Words in the Mind PDF Download

Author: Jean Aitchison
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
ISBN: 9780631232445
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
Words in the Mind deals with words, and how humans learn them, remember them, understand them, and find the ones they want. It discusses the structure and content of the human word-store or ‘mental lexicon, with particular reference to the spoken language of native English speakers. Discusses the structure and content of the human word-store, or 'mental lexicon'. Features a highly informative and accessible account of a central area of research. Incorporates new research on the mental lexicon. Written by a prominent researcher of the mental lexicon, language change, and the language of the media.

Author: Gonia Jarema
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 0080548695
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 245

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Book Description
This volume reflects a consensus that the investigation of words in the mind offers a unique opportunity to understand both human language ability and general human cognition. It brings together key perspectives on the fundamental nature of the representation and processing of words in the mind. This thematic volume covers a wide range of views on the fundamental nature of representation and processing of words in the mind and a range of views on the investigative techniques that are most likely to reveal that nature. It provides an overview of issues and developments in the field. It uncovers the processes of word recognition. It develops new models of lexical processing.

Author: Max Louwerse
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1633886514
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 357

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Book Description
How can humans keep thousands of words in mind and have no difficulty understanding trillions of sentences? The answer to this question might lie in parents teaching their children language skills, or in in the human brain, which may be equipped with a language instinct or maybe in impressive memory skills that link words to their perceptual information. Undoubtedly, there is some truth to some of these explanations. But one answer – perhaps the most important answer – has been largely ignored. Keeping Those Words in Mind tries to remedy this oversight. Linguist and cognitive psychologist Max Louwerse, PhD. argues that understanding language is not just possible because of memory, brains, environment and computation, but because of the patterns in the sequence of sounds and words themselves.He demonstrates that what seems to be an arbitrary communication system, with arbitrary characters and sounds that become words, and arbitrary meanings for those words, actually is a well-organized system that has evolved over tens of thousands of years to make communication as efficient as it is. What is needed for humans to acquire language, is for humans to recognize and discover the patterns in our communication system. By examining how our brains process language and find patterns, the intricacies of the language system itself, and even scientific breakthroughs in computer science and artificial intelligence, Keeping Those Words in Mind brings a brand new and interdisciplinary explanation for our ability to extract meaning from language.

Author: Alina Leminen
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
ISBN: 2889198030
Category : Neurosciences. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
The question of how morphologically complex words (assign-ment, listen-ed) are represented and processed in the brain has been one of the most hotly debated topics in the cognitive neuroscience of language. Do complex words engage cortical representations and processes equivalent to single lexical objects or are they processed as sequences of separate morpheme-like units? Research on morphological processing has suggested that adults make efficient use of both lexical (i.e., whole word) storage and retrieval, as well as combinatorial computation in processing morphologically complex words. Psycholinguistic studies have demonstrated that processing of complex words can be affected both by properties of the morphemes and the whole words, such as their frequency, transparency, and regularity. Furthermore, this research has been informative about the time-course of complex word recognition and production, and the role of morphological structure in these processes. At the neural level, left-hemisphere inferior frontal and superior temporal areas, and negative-going event-related potentials, have been consistently associated with morphological processing. While most previous research has been done on the recognition of morphologically complex words in adult native speakers, much less is known about neurocognitive processes involved in the on-line production of morphologically complex words, and even less on morphological processing in children and non-native speakers. Moreover, we have limited understanding of how linguistically distinct morphological processes, e.g. inflectional (listen-ed) versus derivational (assign-ment), are handled by the cortical language networks. This e-book provides an up-to-date overview of the questions currently addressed in the field of morphological processing. It highlights the significance of morphological information in language processing, both written and spoken, as assessed by a variety of methods and approaches. It also provides a comprehensive range of research and development tools for the development of new technologies.

Author: Barbara Malt
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195311124
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 362

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Book Description
The study of word meanings promises important insights into the nature of the human mind by revealing what people find to be most cognitively significant in their experience. However, as we learn more about the semantics of various languages, we are faced with an interesting problem. Different languages seem to be telling us different stories about the mind. For example, important distinctions made in one language are not necessarily made in others. What are we to make of these cross-linguistic differences? How do they arise? Are they created by purely linguistic processes operating over the course of language evolution? Or do they reflect fundamental differences in thought? In this sea of differences, are there any semantic universals? Which categories might be given by the genes, which by culture, and which by language? And what might the cross-linguistic similarities and differences contribute to our understanding of conceptual and linguistic development? The kinds of mapping principles, structures, and processes that link language and non-linguistic knowledge must accommodate not just one language but the rich diversity that has been uncovered.The integration of knowledge and methodologies necessary for real progress in answering these questions has happened only recently, as experimental approaches have been applied to the cross-linguistic study of word meaning. In Words and the Mind, Barbara Malt and Phillip Wolff present evidence from the leading researchers who are carrying out this empirical work on topics as diverse as spatial relations, events, emotion terms, motion events, objects, body-part terms, causation, color categories, and relational categories. By bringing them together, Malt and Wolff highlight some of the most exciting cross-linguistic and cross-cultural work on the language-thought interface, from a broad array of fields including linguistics, anthropology, cognitive and developmental psychology, and cognitive neuropsychology. Their results provide some answers to these questions and new perspectives on the issues surrounding them.

