Deck 9: Language and Thought

Question 1

Which of the following is true of human language?

A) Language systems are dynamic.
B) There is no real connection between language utterances and the object they represent.
C) Human language employs grammatical rules.
D) all of these.

Answer 1

all of these.

Question 2

"I house the at left 8:00 a.m." makes no sense to English-language speakers, but "I left the house at 8:00 a.m." does. "I house the at left 8:00 a.m." violates which grammatical rule?

A) semantics
B) Pragmatics
C) Syntax
D) morphology

Answer 2

Syntax

Question 3

____________________ is a language's set of rules that govern word order and sentence structure.

A) Pragmatics
B) Syntax
C) Morphology
D) Phonology

Answer 3

Syntax

Question 4

The set of rules for appropriately combining words and sounds in a given language is known as __________.

A) communication
B) grammar
C) protolanguage
D) utterances

Question 5

The Feist and Rosenberg text states that human language is unique in that it can __________.

A) convey abstract ideas
B) announce anger
C) display threats
D) communicate the urge to reproduce

Question 6

In terms of early humans, archaeologists and linguists speculate that only _________________ used grammar and syntax.

A) Australopithecus afarensis
B) Homo neanderthalensis
C) Homo sapiens
D) Homo erectus

Question 7

Human language that employed grammar most likely emerged about __________________ years ago.

A) 2.0 million to 2.4 million
B) 1 million to 2 million
C) 150,000 to 200,000
D) 10,000 to 20,000

Question 8

Psychologists and anthropologists posit which of the following?

A) Human language emerged before complex brains did in the course of human evolution.
B) A complex brain emerged before language did in the course of human evolution.
C) Brain complexity and human language co-evolved.
D) none of these.

Question 9

Which of the following milestones of human evolution is thought to have made a profound contribution to the development of language use?

A) the growth of the frontal lobes
B) larger human social circles
C) the evolution of a larger working memory
D) all of these

Question 10

Even though he cannot yet speak, 10-month-old Mikey understands what his father means when he says to Mikey, "You're a good boy!" Which part of Mikey's brain is involved in this language comprehension?

A) Wernicke's area
B) Broca's area
C) occipital lobes
D) the amygdala

Question 11

Language production is associated with a region of the brain called ___________.

A) Wernicke's area
B) Broca's area
C) parietal lobes
D) all of these

Question 12

Which of the following speech sounds is baby Lola likely to make first?

A) cooing
B) babbling
C) telegraphic speech
D) Duos

Question 13

Seven-month-old Jason is sitting in his high chair uttering sounds such as "da da da da da" and "ba ba ba ba ba." Linguists would say that Jason is __________.

A) using duos
B) using child-directed speech
C) cooing
D) babbling

Question 14

Which of the following is true with respect to language ability in infants?

A) As young infants age, they introduce increasing numbers of sounds from their nonnative languages into their speech repertoire.
B) Young infants are naturally limited to producing the sounds found in their native languages.
C) Young infants can distinguish between more language sounds than can adults.
D) Young infants cannot produce as many language sounds as can adults.

Question 15

Yoshi, who is one year old, is most likely ready to enter which stage of language development?

A) using protolanguage
B) making babbling sounds
C) speaking one-word utterances
D) speaking two-word utterances

Question 16

The research of Clancy (1985) and others has shown that children, regardless of their native language, first tend to acquire words that are usually spoken __________.

A) before the verb in a sentence
B) at the beginning of a sentence
C) in the middle of a sentence
D) at the end of a sentence

Question 17

The most complex utterance that 19-month-old Jenna can likely produce is __________.

A) "ba ba ba ba ba ba"
B) "buh"
C) "ball"
D) "baby go"

Question 18

Baby Earl will most likely begin putting together grammatically correct sentences when he is what age?

A) about 2.5 years old
B) about 1.5 years old
C) about 1 year old
D) about 6 months old

Question 19

Which of the following is the correct sequence for children's language development?

A) babbling, cooing, two-word utterances, one-word utterances, sentences
B) cooing, babbling, one-word utterances, two-word utterances, sentences
C) babbling, cooing, sentences, one-word utterances, two-word utterances
D) cooing, babbling, one-word utterances, sentences, two-word utterances

Question 20

Which of the following correctly states the sensitivity period hypothesis for language acquisition?

