Exam questions per Lecture
Lecture 1
Question 1
A study found that in the Ethiopian Language, there are male and female things. Male things refer to
small things, female thing refer to big things.
The consequences of these associations with the grammatical gender of a word are of particular
interest for a hypothesis that describes the relation between language and thought. What is this
hypothesis called and what are the two defining elements?
Answer Lecture 1 Slide 22: The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. It’s two defining elements are Linguistic
determinism (language determines thought) and Linguistic relativity (speakers of different languages
think differently).
“Are our own concepts of ‘time,’ ‘space,’ and ‘matter’ given in substantially the same form by
experience to all men, or are they in part conditioned by the structure of particular languages?”
(Whorf, 1939)
Lecture 2
Question 1
Provide an argument based on an experimental result to argue in favor of the bottom up priority that
was present in the original COHORT model of lexical access.
Answer: The experiment by Zwitserlood shows that when the context clearly points in the direction
of a certain interpretation (as with a sentence about a mourning crew with sad faces), listeners are
still primed with words that do not necessarily fit the context. Thus, when hearing ““With dampened
spirits, the crew watched the body of their cap…” listeners still respond quickly to the word “money”
(because of capital still in the cohort), even though that does not fit the context. Only when they
have heard “With dampened spirits, the crew watched the body of their capt….” are they no longer
primed by capital, but only by captain. In terms of the Cohort model, capital is removed from the
cohort, while captain is still in it.
Question 2
Hearing the word ‘dog’ speeds up recognition of the word ‘tail’, but also of the word ‘cat’. What is
this phenomenon called? What is the most likely explanation for this phenomenon? Discuss in your
answer the process involved in this phenomenon as well as the supposed structure of the mental
lexicon.
Answer Lecture 2 Slide 17 (20-26): This phenomenon is called priming. The most likely explanation
for this phenomenon is so called “spreading activation”. The process involved is based on the sematic
network theory; First dog activates tail, than tail activates cat.
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Lecture 1
Question 1
A study found that in the Ethiopian Language, there are male and female things. Male things refer to
small things, female thing refer to big things.
The consequences of these associations with the grammatical gender of a word are of particular
interest for a hypothesis that describes the relation between language and thought. What is this
hypothesis called and what are the two defining elements?
Answer Lecture 1 Slide 22: The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. It’s two defining elements are Linguistic
determinism (language determines thought) and Linguistic relativity (speakers of different languages
think differently).
“Are our own concepts of ‘time,’ ‘space,’ and ‘matter’ given in substantially the same form by
experience to all men, or are they in part conditioned by the structure of particular languages?”
(Whorf, 1939)
Lecture 2
Question 1
Provide an argument based on an experimental result to argue in favor of the bottom up priority that
was present in the original COHORT model of lexical access.
Answer: The experiment by Zwitserlood shows that when the context clearly points in the direction
of a certain interpretation (as with a sentence about a mourning crew with sad faces), listeners are
still primed with words that do not necessarily fit the context. Thus, when hearing ““With dampened
spirits, the crew watched the body of their cap…” listeners still respond quickly to the word “money”
(because of capital still in the cohort), even though that does not fit the context. Only when they
have heard “With dampened spirits, the crew watched the body of their capt….” are they no longer
primed by capital, but only by captain. In terms of the Cohort model, capital is removed from the
cohort, while captain is still in it.
Question 2
Hearing the word ‘dog’ speeds up recognition of the word ‘tail’, but also of the word ‘cat’. What is
this phenomenon called? What is the most likely explanation for this phenomenon? Discuss in your
answer the process involved in this phenomenon as well as the supposed structure of the mental
lexicon.
Answer Lecture 2 Slide 17 (20-26): This phenomenon is called priming. The most likely explanation
for this phenomenon is so called “spreading activation”. The process involved is based on the sematic
network theory; First dog activates tail, than tail activates cat.
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