benlehrburger/college-text-corpus · Datasets at Hugging Face

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Hyperthymesia: ability to recall the details of every day of life
Principles of memory in general
Not all principles of memory apply to all types of remembering

Chapter 10: Language

The organization of language
Translation from ideas → sounds → ideas
Languages can be broken down into phonemes (smallest unit of sound) → morphemes (smallest language units that carry meaning) → sentences (express intended meaning)
Phonology
Features of speech
Voicing: vibration produced by movement of the vocal folds
Manner of production: how airflow is restricted by the mouth and nose
Place of articulation: where airflow is restricted
Complexity of speech perception
Speech segmentation: dividing audible speech into its constituent phonemes
Coarticulation: phonemes overlap during speech
Aids to speech perception
Speech is quite limited in its range
Perception of speech relies on knowledge and expectations that supplement the input and guide interpretation, weaving together “bottom-up” and “top-down” processes
Phonemic restoration effect: people hear phonemes in the middle of complete words even when they’re removed
Context in which we hear a word
Categorical perception: people are better at hearing the differences between categories of sounds than they are at hearing the variations within a category of sounds
Perceptual apparatus is tuned to provide just the information we need
Combining phonemes
Combinations of phonemes rely on strict rules that differ from language to language
Morphemes and words
What we know about words
Sound: the sequence of phonemes that make up the word
Orthography: the sequence of letters that spell the word
Meaning: the semantic representation accompanying the phonological representation
Building new words
Generativity of language: language’s capacity to create an endless series of new combinations, all build from the same set of fundamental units
Knowing a language means knowing the rules governing how to combine phonemes and morphemes in that language
Syntax: rules that govern the structure of a phrase or sentence
Phrase structure
Phrase-structure rules: rules that specify which elements must appear in a phrase and that govern the sequence of those elements
Tree structure: depicts phrase structure
Prescriptive and descriptive rules
Prescriptive rules: rules describing how language is supposed to be
Yet, languages are subject to a pattern of change over time
Descriptive rules: rules characterizing the language as it’s ordinarily used by fluent speakers and listeners
The function of phrase structure
Helps you discern between language that “makes sense” and that which does not abide by syntactical rules
Helps you understand the sentences you hear or read because syntax specifies the relationships among the words in each sentence (who did what to whom?)
Sentence parsing
Parsing: figuring out each word’s syntactic role
People parse as they hear sentences, trying to understand each word as it arrives; this is efficient but prone to errors
Garden-path sentences: initially led to one interpretation, but that interpretation turns out to be wrong
Temporary ambiguity: the early part of a sentence is open to multiple interpretations but the later part of the sentence clears things up
Syntax as a guide to parsing
People seek the simplest phrase structure that will accommodate the words hear so far
People assume they’ll be hearing/reading active-voice sentences rather than passive-voice sentences
Parsing is informed by function words and the various morphemes that signal syntactic roles
Background knowledge as a guide to parsing
People parse sentences in a way that makes sense to them
Extralinguistic context: the physical and social setting in which we encounter sentences that informs our understanding
Prosody: pitch and rhythm cues
Reveals mood of a speaker
Directs a listener’s attention
Make seemingly ambiguous sentences make sense
Pragmatics: knowledge about how language is ordinarily used
To know a language…
Know a rich set of rules about how and whether elements can be combined
Know a set of principles whenever perceiving and understanding linguistic inputs
Gricean maxims: describe maxims speakers follow and listeners count on (eg. maxim of relation, maxim of quantity)
Biological roots of language
Aphasia: the loss of the ability to produce and understand ordinary language
Broca’s aphasia: damage to Broca’s area on the left frontal lobe produces nonfluent aphasia (patient can understand language they hear but cannot write or speak)
Wernicke’s aphasia: damage to Wernicke’s area produces fluent aphasia (patient can talk freely but say very little)
Biology of language learning
We have evolved highly sophisticated learning capacities that have evolved specifically for language learning
Specific-language impairment (SLI): children have normal intelligence and no problems with muscle movements needed to produce language but are still slow to learn language and have difficulty understanding and producing many sentences
The processes of language learning
Language learning depends on a child’s picking up information from their environment
Children are sensitive to patterns and regularities in what they hear and derive broad principles
Overregularization errors: children often over rely on the new principles they learn
Semantic bootstrapping: children rely on their knowledge of semantic relationships as a basis for figuring out syntax
Animal language
FOXP2 gene in humans prepares us for language learning
Animal languages do not support the generativity of human language
Language and thought
Linguistic relativity: people who speak different language inevitably think differently because language shapes thought
How do languages differ?
Vocabulary for physical environment
Directional cues
Describing events
Under this view, learning a language permanently changes your cognition
More plausible: the language you hear guides what you pay attention to, and what you pay attention to shapes your thinking
Under this view, it’s your experience that shapes your thought
Bilingualism
Being raised bilingually may encourage better executive control

Chapter 12: Judgment and Reasoning

Judgment: the process through which people draw conclusions from the evidence they encounter
Why do people sometimes draw accurate conclusions from their experience and sometimes not?
Mistakes in judgment
Heuristic: an efficient strategy that usually leads to the right answer
Sacrifice accuracy for efficiency

