|
Spring 02, Exam 2 |
|
Part 1: Multiple Choice. Circle the letter corresponding to the correct answer. Only one answer is correct for each question. (1 point each) 1. The study of the physical properties speech sounds (i.e., frequency,
intensity, and how they change over time) is called _____. 2. . _____ model of semantic memory uses distributed representations
of concepts. 3. If McCloskey and Glucksberg (1979) had found that the presence of
_____ attenuates the semantic distance (or typicality) effect, then Smith,
Shoben, and Rips (1974) model of semantic memory would have been confirmed. 4. Native speakers of Japanese have difficulty hearing the difference
between the English words "lake" and "rake". This
illustrates _____. 5. Like people, HEARSAY has a more difficult time identifying speech
sounds when it is not able to use _____ cues. 6. The effect of orthographic-phonological regularity on lexical access
times is greater for _____ than for _____. 7. According to the _____ hypothesis, all derivations of a morphologically
complex word are represented in the lexicon. Thus, the words "kiss",
"kissed", "kisses" and "kissing" each have
their own lexical entries. 8. The /b/ sound in "big" and the /p/ sound in "pig"
differ only in _____. 9. _____ is often referred to as a mental distionary. 10. A _____ is an abstraction that represents the average member of a
category. 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. Naming Time I would present participants with words on a computer screen and ask them to quickly and accurately pronounce each word as it appeared. Naming Time could then be defined a the time (in msec.) that elapsed between the presentation of the letters and the detection of a response by a voice-activated relay. 12. Irregular (or Exception) 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 more than 50% or more of its neighbors, I would classify it as an irregular word. 13. Sentence Verification Time As in a typical sentence verification experiment, I would ask show participants some sentences on a computer screen and ask them to indicate whether each is true or false by pressing a YES or NO button as quickly as possible. Sentence Verification Time could then be defined as the time that elapses between the presentation of a sentence, and a correct button press. 14. Lexical Decision Reaction Time I would present participants with letter strings on a computer screen and ask them to press one key if the letters form a word, or another key if they do not. Lexical decision reaction time could then be defined a the time between the presentation of the letters and the pressing of a key (as measured by the computer). 15. The Dominant Meaning of an Ambiguous Word To determine the dominant meaning of an ambiguous word such as "bug" I would ask 50 people to use it in a sentence, then I would count the number of sentences that (in my judgement) made use of each meaning listed in the latest edition of Webster's Dictonary (e.g., "insect" and "listening device"). If one meaning was used in at least 30 of the sentences (60% of the total) I would take that to be the dominant meaning, otherwise there would be no dominant meaning for the word. 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 are frequency effects? How are they explained by search models of lexical access? How are they explained by threshold models of lexical access? Grading Criteria:
Example Answer: The term "frequency effects" refers to the common finding that words (or other stimuli) that we encounter more often are recognized more quickly than less common stimuli of the same type. For example, the word "the" is easier to recognize than the word "cog" because it occurs more frequently in the English lnaguage. In search models of lexical access, frequency effects are explained by assuming that the lexicon is searched sequentially in order of word frequncy. Each perceptual input is compared to higher frequency words before it is compared to lower frequency words. resulting in a quicker match for higher frequency words. In threshold models of lexical access, frequency effects are explained by assuming that high frequency words have a higher baseline level of activation than lower frequency words. Because of this, a smaller increase in activation (and thus less time) is needed to raise higher frequency words to the threshold level of activation required for recognition to occur. 17. Some psychologists have argued that morphologically complex words (such as "unhappy") are not represented in the lexicon. They argue that such words are recognized by accessing and then combining their constituent parts (e.g. "un" and "happy"). Design an experiment to test this hypothesis. Be sure to specify (using operational definitions) what your independent and dependent variables would be. What pattern of results would you expect to see if the hypothesis is true? What pattern would you expect to see if it is false? (Hint: You may wish to consider frequency effects.) Grading Criteria:
Example Answer: To test this hypothesis I would first generate two lists of morphologically complex words. One list would include only high frequency words (among the 2,000 most common words in the English language according to published norms) while the other list would include only low frequency words (not among the 2,000 most common English words). The frequency of the morphemes out of which the words are constructed would be identical for the two lists. I would then present the words to participants, one at a time, on a computer monitor and ask them to pronounce each word out loud as quickly as possible. I would use the computer to measure the time that elapses between the presentation of each word, and the detection of a naming response. This would be my dependent variable. The independent variable would be word frequency (high versus low). If the hypothesis is true, the average naming time should be the same for both groups of words (because of the equal frequencies of their parts). If the hypothesis is false, high frequency words should exhibit shorter naming times than low frequency words. |
|