WC 1. Languages differ in how they describe spatial relations. For example, _.
a. There is a distinction between Japanese sword movements and Chinese chopstick
characters depicting holding techniques.
b. Koreans distinguish between tight and loose fitting “in” whereas English speakers
distinguish between “in” and “on”.”
c. The difference between Mayan mountain paths with Dutch river directions is reflected in
one’s concept of relative space.
d. French hand gestures reflect their concept of space while German gestures reflect their
concept of emotion.
e. All of the above.
WC 2. The language you speak ___ .
a. affects the way you recall spatial relations.
b. affects the way you recall paths of motion.
c. affects the probability of having perfect pitch.
d. affects abstract concepts like time.
e. All of the above.
WC 3. Linguistic relativism refers to:
a. The innateness of language acquisition abilities
b. The cost of computation involved in relating one language to another
c. The influence of linguistic categories and usage on non-linguistic aspects of cognition
d. The universality of grammatical structures
e. The difference between connectionist and hierarchical models of language production
WC 4. Mandarin speakers use vertical metaphors to talk about time; that is, earlier events are
said to be "up" and later events are said to be "down". Given this, which of the following results
demonstrates an effect of linguistic relativity?
a. After seeing a vertical array of objects, Mandarin speakers are FASTER to confirm that
March comes earlier than April than after seeing a horizontal array of objects.
b. After seeing a circular array of objects, English speakers are FASTER to confirm that
March comes earlier than April than after seeing a horizontal array of objects.
c. After seeing a horizontal array of objects, Mandarin speakers are JUST AS FAST to confirm
that March comes earlier than April than after seeing a vertical array of objects.
d. After seeing a vertical array of objects, ENGLISH speakers are FASTER to confirm that
March comes earlier than April than after seeing a horizontal array of objects.
e. None of the above
WC 5. Which statement below is accurate?
a. There are no speakers of absolute frame of reference languages.
b. Absolute frame of reference is only used for GPS systems not used for linguistic systems.
c. Speakers of absolute frame of reference languages think about space in intrinsic terms.
d. Speakers of absolute frame of reference languages think about space in absolute terms.
e. None of the above is correct.
LS 1. Which of the following is an example of absolute frame of reference:
a. east
b. to his left
c. behind him
d. in front of her
e. to the left
LS 2. Which of the following is true regarding relative frame of reference:
a. It changes as features in the scene move relative to each other
b. It does not vary as the observer moves
c. It does not vary as the objects move
d. It is talked about in terms that reference world directions (North, South, East, West)
e. It changes as the observer moves
LS 3. True or false: The language you speak appears to affect the way you recall spatial
relations?
a. True
b. False
LS5. In the study presented by Dr. Bergen where a bunch of pictures were displayed on a screen
in different spatial locations, which of the following was true for the different language
speakers?
a. English speakers remembered more pictures from the top right, while Chinese speakers
remembered more pictures from the bottom right.
b. English speakers remembered more pictures from the top left, while Taiwanese
speakers remembered more pictures from the top right.
c. English speakers remembered more pictures from the bottom left, while Taiwanese
speakers remembered more pictures from the top left.
d. English speakers and Taiwanese speakers had no spatial bias in remembering pictures,
but Chinese speakers remembered more pictures from the top left.
e. English, Chinese, and Taiwanese speakers had no spatial bias.
JS 2. The decline in infants’ attentiveness to perceptual differences about the relations of
objects to one another in space that are not emphasized in their native language, as they age, is
a pattern most similar to which of the following previous topics?
a. VOT and phoneme differentiation
b. Embodied cognitive abilities
c. Statistical language analysis
d. Language lateralization
e. Conduction aphasia
JS 3. A task is presented, in which the subject is first shown a card with a black dot nearest the
subject, and a white dot just beyond it; the subject faces East. The subject is then rotated 180 ◦
to view another set of four cards, each with the black dot closest to the edge of the table and
the white dot closest to its center. Each card faces a cardinal direction (North, East, South,
West) and the subject is on the West side of the table. If a native speaker of Dutch is asked to
pick a card identical to the one just previously viewed, they will most likely choose:
a. The western card.
b. The eastern card.
c. The northern card.
d. The southern card.
e. Two of the above are correct.
JS 4. True or False: Our native language has effects on our non-linguistic cognitive functions.
a. True
b. False
JS 5. Native speakers of Spanish and German, languages with a grammatical gender, are asked
to describe a bridge. Bridges are grammatically “male” in Spanish and grammatically “female”
in German. Which of the following set of results is the most likely?
a. The Spanish speaker will use mostly “male” adjectives, while the German speaker will
use mostly “female” adjectives.
b. The Spanish speaker will use mostly “female” adjectives, while the German speaker will
use mostly “male” adjectives.
c. Both speakers will use mostly “male” adjectives.
d. Both speakers will use mostly “female” adjectives.
e. None of the above.