A) Children need access to the best schools in order to realize their full language potential.
B) Children who are not exposed to human language before a certain age will never fully develop language skills.
C) Children will only learn appropriate language skills if they are exposed to competent peer models.
D) Children who learn proper grammar at an early age will likely carry their grammar skills through adulthood.

Question 21

The critical period for language acquisition in people is thought to be __________.

A) the early years to age 12
B) age 6 to 8
C) age 1 to 6
D) age 1 to 2

Question 22

Which of the following is a characteristic of brain physiology that likely makes it more difficult to learn a language after age 12?

A) The frontal lobes are 99 percent developed by age 12.
B) Brain acetylcholine levels taper off after age 12.
C) There is less plasticity in neural connections after age 12.
D) Neurogenesis ceases to occur after age 12.

Question 23

The famous case of Genie is often cited as evidence that __________.

A) the ability to analyze facts and generate ideas is innate in humans
B) most people use the availability heuristic when making estimates
C) language ability does not develop in the same timetables cross-culturally
D) it is extremely difficult to learn language after a certain age

Question 24

Sociocultural theorists suggest which of the following with respect to language development?

A) Children will learn language only through consistent reinforcement and punishment.
B) Children learn language by hearing other people speak and interpreting it within context.
C) Children should be taught language by providing associations between words and pleasant stimuli.
D) Children can learn language only before puberty.

Question 25

Based on the research of Erika Hoff (2006) and others, which of the following influences will affect six-year-old Horatio's language development?

A) his siblings
B) his parents' socioeconomic status
C) television
D) all of these

Question 26

Which of the following individuals is using child-directed speech?

A) Selma, who is telling her second-grade class to line up to walk to the cafeteria for lunch period
B) Dan, who is discussing political issues with his son
C) Marguerite, who is using exaggerated intonations and high-pitched speech to talk to her young daughter
D) Carlos, who is giving his young son explicit directions how to pour cereal into a bowl

Question 27

Making Connections in Language and Thought. As discussed in both the Biology of Behavior and Language and Thought chapters of the Feist and Rosenberg text, ___________________ are clusters of brain cells that have been observed to be involved in infants' copying of adults' facial expressions and speech sounds.

A) mirror neurons
B) glial cells
C) neurotoxins
D) neuropeptides

Question 28

Which of the following psychologists suggested that people speak because they have been reinforced for doing so-not because they want to communicate an idea?

A) Sigmund Freud
B) F. Skinner
C) Mary Ainsworth
D) Carl Jung

Question 29

Eighteen-month-old Kevin's mother excitedly yells, "Yes!" when her favorite sports team scores a point, and then Kevin yells "Yes!" His mother then praises him with, "That's right! Kevin, you're so smart! You know exactly who to cheer for!" Young Kevin likely will most likely continue to "cheer" for this particular sports team because __________.

A) he has chosen this sports team as his favorite
B) he has made the association between the team and a meaningful stimulus
C) his mother reinforces his verbal behavior
D) his mother negatively punished his reaction

Question 30

Patty, who is three years old, says, "Mommy goed to the store." According to linguists, Patty has just __________.

A) used child-directed speech
B) demonstrated a lack of syntax knowledge
C) made a pragmatic mistake
D) overgeneralized a language rule

Question 31

The nativist view of language acquisition states that __________.

A) children are taught their native languages by their parents
B) the human brain is hard-wired to learn language
C) both older adults and peers reinforce children for proper language use
D) children are most likely to learn the major language of the country in which they are born

Question 32

The pioneering linguist who argued that humans are born with a language acquisition device (LAD) is __________.

A) Noam Chomsky
B) Erika Hoff
C) Diana Baumrind
D) Daniel Kahneman

Question 33

The innate, hard-wired capacity for humans to learn language is called __________.

A) a concept hierarchy
B) a language acquisition device
C) metacognition
D) protolanguage

Question 34

Which of the following provides evidence in favor of the nativist view of language acquisition?

A) Even babies who are born deaf engage in babbling.
B) Children learn language with ease.
C) Language develops in the same way at the same time for children worldwide.
D) all of these.

Question 35

Although there appear to be universal principles of language, each language sets its own ___________________ of what is and what is not correct grammar.