Author: Shane Parrish
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0593719972
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
Discover the essential thinking tools you’ve been missing with The Great Mental Models series by Shane Parrish, New York Times bestselling author and the mind behind the acclaimed Farnam Street blog and “The Knowledge Project” podcast. This first book in the series is your guide to learning the crucial thinking tools nobody ever taught you. Time and time again, great thinkers such as Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett have credited their success to mental models–representations of how something works that can scale onto other fields. Mastering a small number of mental models enables you to rapidly grasp new information, identify patterns others miss, and avoid the common mistakes that hold people back. The Great Mental Models: Volume 1, General Thinking Concepts shows you how making a few tiny changes in the way you think can deliver big results. Drawing on examples from history, business, art, and science, this book details nine of the most versatile, all-purpose mental models you can use right away to improve your decision making and productivity. This book will teach you how to: Avoid blind spots when looking at problems. Find non-obvious solutions. Anticipate and achieve desired outcomes. Play to your strengths, avoid your weaknesses, … and more. The Great Mental Models series demystifies once elusive concepts and illuminates rich knowledge that traditional education overlooks. This series is the most comprehensive and accessible guide on using mental models to better understand our world, solve problems, and gain an advantage.

Author: Grace Lindsay
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472966457
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 401

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Book Description
The human brain is made up of 85 billion neurons, which are connected by over 100 trillion synapses. For more than a century, a diverse array of researchers searched for a language that could be used to capture the essence of what these neurons do and how they communicate – and how those communications create thoughts, perceptions and actions. The language they were looking for was mathematics, and we would not be able to understand the brain as we do today without it. In Models of the Mind, author and computational neuroscientist Grace Lindsay explains how mathematical models have allowed scientists to understand and describe many of the brain's processes, including decision-making, sensory processing, quantifying memory, and more. She introduces readers to the most important concepts in modern neuroscience, and highlights the tensions that arise when the abstract world of mathematical modelling collides with the messy details of biology. Each chapter of Models of the Mind focuses on mathematical tools that have been applied in a particular area of neuroscience, progressing from the simplest building block of the brain – the individual neuron – through to circuits of interacting neurons, whole brain areas and even the behaviours that brains command. In addition, Grace examines the history of the field, starting with experiments done on frog legs in the late eighteenth century and building to the large models of artificial neural networks that form the basis of modern artificial intelligence. Throughout, she reveals the value of using the elegant language of mathematics to describe the machinery of neuroscience.

Author: Richard P. Feynman
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393355683
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 429

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Book Description
One of the most famous science books of our time, the phenomenal national bestseller that "buzzes with energy, anecdote and life. It almost makes you want to become a physicist" (Science Digest). Richard P. Feynman, winner of the Nobel Prize in physics, thrived on outrageous adventures. In this lively work that “can shatter the stereotype of the stuffy scientist” (Detroit Free Press), Feynman recounts his experiences trading ideas on atomic physics with Einstein and cracking the uncrackable safes guarding the most deeply held nuclear secrets—and much more of an eyebrow-raising nature. In his stories, Feynman’s life shines through in all its eccentric glory—a combustible mixture of high intelligence, unlimited curiosity, and raging chutzpah. Included for this edition is a new introduction by Bill Gates.

Author: Ulrike Miske
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3640522664
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 37

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Book Description
Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,3, University of Paderborn, course: Vocabulary Teaching, 13 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: Words are considered the basis - possibly the most important factor - when learning a new language. In order to make yourself understood, it is essential to know a wide range of words. Every learner of a foreign language knows the challenge of learning vocabulary items by heart. At times, coping with a certain amount of words can be a rather difficult or even frustrating task for the individual learner. This is where the foreign language teacher is supposed to step in and assist the students in their learning process by providing relevant learning material. First of all, however, the language teacher needs to be aware of the different physical and psychological prerequisites of the students. One very important question to ask is: where in the brain are vocabulary items stored? A good knowledge about the procession of new incoming data can help the language teacher to draw helpful conclusions to facilitate language learning. In fact, students will find it easier to learn new items if the teacher takes into consideration how the mind functions. Although, of course, not all students have the same approach to learning and might have different learning styles. Still, if there is a universal principle for processing concepts, this should not be neglected. Linguists have started to use a variety of other terms such as "concept" or "vocabulary item" to avoid the use of "word". It is necessary to know that "words" in the mind always include a certain view of the world, which is better rendered by the term "concept" or "(vocabulary) item". In the this paper, I will discuss the processing of words in the Mental Lexicon and show how it can help to teach vocabulary items to students. First of all, I will give a definition of the term Mental Lexicon a

Author: Steven Pinker
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393334775
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 673

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Book Description
Explains what the mind is, how it evolved, and how it allows us to see, think, feel, laugh, interact, enjoy the arts, and ponder the mysteries of life.