Question 1

Your text describes a study in which data revealed that participants attended to a cake rather than at an inedible object immediately on hearing the word eat, and before the word cake was heard. In this experiment, the __________ variable consisted of __________ data.

Accepted Answer

A)  dependent; reaction time 
B)  dependent; eye movement 
C)  independent; reaction time 
D)  independent; eye movement

Question 2

In one study described in your text, participants were asked to judge the grammaticality of English sentences. Participants were native Chinese or Korean speakers who had come to the United States at varying ages. Which of the following probably best approximates the correlation coefficient researchers obtained between the age at which participants entered the United States and a measure of their performance on the grammaticality task?

Accepted Answer

A)  -.95 
B)  -.40 
C)  .00 
D)  .50

Question 3

Jacqueline is taking part in psychological research. Her eye movements are tracked as she reads sentences. The study is most likely examining __________.

Accepted Answer

A)  the interpretation of garden path sentences 
B)  the prototype theory of word meaning 
C)  the definitional theory of word meaning 
D)  the role of rhythm and stress in language comprehension

Question 4

Research has compared the spatial cognition of English and Dutch speakers to that of a Mayan people whose native tongue, Tszeltal, has no language labels for "left of" or "right of." Why might the researchers have included the Dutch speakers along with the English-speakers, considering that both languages have labels for "left of" and "right of?"

Accepted Answer

A)  to increase the study's internal reliability 
B)  to increase the study's internal validity 
C)  to increase the study's external reliability 
D)  to increase the study's external validity

Question 5

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

A)  parietal 
B)  temporal 
C)  occipital 
D)  frontal

Question 6

Which of the following statements is FALSE regarding the results of efforts to train a range of species, such as chimpanzees, to speak?

Accepted Answer

A)  Utterances are rarely more than two words long. 
B)  Utterances involve repetitions ("give orange me give eat orange"). 
C)  Utterances are typically imitations. 
D)  Utterances conform to language-like syntax.

Question 7

A man is using a snake (the plumbing tool) to clear out a clogged drain, and a 3-year-old English-speaking child is watching. The child is asked, "See what this man is doing? Can you show me sebbing?" How will the child most likely respond?

Accepted Answer

A)  by pointing to the snake 
B)  by pointing to the man 
C)  by making the same movements as the man feeding the snake down the drain 
D)  he will not have any idea how to respond since the word has no actual English meaning

Question 8

According to the __________ theory of word meaning, words are bundles of semantic features.

Accepted Answer

A)  folk 
B)  prototype 
C)  definitional 
D)  syntactic

Question 9

Your text describes a study in which two-day-old babies were exposed to recordings of normal or backward speech. Blood flow in the babies' brains was measured. Dr. Lalonde wishes to replicate the study. Rather than measuring blood flow, however, Dr. Lalonde wishes to examine the brain's metabolism of glucose. What might Dr. Lalonde predict?

Accepted Answer

A)  Glucose metabolism should increase in the left hemisphere when either the normal or backward speech is played. 
B)  Glucose metabolism should increase in the right hemisphere when either the normal or backward speech is played. 
C)  Glucose metabolism should increase in the left hemisphere when the normal speech is played, but not when the backward speech is played. 
D)  Glucose metabolism should increase in the left hemisphere when the normal speech is played and in the right hemisphere when the backward speech is played.

Question 10

In English the correlation between the forms of words and their meanings is __________.

Accepted Answer

A)  perfect 
B)  strong 
C)  weak 
D)  random

Question 11

In evaluating the idea that children learn language through imitation, which of the following statements is INCORRECT?

Accepted Answer

A)  Children are able to understand sentences they have never heard before. 
B)  The number of possible novel sentences is too large to ever learn by imitation and memorization alone. 
C)  Children are able to generate sentences they have never heard before. 
D)  Children rarely make overregularization errors.

Question 12

Seven-year-olds have a better chance of recovering from aphasia (a disorder that affects language skills) than do 50-year-olds with similar brain damage. What can be said of this data?

Accepted Answer

A)  It suggests that young brains are less developed than older brains. 
B)  It suggests that old brains take more time to recover from injuries than young brains. 
C)  It is consistent with the sensitive period hypothesis of language learning. 
D)  It refutes the sensitive period hypothesis of language learning.