A) representativeness heuristic
B) subject-verb-object (S-V-O) language
C) parameters
D) milestones

Question 36

In the study of language development, the phrase "innately guided learning" means that __________.

A) although we learn language from environmental input, biology does mediate our learning
B) research shows that relatives of children have a greater impact on their language learning than do nonrelatives
C) we may never fully learn to communicate if our sense of hearing is impaired
D) some schoolteachers have a greater intrinsic ability than others to teach language skills to children

Question 37

Research has shown that __________________ is more influenced by genetics than is _____________.

A) vocabulary; grammar
B) grammar; vocabulary
C) vocabulary; the language acquisition device
D) the language acquisition device; the sense of hearing

Question 38

Research by Dale and colleagues (2000) provided evidence for a strong genetic component to grammar by showing that __________.

A) fraternal twins were more similar in their grammatical ability to their biological parents than to their respective co-twins
B) adopted children were more similar in their grammatical ability to their adoptive parents than to their biological parents
C) fraternal twins were more similar in their grammatical ability than were identical twins
D) identical twins were more similar in their grammatical ability than were fraternal twins

Question 39

In a study of animal communication, Rothenberg (2005) posited that birds sing songs for which of the following reasons?

A) to signal to other birds that they want to mate
B) to warn other birds that predators are nearby
C) just for the fun of it
D) all of these.

Question 40

Athena, one of the zoo's most popular chimpanzees, will never learn to speak language as humans do because __________.

A) chimps are too distant from humans genetically to share such an ability or trait
B) chimps do not have the vocal apparatus that humans do and therefore cannot produce the same speech sounds
C) chimps are mere animals and do not have the attention span to be trained to speak carefully and understandably
D) all of these

Question 41

What is remarkable about Washoe the chimpanzee?
A Washoe progressed through the cooing, babbling, and one-word utterance stages of language
development exactly as human children do.

A) Washoe progressed through the cooing, babbling, and one-word utterance stages of language development exactly as human children do.
B) Washoe taught hundreds of other chimps to communicate with humans.
C) Washoe learned to communicate several hundred words using American Sign Language (ASL).
D) Washoe learned to speak English and developed a vocabulary of nearly 400 words by age five.

Question 42

Making Connections in Language and Thought: Kanzi the bonobo chimp learned to understand many English words through __________.

A) his trainer's application of classical conditioning principles
B) being rewarded and punished for appropriate and inappropriate comprehension, respectively
C) social learning-he watched his mother's training sessions and learned from these
D) none of these

Question 43

Researchers claim that the most frequent communications between chimpanzees involve "conversations" about __________.

A) feeding
B) play
C) discipline
D) grooming

Question 44

High school students, on average, have a vocabulary of about ________________ words.

A) 18,000
B) 36,000
C) 60,000
D) 134,000

Question 45

Knowing the limitations of chimpanzees' language ability, what can we speculate about humans' ability to speak?

A) It will likely de-evolve at some point, bringing us closer to the communicative abilities of nonhuman animals.
B) It is likely inherited from an ancestor common to chimps and humans.
C) It should allow us to survive should chimpanzees ever become extinct.
D) It might interfere with our ability to survive in the wild.

Question 46

Which of the following correctly summarizes the Whorf-Sapir hypothesis?

A) The language we speak shapes our thoughts and our understanding of ideas.
B) We use language effectively when we draw general conclusions from specific evidence.
C) Children who do not begin to speak at about one year of age will have trouble learning language.
D) The development of language in humans stems from inhered ability.

Question 47

The German word schadenfreude in English basically means "a good feeling obtained from observing someone else's bad luck." There is no exact equivalent for this word in the English language. Thus, according to the linguistic determinism hypothesis, one would conclude which of the following?

A) Chuck, who speaks fluent English, Spanish, and German, would think about schadenfreude first in English and then translate it into the other two languages he knows.
B)Tito, who speaks Spanish, German, English, and Mandarin Chinese, will be able to convey schadenfreude in four different ways.
C) Sara, who speaks only English, will have problems understanding schadenfreude, because there is no exact word for this concept in her native language.
D) Tina, who speaks only German, may feel schadenfreude but will not be able to learn this concept quickly when it is presented to her in a foreign language.

