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Spring 02, Exam 1 |
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Part 1: Multiple Choice. Circle the letter corresponding to the correct answer. Only one answer is correct for each question. (1 point each) 1. Both McClelland and Rumelhart's (1981) Interactive Activation Model
and PANDEMONIUM, include _____. 2. A patient who can identify letters in isolation but has difficulty
when they are part of a word suffers from _____ dyslexia. 3. According to the _____ hypothesis thinking is information processing,
information processing is computation on symbols, and the semantics of
symbols connect thinking to the external world. 4. A letter or combination of letters that represents a phoneme is called
a _____. 5. Which of the following symptoms is normally associated with damage
to the right cerebral cortex? 6. The Interactive Activation Model is formulated at the level of analysis
that Marr refers to as the _____. 7. _____ is the most widely used connectionist learning algorithm. It
allows networks to be trained to reduce the error between the output the
network actually generates in response to a particular input and the output
it should have generated given that input. 8. A _____ is a self-contained set of processes that converts an input
to an output without any outside help on what goes on in between (i.e.,
it is informationally encapsulated). 9. If Rumelhart & McClelland (1982) had not found that
letters are recognized more quickly when they are presented in _____ than
when they are presented in _____, the Interactive Activation Model would
have been disconfirmed. 10. The study of different types of grammar and the devices that are
necessary to produce them is part of a branch of mathematical linguistics
or computational theory called _____.
Part 2: Definitions. In just 1 or 2 sentences, give an operational definition for each of the following concepts. Your definition may come from an experiment you are familiar with or you may make up your own definition (as long as it accurately defines the concept and is operational). (2 points each) Grading Criteria:
11. Reversible versus Nonreversible Sentences To determine if sentences are reversible or nonreversible I would present them to a group of participants and ask them to judge whether they still make sense when the agent and object are reversed (e.g., "The boy ate the bagel." --> "The bagel ate the boy."). Those for which a majority responded "yes" could then be classified as reversible while those for which a majority responded "no" could be classified as nonreversible. 12. Word Frequency I would begin by collecting a very large sample of naturally occurring language such as all the magazines published in the U. S. during 1998. To determine the frequency of a given word, I would then calculate the number of times it occurs (per million words) in my sample. 13. Irregular Words To find out if a particular word (e.g. "broad") is irregular, I would use a dictionary to find all the other words with the same ending and number of syllables (e.g., "toad," "road," and "load") as well as the correct pronunciation of each word. If the ending of the word is pronounced differently than in 90% or more of its neighbors, I would classify it as an irregular word. 14. The Word Superiority Effect To demonstrate the Word Superiority Effect, we could ask people to look at a fixation point on a computer screen then name, as quickly as possible, letters that appear in its place. The Word Superiority Effect can then be defined as the difference in letter naming times (the time that elapses between presenting a letter and detecting the naming response) between letters presented alone (e.g., "O") and letters presented in the context of a word (e.g., "DOG"). 15. Pronounceable Non-words I would first determine that a string of letters is a non-word by looking it up in the dictionary -- if it isn't there it's a non-word. I would then ask 10 native speakers if they can pronounce the non-word and I would classify it as a pronounceable non-word if at least 8 say "yes."
Part 3: Short Essay. Answer each of the following questions using no more than half of a page for each. (5 points each) 16. What is a double dissociation and why is it important? Give an example of a double dissociation from the psychology of language. Grading Criteria:
Example Answer: A double dissociation involves two patients (A and B) and two tasks (I and II). It occurs when pateint A performs normally on task I but shows an impairment on task II, while patient B performs normally on task II and shows an impairment on task I. This is important becuase it allows us to infer that tasks I and II invovlve independent cognitive functions. Moreover, if patients A and B exhibit damage in different parts of the brain the double dissociation offers evidence as to where those cognitive functions are localized. Phonological dyslexia and surface dyslexia represent a classical double dissociation. Patients with surface dyslexia are unable to read irregular words (such as "pint") but have no problem with pronounceable non-words (such as "lave"). Patients with phonological dyslexia show exactly the opposite pattern. This has led some researchers to conclude that phonological dyslexia involves the loss ot the inderiect route between print and lexical access while surface dyslexia involves the loss of the direct route. 17. Design a functional neuroimaging experiment which uses the additive factors technique to identify the neural structures involved in understanding printed words. Do not worry about the details of neuroimaging, just take it for granted that you can measure changes in cerebral blood flow as the participants in your study engage in the tasks you assign them. Grading Criteria:
Example Answer: I would begin by creating three sets of stimuli: easy words, hard words and non-words. The easy words would be 20 concrete nouns. They would all be 5 letters or less and would be among the 200 most common nouns in the English language (e.g., "dog"). The hard words would also be 20 concrete nouns. They would be at least 7 letters long and not among the 1,000 most common nouns in the English language (e.g., "conclave"). The non-words would be created by taking 20 additional easy words and 20 additional hard words (using the same criteria as above) and altering one letter in each to create a word not found in the dictionary (e.g., "frol"). I would then measure cerebral bllod flow while participants in the study perform a speeded lexical decision task. That is, I would ask them to look at each letter string and press a button as quickly as possible to indicate whether or not it is a word. Finally, I would subtract the pattern of cerebral blood flow observed in during recognition of easy words from the pattern observed during recognition of the hard words to find the areas of the brain involved in understanding printed words.
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