Question 1

Mae has just turned 1. Nell is almost 3. Odette is 5, and Patty is 18. Which individual's language acquisition is CORRECTLY estimated in the following?

Accepted Answer

Nell, who is almost 3, is at a stage where rapid vocabulary expansion occurs, and learning three new words a day is typical for children around this age. Mae, at 1, is likely to be using single words or just starting to combine words, making two-word sentences possible but less typical. Odette, at 5, would have a vocabulary far less than 20,000 words, as this number is closer to what adults have. Patty, at 18, would also not have a vocabulary of 50,000 words, as the average adult native English speaker's vocabulary is estimated to be around 20,000 to 35,000 words.

Question 2

How can one avoid falling into the trap of misinterpreting a garden path sentence?

Accepted Answer

Paying attention to the extralinguistic factors in the environment can provide cues to help interpret the sentence correctly. For example, knowledge about the topic being discussed or the context of the conversation can help in understanding the intended meaning of a sentence.

Question 3

Four-day-old French infants were habituated to the sound of French speech (their pacifier sucking rates decreased). When the speech was switched from French to English, how did the babies respond?

Accepted Answer

The babies dishabituated, meaning their pacifier sucking rate increased when the speech was switched from French to English. This suggests that they were able to discriminate between the two sets of sounds.

Question 4

Which of the following might help one correctly interpret a garden path sentence?

Accepted Answer

Using common sense can help in understanding the context and meaning of a garden path sentence, which often initially leads the reader to an incorrect interpretation.

Question 5

Every normal human baby is __________.

Accepted Answer

Normal human babies are born with the innate ability to distinguish all phonetic contrasts used in any language, not just their native one. This capacity typically narrows as they grow older and become more attuned to the specific sounds of their native language(s). Choices A, C, and D are incorrect because they either limit the capacity to only the baby's language, suggest an incorrect mechanism of language acquisition, or inaccurately assign language functions to a specific hemisphere.

Question 6

Japanese adults can have difficulty distinguishing between "la" and "ra." In tests of Japanese infants, research has shown that __________.

Accepted Answer

Research has shown that Japanese infants can detect the difference between "la" and "ra" just as easily as American babies can.

Question 7

Spoken utterances of garden path sentences such as "The cabin struck by the tree fell" are less likely to result in confusion than a written statement of the same sentence. Why would this be?

Accepted Answer

Spoken utterances are usually accompanied by extralinguistic factors such as tone of voice, facial expressions, and body language, which can provide additional context and help the listener understand the intended meaning. In a conversation, there is also an opportunity for the speaker to clarify or provide additional information if the listener is confused. Written statements, on the other hand, lack these extralinguistic factors and rely solely on the words on the page, which may be more prone to misinterpretation or confusion.

Question 8

Participants view a scene in which there are two napkins and a box. A frog sits on one of the napkins. The participants are instructed: "Put the frog on the napkin into the box." How do participants generally interpret this instruction?

Accepted Answer

The answer of Participants view a scene in which there...

Question 9

Your text describes a study in which eye-movement data revealed that participants looked at a cake rather than at an inedible object immediately on hearing the word eat and before the word cake was heard. The results of this study __________.

Accepted Answer

The study revealed that participants looked at a cake immediately upon hearing the word "eat" and before the word "cake" was heard, indicating that the interpretation of the sentence was developed online as successive words occurred. Therefore, the results support option A, which suggests that the interpretation of a sentence is developed online. Option B is incorrect because the study shows that sentence interpretation is not formulated once the sentence is over. Option C is incorrect because the study demonstrated the influence of language on visual attention. Option D is incorrect because the study did not focus on the influence of surroundings on language interpretation.

Question 10

Participants are asked to view a scene in which there are two napkins (napkin A and napkin B) and a box. A frog sits on napkin A. When the participants are simply instructed "Put the frog on the napkin into the box," how do they usually respond?

Accepted Answer

Participants often experience temporary confusion due to the ambiguous instruction, leading their eyes to napkin B before they correctly interpret the instruction to put the frog into the box.

Question 11

In their discussion of the influence of the immediate surroundings on language interpretation, your text suggests that children lack the cognitive control to process garden path sentences effectively. This may reflect immaturity of the __________ lobe in children's brains.

Accepted Answer

The frontal lobe is responsible for executive functions such as cognitive control, decision making, working memory, and attention. Children's frontal lobes are not fully developed, meaning that they may struggle with these cognitive processes and have difficulty processing complex sentences, such as garden path sentences.

Question 12

When two-day-old babies are exposed to recordings of normal human speech, they experience a(n) __________ in blood flow in the __________ hemisphere.

Accepted Answer

Research has shown that even at a very young age, the human brain responds to language. The left hemisphere is primarily responsible for language processing, and studies have found that when two-day-old babies are exposed to recordings of normal human speech, there is an increase in blood flow to this area, indicating heightened activity and engagement with the linguistic stimuli.

Question 13

Which of the following statements is FALSE?

Accepted Answer

Infants typically show a preference for their native language over a foreign language by 2 months of age, indicating that they do not listen to both for similar periods without habituating.

Question 14

The textbook authors describe an experiment in which researchers exposed infants who previously heard only English spoken in their home to a tape of their mothers speaking to them either approvingly or disapprovingly in German. The tape was activated while the infants played with a novel toy. What were the results of this experiment?

Accepted Answer

The results of the experiment show that infants who heard the disapproving tone in German would drop the toy, but those who heard the approving tone in German would continue playing with the toy. This suggests that infants are able to differentiate between different emotional tones in different languages and respond accordingly.

Question 15

Why are garden path sentences so difficult to comprehend?

Accepted Answer

Garden path sentences are difficult to comprehend because they contain an implausible semantic relationship among the words, which can mislead the reader to follow a syntactical structure that ultimately leads to a dead end or misunderstanding. The misleading structure of the sentence makes it difficult for the reader to adjust their interpretation and comprehend the intended meaning.

Question 16

Does the relationship between language and the external environment accord with the Whorfian hypothesis? Why or why not?

Accepted Answer

The answer of Does the relationship between language and the...

Question 17

Two-day-old babies listened to recordings of human speech. Half of the time the speech was normal, half of the time it was played backwards. How did the babies react?

Accepted Answer

Babies showed increased blood flow in the left hemisphere for normal speech, indicating early specialization for processing human speech.

Question 18

By the age of 5, children possess a vocabulary of about how many words?

Accepted Answer

By the age of 5, children possess a vocabulary of approximately 10,000 words.

Question 19

Babies who had heard only English or French listened to a recording of a German mother suddenly speaking in tones of disapproval. How did the babies react?

Accepted Answer

The babies who had heard only English or French paid immediate attention when a German mother suddenly spoke in tones of disapproval. This suggests that infants are sensitive to emotional tones in language and can recognize negative emotions such as disapproval, even in languages they are not familiar with.

Question 20

Billy's mother failed to segregate her phonemes well, so little Billy thought he heard her say the phrase "lead us not into temptation" in the Lord's Prayer as "lead us not into Penn Station." This illustrates __________.

Accepted Answer

Billy misheard "temptation" as "Penn Station" because he perceived a word boundary where there wasn't one, indicating a misunderstanding of the phonemes in the phrase.

Quiz 10: Language