Question 48

The Russian language has separate words for light blue and dark blue, and the English language does not. In cognitive tests, Russian speakers were quicker at distinguishing these two colors than were English speakers. The results of this study support the theory of __________.

A) the observational learning of language
B) a language acquisition device
C) linguistic determinism
D) linguistic relativism

Question 49

Mental processes involved in thinking, remembering, and information processing are known to psychologists as __________.

A) imagery
B) cognition
C) encoding
D) modeling

Question 50

Which of the following research questions would be of particular interest to a cognitive psychologist?

A) Why have human beings evolved to exhibit jealousy?
B) What neurological processes underlie fear?
C) To what extent do children learn prejudicial attitudes from their parents?
D) Does an 80-year-old man remember his high school graduation accurately?

Question 51

______________________ are ideas and images in our minds that symbolize something else-usually something we have encountered in the past or anticipate we will encounter in the future.

A) Secondary reinforcers
B) Mental representations
C) Binocular cues
D) Traits

Question 52

In which lobes of the brain is the visual system primarily located?

A) frontal
B) temporal
C) parietal
D) occipital

Question 53

Which of the following individuals is experiencing visual imagery?

A) Tiekka, who is remembering how many windows are in her house
B) Max, who is viewing old family photographs
C) Riesha, who is watching her son ride a bicycle
D) all of these

Question 54

With respect to imagining objects and events that are not currently being perceived, research has shown that __________.

A) brain images from people imagining are vastly different than are brain images from people actually perceiving
B) 2 percent of the population cannot do it
C) imagining different outcomes has no effect on actual outcomes of events
D) all of these

Question 55

Hale and colleagues (2005) have shown that visualizing one's self performing ideally in a sports meet- such as hitting home runs in a baseball game-will likely lead to __________.

A) inflated self-esteem, which will in turn detract from your performance
B) better study skills and social skills
C) better performance, like actually hitting more home runs
D) an overextended cognitive load, thereby detracting from your performance

Question 56

Who said of his own genius thoughts, "I rarely think in words at all. A thought comes and I may try to express it in words later."

A) Albert Einstein
B) B. F. Skinner
C) Carl Jung
D) David Buss

Question 57

Juanita, an architect, is quite skilled at imagining objects rotating three dimensionally. Psychologists would say Juanita is skilled at __________.

A) fixation
B) transference
C) representativeness heuristics
D) mental rotation

Question 58

Research has consistently shown that men, women, and animals with high levels of the hormone _________________ perform better on tests of spatial ability than do men, women, and animals with normal levels.

A) estrogen
B) testosterone
C) progesterone
D) adrenaline

Question 59

A car has four wheels, doors, a windshield, radio, uses gasoline, and when driven will take you from point A to point B. My mental classification of a car is known as a __________.

A) schema
B) concept
C) phoneme
D) neuron

Question 60

"Desperate Husbands" is a "drama," which is a "television program," which is a form of "entertainment." This example illustrates a __________.

A) manifest content
B) self-concept
C) concept hierarchy
D) latent learning

Question 61

McClelland (1988) and others posit that associations between mental concepts activate many nodes of information simultaneously. This model of mental organization is known as __________.

A) scientific thinking
B) deductive reasoning
C) the association cortex
D) parallel distributive processing (PDP)

Question 62

The best-fit example of a category is known as a __________.

A) fuzzy set
B) prototype
C) heuristic
D) algorithm

Question 63

______________________ organize concepts based on characteristics that are commonly shared.

A) Categories
B) Modes
C) Sensations
D) Paradigms

Question 64

Beulah says, "There are many clouds in the sky, the sky is darkening, and I hear thunder in the distance. It is likely going to rain." Beulah is engaging in __________.

A) arguing
B) reasoning
C) proving
D) researching

Question 65

"All cars sold by this dealership come with satellite radio. This car was sold by the dealership. Therefore, it must have satellite radio." This line of thinking is known as __________.

A) deductive reasoning
B) inductive reasoning
C) means-end analysis
D) guessing

Question 66

If Martha engages in deductive reasoning, her conclusion will always be correct if __________.

