PSYC 305 Study Guide - Final Guide: Transformational Grammar, Noam Chomsky, Deep Structure And Surface Structure
Psy305 Spring 2018 Potential questions for exam 3
1. Chomsky, Bock, Whorf, Fillenbaum each emphasize(d) a different component of
language. Describe one of these researchers and their particular focus on language.
Provide what type of experimental procedures they might have used.
Physcholinguistics: Pragmatics of Language: Semantics Can Overpower Syntax
Fillenbaum Pragmatic Persepective interaction between semantics and grammar
Presented several kinds of sentences and asked people to write paraphrases that
preserved the original meaning
Threat sentences:
–Do’t print that or I’ll sue you.
–Do’t print that or I wo’t sue you.
Conjunctive sentences:
–Joh got off the bus and went into the store.
–Joh went into the store and got off the bus.
Not normal sentences had higher percent changes when paraphrased
-Participants altered sentences so that they would semantically make sense
Ch 9 Language PPT #34-36, 38 pg 217
Chomsky’s approach to studying language – involves asking people to judge whether a
sentence is acceptable
Linguistic intuitions (experimental procedures)
Dysfluencies – irregularities or errors in otherwise fluent speech
- Is this a good sentence?
- The office was cluttered with large, empty plastic bottles.
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- The office was cluttered with plastic, large empty bottles.
- Why is one better? Sounds better
Chosky’s Trasforatioal Graar
Intent was to describe the universal aspects of syntactic knowledge
-deep structure meaing of what you are trying to say
-surface structure – how you put the words in to say what you meant
-transformational grammar
Transformational Grammar
Rules
-words come in phrase structure groupings
-the groupings can be modified or transformed
Example
-the dog chased the cat
-The cat was chased by the dog
-same meaning, different structure
Examples of ambiguous sentences
-visiting relatives can be a nuisance
-the shooting of the hunters was terrible
Syntax: the rules governing the order of words in sentences
Chomsky
-transformational grammar
-generative – generate new speech
-similarities in deep structures across different languages
-mathematics in grammatical theory can develop mathematical models to predict what
is going to be said next
-most language knowledge innate (opposite behaviorist approach) born with
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2. Mental imagery and the perception of physical objects seem to operate by similar
principles. What experimental evidence supports this statement?
Imagery Slide #9-13, pg 218 section 9 levels of analysis
Kosslyn/Shepard - Use of fMRI to assess the neural processing of visual mental imagery
and visual perception. The results document that visual imagery and visual perception
draw on most of the same neural machinery. The overlap was much more pronounced
in frontal and parietal regions than in temporal and occipital regions. The use of mental
rotation tasks by Shepard and Kosslyn asked individuals to manipulate images in
different ways.
Rabbit and elephant experiments
Podgorny & Shepard; Kosslyn
a. Grids and PET scans
b. Imagery and vision activate similar regions
-Regardless of imagining or seeing same brain regions activated
Ganis, Thompson& Kosslyn, 2004
–Visual imagery and perception
—same regions
–More overlap in frontal and parietal cx–Less overlap in temporal and occipital cx
Two-Ways to study imagery
• Find tasks for which people use imagery spontaneously
- Shepard and mental rotation
- RT correlated with degree of rotation
- Right posterior parietal
• Ask individuals to manipulate images in different ways
- Kosslyn
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