KC1. Linguistic relativity refers to
a. How related our language is to our heritage and how it is demonstrated in our native
cultures.
b. The way in which our native languages shape the way we think.
c. The way in which our language influences how we conceptualize our world.
d. b and c
e. None of the above
KC2. If your native culture was Tzeltal Mayan and you were asked to say where a cup was
relative to a plate, how might you respond?
a. The cup is west of the plate.
b. The cup is next to the plate.
c. The cup is behind the plate.
d. The cup is to the right of the plate.
e. None of the above
KC4. You are a native English speaker and you are given a quadrant of images that show many
pictures in each quadrant. You are asked to scan the image and memorize as many pictures
within this grid as you can. You are most likely to remember images that are
a. Vibrant and colorful
b. In the upper left hand quadrant
c. In the lower left hand quadrant
d. At the bottom of the page
e. None of the above
KC5. The earlier that a native Mandarin speaking child learns English, the less likely they are to
pick up on English relativity ways of thinking.
a. True
b. False
SD1: What is the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis?
a. Language shapes the mind.
b. All language is innate.
c. The different systems of the mind are modular.
d. Language does affect the way people think.
SD2: If I describe the man from Prof. Bergen’s lecture as to the right of the woman I am using
which frame of reference?
a. Absolute
b. Relative
c. Intrinsic
d. Navigational
SD3: Tzetal Mayan speakers use which frame of reference?
a. Absolute
b. Relative
c. Intrinsic
d. Navigational
SD5: T / F: When shown a picture of a key (la clave, feminine in Spanish), Spanish speakers are
more likely to use words English speakers characterize as feminine.
a. True
b. False
BT1. The Sapir-Whorf Hypthesis claims:
a. The language you emerge yourself in helps cut up and shape your world.
b. The brain works in a domain-specific manner, with languages working in an isolated
manner.
c. Language can affect how we perceive and interact with the world.
d. Our cognition is not affected by language per se, but by the environment we grow up in
e. a and c
BT2.
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
Which of the following is an example of an intrinsic frame of reference?
The cat is to the downhill of the dog.
The red car is to the east of the building.
The cow is right next to the barn.
The rat is on the lion’s left.
The dragon is to the right of the knight.
BT3. True or False: Tzetal Mayans prefer to use absolute frame of references to describe
spatial locations; on the other hand, Dutch speakers like to use absolute frame of references
only for long distances while using an intrinsic frame of reference for everything else.
a. True
b. False
BT4. True or False: As a foreign-language speaker, the earlier you learn English as a second
language, the more you will behave like an English speaker in spatial and temporal cognition
tasks.
a. True
b. False
BT5. In the “Kkita” experiment with Korean/English speaking children and adults, it was
shown:
a. Korean infants and Korean adults would discern between tight and loose fitting pictures,
while English speakers would not.
b. English infants and adults wouldn’t discern between tight and loose fitting pictures.
c. English and Korean infants could discern between tight and loose, but would end up
loosing the discernment in adulthood.
d. English and Korean infants could discern between tight and loose; however, English
adults would lose the discernment while Korean adults would still be able to discern.
e. English and Korean infants could discern between tight and loose; however, Korean
adults would lose the discernment while English adults would still be able to discern.
DO NOT USE
(not quite right: the primes are just for priming, the subjects actually have to discriminate __?)
LS 4. In the study of space/time words in English and Chinese speakers, which of the following
was reported?
a. English speakers were faster responding to horizontal primes, and Chinese speakers
were faster responding to vertical primes.
b. English speakers were faster responding to vertical primes, while Chinese speakers were
faster at horizontal primes.
c. There was no significant difference between Chinese and English speakers on horizontal
primes.
d. There was no significant difference between Chinese and English speakers on vertical
primes.
e. The later you started learning English, the more you behave like an English speaker.
(why is the answer not supportive for the Sapir-Whoarf hypothesis?)
JS 1. Which of the following examples would not support the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis?
a. Adult native speakers of Korean discern more between tightly interlocking objects and
loosely interlocking objects than adult native speakers of English.
b. Adult native speakers of English have more difficulty employing an absolute frame of
reference than adult native speakers of Tzeltal Mayan.
c. Adult Taiwanese native speakers of Mandarin remember more objects from the upper
right area of a field of objects than adult native speakers of English.
d. Adult native speakers of English, when asked to place pictures of an egg, a chick, and a
hen in order, will almost invariably order them from left to right (egg --> chick -->hen).
e. Adult native speakers of English tend to answer more quickly when asked about
sequential order of months in time after being primed with vertical relationships between
objects in space.
(typo?)
SD4: What did the tightly fitting spatial relation task explained by Prof. Bergan show about
future English speaking infants?
a. Similarly to English speaking adults they did not perceive a difference in the stimuli.
b. Similarly to Korean speaking adults they did not perceive a difference in the stimuli.
c. In contrast to English speaking adults they did perceive a difference in the stimuli.
d. The results of the study did not have significant results.
(the point is not about familiarity)
KC3. In terms of the study done with the Korean word “kkita” (meaning interlock, fit tightly),
what were the results of the study after using a preferential looking paradigm?
a. The 9 month old Koreans looked twice as much at the familiar stimulus rather than the
new stimulus.
b. The 9 month of English looked significantly more at the familiar stimulus rather than the
new stimulus.
c. The Korean adults looked longer (about the same amounts at the 9 month old Koreans)
at the familiar stimulus.
d. The English adults had no looking preference between either stimuli.
e. All of the above.