occur simultaneously
E) None of these

Question 14

According to Bartlett (1932), the main impact of schematic knowledge occurs at:

A) Encoding
B) Learning
C) Initial comprehension
D) Retrieval
E) Storage

Question 15

Which ERP component has been used as a measure of the time to detect a semantic mismatch by researchers such as Hagoort et al. (2004)?

A) P3
B) N2pC
C) ERN
D) N400
E) P200

Question 16

According to Garrod and Terras (2000), the two stages (in order) involved in establishing coherence between parts of the text are:

A) Fixation, interlocution
B) Separation, integration
C) Circumlocution, resolution
D) Identification, bonding
E) Bonding, resolution

Question 17

Kintsch (2000) put forward a prediction model of metaphor, suggesting that which of the following components selects features of the predicate that are relevant to the argument, and inhibits irrelevant predicate features?

A) Latent semantic analysis
B) Mutual dampening
C) Analogical reasoning
D) Modus tollens
E) Construction-integration

Question 18

Inferences that are made to establish coherence between the current part of the text and preceding text are called:

A) Elaborative inferences
B) Logical inferences
C) Linking inferences
D) Bridging inferences
E) Metaphorical inferences

Question 19

Van Gompel et al. (2000) put forward which model that combined aspects of the garden-path and constraint-based models?

A) Unrestricted race model
B) Garden-variety model
C) Central processing model
D) Multicore processing model
E) Limited path model

Question 20

The greatest difference between the minimalist and constructionist positions on text processing concerns:

A) The number of strategic inferences drawn
B) The number of automatic inferences drawn
C) The number of bridging inferences drawn
D) The number of global inferences drawn
E) All of the above

Question 21

What, within the sentence, depended mostly on linguistic information in Coco and Keller's (2015) study?

A) Ambiguity solution
B) Disambiguity solution
C) Ambiguity resolution
D) Linguistic information
E) Visual context

Question 22

What do Heller et al.'s (2016) findings indicate about listeners?

A) They use uncommon ground
B) They use common ground
C) They use egocentric perspectives
D) They use heuristics
E) They use semantics