Hyperthymesia: ability to recall the details of every day of life

Principles of memory in general

Not all principles of memory apply to all types of remembering

Chapter 10: Language

The organization of language

Translation from ideas → sounds → ideas

Languages can be broken down into phonemes (smallest unit of sound) → morphemes (smallest language units that carry meaning) → sentences (express intended meaning)

Phonology

Features of speech

Voicing: vibration produced by movement of the vocal folds

Manner of production: how airflow is restricted by the mouth and nose

Place of articulation: where airflow is restricted

Complexity of speech perception

Speech segmentation: dividing audible speech into its constituent phonemes

Coarticulation: phonemes overlap during speech

Aids to speech perception

Speech is quite limited in its range

Perception of speech relies on knowledge and expectations that supplement the input and guide interpretation, weaving together “bottom-up” and “top-down” processes

Phonemic restoration effect: people hear phonemes in the middle of complete words even when they’re removed

Context in which we hear a word

Categorical perception: people are better at hearing the differences between categories of sounds than they are at hearing the variations within a category of sounds

Perceptual apparatus is tuned to provide just the information we need

Combining phonemes

Combinations of phonemes rely on strict rules that differ from language to language

Morphemes and words

What we know about words

Sound: the sequence of phonemes that make up the word

Orthography: the sequence of letters that spell the word

Meaning: the semantic representation accompanying the phonological representation

Building new words

Generativity of language: language’s capacity to create an endless series of new combinations, all build from the same set of fundamental units

Knowing a language means knowing the rules governing how to combine phonemes and morphemes in that language

Syntax: rules that govern the structure of a phrase or sentence

Phrase structure

Phrase-structure rules: rules that specify which elements must appear in a phrase and that govern the sequence of those elements

Tree structure: depicts phrase structure

Prescriptive and descriptive rules

Prescriptive rules: rules describing how language is supposed to be

Yet, languages are subject to a pattern of change over time

Descriptive rules: rules characterizing the language as it’s ordinarily used by fluent speakers and listeners

The function of phrase structure

Helps you discern between language that “makes sense” and that which does not abide by syntactical rules

Helps you understand the sentences you hear or read because syntax specifies the relationships among the words in each sentence (who did what to whom?)

Sentence parsing

Parsing: figuring out each word’s syntactic role

People parse as they hear sentences, trying to understand each word as it arrives; this is efficient but prone to errors

Garden-path sentences: initially led to one interpretation, but that interpretation turns out to be wrong

Temporary ambiguity: the early part of a sentence is open to multiple interpretations but the later part of the sentence clears things up

Syntax as a guide to parsing

People seek the simplest phrase structure that will accommodate the words hear so far

People assume they’ll be hearing/reading active-voice sentences rather than passive-voice sentences

Parsing is informed by function words and the various morphemes that signal syntactic roles

Background knowledge as a guide to parsing

People parse sentences in a way that makes sense to them

Extralinguistic context: the physical and social setting in which we encounter sentences that informs our understanding

Prosody: pitch and rhythm cues

Reveals mood of a speaker

Directs a listener’s attention

Make seemingly ambiguous sentences make sense

Pragmatics: knowledge about how language is ordinarily used

To know a language…

Know a rich set of rules about how and whether elements can be combined

Know a set of principles whenever perceiving and understanding linguistic inputs

Gricean maxims: describe maxims speakers follow and listeners count on (eg. maxim of relation, maxim of quantity)

Biological roots of language

Aphasia: the loss of the ability to produce and understand ordinary language

Broca’s aphasia: damage to Broca’s area on the left frontal lobe produces nonfluent aphasia (patient can understand language they hear but cannot write or speak)

Wernicke’s aphasia: damage to Wernicke’s area produces fluent aphasia (patient can talk freely but say very little)

Biology of language learning

We have evolved highly sophisticated learning capacities that have evolved specifically for language learning

Specific-language impairment (SLI): children have normal intelligence and no problems with muscle movements needed to produce language but are still slow to learn language and have difficulty understanding and producing many sentences

The processes of language learning

Language learning depends on a child’s picking up information from their environment

Children are sensitive to patterns and regularities in what they hear and derive broad principles

Overregularization errors: children often over rely on the new principles they learn

Semantic bootstrapping: children rely on their knowledge of semantic relationships as a basis for figuring out syntax

Animal language

FOXP2 gene in humans prepares us for language learning

Animal languages do not support the generativity of human language

Language and thought

Linguistic relativity: people who speak different language inevitably think differently because language shapes thought

How do languages differ?

Vocabulary for physical environment

Directional cues

Describing events

Under this view, learning a language permanently changes your cognition

More plausible: the language you hear guides what you pay attention to, and what you pay attention to shapes your thinking

Under this view, it’s your experience that shapes your thought

Bilingualism

Being raised bilingually may encourage better executive control

Chapter 12: Judgment and Reasoning

Judgment: the process through which people draw conclusions from the evidence they encounter

Why do people sometimes draw accurate conclusions from their experience and sometimes not?

Mistakes in judgment

Heuristic: an efficient strategy that usually leads to the right answer

Sacrifice accuracy for efficiency