Question 13

What can one conclude from initial research on the Mayans, whose native tongue, Tzeltal, has no language labels for "left of" or "right of"?

Accepted Answer

A)  There are no differences in spatial reasoning in countries that use the linguistic terms "left" and "right" and those that use the terms "East" and "West." 
B)  Spatial reasoning differs in countries that use the linguistic terms "left" and "right" and those that use the terms "East" and "West." 
C)  Mayans who speak Tzeltal have reasoning skills that are superior to those of North Americans. 
D)  The results from this study were inconclusive.

Question 14

What observation contradicts the idea that imitation is the method by which children acquire language?

Accepted Answer

A)  Children are not capable of imitation at the age they acquire language. 
B)  Reinforcement, not imitation, appears to be the mechanism by which children acquire language. 
C)  Children utter sentences that they have never heard spoken by the people in their environment. 
D)  Children who frequently imitate others tend to acquire language more quickly than children who do not imitate.

Question 15

Which of the following sentences is evidence against the idea that children learn language through imitation?

Accepted Answer

A)  "Bye-bye, Mommy." 
B)  "Grandma and Grandpa live in Iowa." 
C)  "I goed to the store today." 
D)  "We go to Aunt Betty's house for Thanksgiving."

Question 16

In one study, researchers asked participants to memorize strings of nonsense words. Some strings were short, such as rix and jag. The short strings were not made up of function morphemes. Other strings were longer, but were constructed in such a way so as to include function morphemes such as ing, ly, and est (e.g., rixing, jagly). What were the results of this study?

Accepted Answer

A)  The longer strings with the function morphemes were easier to memorize. 
B)  The shorter strings without the function morphemes were easier to memorize. 
C)  Both strings were equally difficult to memorize, but when asked, the participants said they drew meaning from the strings that included function morphemes. 
D)  Both strings were equally difficult to memorize, but when asked, the participants said they were confused by the addition of function morphemes to nonsensical words.

Question 17

Which of the following is TRUE regarding blind children's ability to apply color terms?

Accepted Answer

A)  Blind children are unable to apply color terms, either to concrete objects or metaphorically to abstract concepts. 
B)  Blind children are able to apply color terms to concrete objects based on what they have heard people say. They are unable to apply color terms metaphorically to abstract concepts. 
C)  Blind children are able to apply color terms to concrete objects with a sophistication that goes beyond merely repeating what they have heard people say. They are unable to apply color terms metaphorically to abstract concepts. 
D)  Blind children are able to apply color terms in a sophisticated fashion both to concrete objects and metaphorically to abstract concepts.

Question 18

In normal speech, words and phonemes tend to overlap one another so that the sentence we are trying to interpret is nothing more than a long string of syllables without any pauses. In cases such as these, how are we able to understand the content of the sentence?

Accepted Answer

A)  We hazard a guess as to where the breaks in the sentence should be. 
B)  We keep a mental record of which syllables occur right next to each other with unusual frequency. 
C)  We wait until the entire speech passage is finished and then try to decode the sentence. 
D)  We work through the speech passage on a trial-and-error basis as the passage occurs.

Question 19

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

A)  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. 
B)  Infants who heard the German tape of their mothers became confused, alternatively picking the toy up and putting it down randomly, thereby demonstrating the importance of language-specific phonemes. 
C)  Infants kept right on playing with the toy regardless of the tones of their mothers' voices. 
D)  Infants stopped playing with the toy regardless of the tones of their mothers' voices.

Question 20

Regarding the claim that Inuit/Aleut languages have more words for snow, which of the following statements is TRUE?

Accepted Answer

A)  Inuit/Aleut individuals may have to refer to snow more often than might English-speaking Americans. 
B)  English has fewer "snow words" than do Inuit/Aleut languages. 
C)  English-speaking Americans are more sensitive to differences in snow than are Inuit/Aleut individuals. 
D)  English-speaking Americans are less sensitive to differences in snow than are Inuit/Aleut individuals.

Exam 10: Language

Your text describes a study in which data revealed that participants attended to a cake rather than at an inedible object immediately on hearing the word eat, and before the word cake was heard. In this experiment, the variable consisted of data.