A) the conclusion is corroborated by an independent party
B) she gathers all the available specifics to support her general argument
C) the premises upon which she based her arguments are true
D) all of these

Question 67

Jamal said, "Every time there is an event at the nearby stadium I am late getting home because of all the traffic. Today there is an event at the stadium, so I told my wife I will be late getting home." Jamal has engaged in __________reasoning.

A) inductive
B) deductive
C) confirmation bias
D) metacognitive

Question 68

Inductive reasoning involves which of the following?

A) reasoning from specifics to general conclusions
B) offering statements that explain many facts
C) the use of causal inferences
D) all of these

Question 69

Dr. Roland cites psychological journal articles that corroborate his findings, but says the articles that refute his findings must be based on studies that were not conducted properly. Dr. Roland's argument can be considered __________.

A) confirmation bias
B) inductive reasoning
C) deductive reasoning
D) critical thinking

Question 70

Jen asks her class to read several scientific articles, carefully consider the evidence gathered in each, and make sound judgments as to the validity of their findings. Jen is asking her class to engage in __________.

A) algorithms
B) heuristics
C) critical thinking
D) visual imagery

Question 71

Mark is a psychologist who generates theories as to the causes of certain behaviors, tests applicable hypotheses, and revises his theories as needed. Mark engages in __________.

A) critical thinking
B) scientific thinking
C) confirmation bias
D) language comprehension

Question 72

Which of the following statements demonstrates metacognitive thinking?

A) "Life is what happens when you are making other plans."
B) "Nothing is certain but death and taxes."
C) "We hold these truths to be self-evident . . . that all people are created equal."
D) "I think, therefore I am."

Question 73

One should apply critical thinking when considering whether or not ___________.

A) a defendant is guilty of a crime
B) a new marketing campaign is making honest claims
C) a scientific article makes a valid argument
D) all of these

Question 74

A mental shortcut for making a decision is known as a __________.

A) heuristic
B) algorithm
C) catharsis
D) thalamus

Question 75

Which of the following individuals is using a heuristic to reach a conclusion?

A) Carlito, who is counting his money, beginning with the lowest denomination
B) Marilyn, who is searching her entire house looking for her lost watch
C) Roletta, who is entering her family's birthdays when attempting to remember a computer password
D) Craig, who is making a list of items he needs to buy from the grocery store.

Question 76

Tim is 6 feet 4 inches, weighs 280 pounds, and is extremely strong, and athletic. He has excelled at sports throughout his whole life. Many people would guess that Tim is more likely to be a professional football player than a physician. Yet there are far more physicians than there are professional football players, and therefore statistically Tim is more likely to be a physician. The initial judgment that Tim is more likely to be a football player is based on __________.

A) an availability heuristic
B) a representativeness heuristic
C) a means-end analysis
D) an algorithm

Question 77

Margo is tossing a coin, and for the last nine tosses it has landed on heads. Margo says, "The coin is definitely due to land on tails on my tenth toss!" What is wrong with Margo's logic?

A) She is certain to toss the coin in a manner that will ensure her predicted outcome.
B) She is failing to consider alternate outcomes besides heads or tails.
C) She is ignoring the base rate probability of 1 : 2 for heads and 1 : 2 for tails.
D) none of these

Question 78

Lately, Bonnie has seen a number of vivid images of plane crashes on the news, and she swears she will never fly again for fear of her own safety. Bonnie says she will just drive wherever she needs to go. Knowing that far more fatalities are caused by car accidents than plane crashes, psychologists would say Bonnie's incorrect logic is based on __________.

A) an availability heuristic
B) a main effect
C) a peak experience
D) Weber's law

Question 79

An individual who is making a decision using the rational choice theory would most likely ask himself the question,

A) "What will my friends think of this?"
B) "What are my true feelings?"
C) "Do the risks outweigh the benefits?"
D) "How can I justify this to my partner?"

Question 80

Research by Kahneman and Tversky (1974; 1983) showed that people sometimes commit the conjunction fallacy, which is the belief that __________.

A) the odds of two events occurring together are greater than the odds of either of those events occurring alone
B) people are more likely to use an algorithm to understand familiar problems and a heuristic to understand unfamiliar problems
C) the probability of estimating the frequency of more than two events overloads human cognitive capacity
D) one's thoughts are more important and more profound than others' thoughts