Describe how language may constrain the way we think, and how this might differ across languages

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

  • Can we think without language?
  • Does our language determine the way we think? – linguistic determinism
  • Does language influence or predispose the way we think? – linguistic relativism
  • g. grammar Nazis – don’t use double negatives – they are however used in many languages
  • Relative clauses – sentence structure different for different languages like French
  • Some languages have words that other languages don’t – also some don’t have direct translations

Describe the notion of a mental lexicon and how it might be organized

Mental Lexicon

 A mental store of information about words

  • Semantic – word meaning
  • Syntactic – word combination (i.e. sentence structure)
  • Word form – how the word is said and written

Organisation of Lexicon

 Must somehow organize the information for efficient retrieval

  • Must be some constraints as some words are easier to recall than others
  • The way things sound influences retrieval of other words
  • Sematically similar things also influence each other (semantic priming)

Types of Writing Systems

  • Pictographic – each writing symbol is simply a representative picture
  • Ideographic – each picture represents some idea
  • Logographic – each symbol is connected to a whole word or morpheme
  • Syllabic – different languages have different syllables
  • Alphabetic – each letter represents a consonant or vowel

Describe how certain patterns of aphasia may arise from damage to different areas of the brain. Discuss how these patterns of aphasia may tell us something about the organisation of language

  • Aphasia – the inability to speak
  • If the language system has different parts, perhaps they can be damaged separately
  • Broca’s Aphasia – disorder of language production, however can often understand what people are saying to them quite well o Something wrong with ability to create motor patterns for speech production
  • Wernicke’s Aphasia – fluent, but non sensical speech, also cannot understand what is said to them o Something wrong with ability to retrieve the correct meaning for words o Although still have other modes of communication (e.g. gestures) o Lnguage specific – can recognize environmental sounds
  • Conduction Aphasia – problems producing and repeating speech (damage between different sites)
    • Use words incorrectly
    • Can understand words but can’t fix their own errors (that they know they made)
  • Transcortical Sensory Aphasia – cannot comprehend spoken inputs – damage to conceptual representations o Can repeat what is heard and correct grammatical errors – grammar must be located somewhere different
  • Agrammatism – can’t find correct words for things (often with problems)
    • Cannot put them into sentences – often miss function words (gets worse the more complex the syntax is)
  • Jargon Aphasia – cannot find appropriate single words for things o Can produce function words and hence speak relatively grammatically
  • Double dissociation – one group can retrieve content words but not syntax and the other group can retrieve syntax but trouble with content words – suggests separate stages of processing grammar and word finding

 Word Selection Anomia – difficulty naming objects

  • Some can do other tasks with the objects like matching similar objects based on function – semantic anomia can’t even do this
  • Can be limited to nouns
  • Dyslexia – inability to read
  • Agnosia (modality specific e.g. vision, smell) – the inability to process and recognize objects

Describe the dual route cascaded model of reading. Explain how the model accounts for surface dyslexia, phonological dyslexia, and deep dyslexia. List some of the limitations of the model

Dual Route Cascade Model of Reading

  • Orthographic analysis – processing the letters
  • Grapheme-phoneme rule system – a set of correspondences we know to translate letters into sounds
  • Orthographic input lexicon – our mental dictionary of written words
  • Phonological output lexicon – our mental dictionary of spoken words
  • Response buffer – where competing alternatives are worked out

–     Top-down feedback – affects people’s perception of errors when they have dyslexia

Limitations

  • There is indication that there might be competition between the 2 routes
  • Response competition – if generate 2 alternatives, you need to choose the correct one which is slower than if you don’t have to choose – occurs at the response buffer

Acquired Dyslexia (double dissociation)

  • Surface dyslexia – cannot recognize a word as a whole – get all nonsense words correct
  • Phonological dyslexia – affects previously acquired reading abilities – get all the nonsense words wrong, but can do words
  • Deep dyslexia – form of reading impairment – sematic error in reading alout