AP Psychology › Verbal & Nonverbal Communication
The term paralinguistics refers to which of the following?
Unspoken features of spoken communication
Languages other than a speaker's first language
Languages of Indonesian origin
Ancient methods of communication such as petroglyphs
It is always of great help to know a large range of prefixes and suffixes when heading into standardized exams. Note that “para” means besides or outside of, therefore, paralinguistics are those vocal (excluding actual words) and non-vocal elements of communication that carry meaning. Elements of paralinguistics include pitch, rate of speech, fluency of speech, volume, and a host of signs and sounds that work to color what we are saying.
The term aprosodia most nearly means which of the following?
An inability to understand or utilize emotion in spoken language (flat speech, randomly intoned speech, etc.)
An inability to understand the way in which morphemes modify a base word in speech (morphemic errors)
An inability to apply a consistent tempo to speech (inappropriate speed of speech)
An inability to interpret tone from written language
Prosody concerns itself with the elements of speech which are generated from interactions between units of language beyond phonemic elements (syllables, word play, etc.), and covers parts of language like tone, stress, and rhythm. Aprosodia, or the inability to recognize and generate these elements of speech, is often a classic sign of Asperger's Syndrome.
The study of kinesics is most closely associated with which of the following psychologists?
Ray Birdwhistell
Edward T. Hall
George L. Trager
Charles F. Hockett
Kinesics is the study of all forms of nonverbal communication given by bodily motions and facial expressions, and is generally considered to be founded by Ray Birdwhistell in the 1950's. The common term "body language" was actually never used by Birdwhistell, as linguists of the day would not consider bodily expressions to meet the technical definition of a language.
A patient presenting with a complete lack of reaction to violation of their "personal space" would most likely be suspected of damage to which area of the brain?
Amygdala
Hippocampus
Hypothalamus
Cingulate gyrus
Broadly defined as the space around a person which that person regards as psychologically theirs, personal space is a concept under the umbrella of "nonverbal communication" and is thought to be controlled or heavily influenced by the amygdala. Research has shown that individuals with bilateral lesion of the amygdala show little or no reaction when their personal space is violated.
Which of the following is an instrument used to assess the tendency of a culture to engage in communicative tasks one-at-a-time versus several-at-a-time?
Inventory of Polychronic Values (IPV)
Simultaneity Assessment Index (SAI)
Revised Time Usage Inventory (TUI-R)
Time Facilitation Approach (TFA)
Developed in 1999, the IPV is a 10-item scale designed to test the extent to which cultures prefer to be engaged in at least two simultaneous tasks. The broader study of the role of time in communication, particularly in nonverbal communication, is known as chronemics.
In terms of haptic (touch-based) communication, which of the following is nottrue?
High-context cultures, such as the U.S. and Germany, value communicating social rules through verbal exchanges.
Low-context cultures are atypical in South America and Asia, and are more often found in European cultures.
Ritualistic touches, such as greeting and departure gestures, serve primarily to signal the beginning or end of expected communications.
Haptic communication is generally the first type to be perceived by the human body.
In high-context cultures, most of the rules of social engagement are assumed to be known by members, and thus much more nonverbal communication is utilized. This type of communication is easier among nondiverse cohorts and in cultures which strongly value tradition and history, which may explain its relative prevalence in the Middle East, Africa, South America and Asia. The U.S. and Germany are examples of low-context cultures, where rules are spelled out more explicitly.
Which of the following is an example of an element of verbal communication which is processed non-verbally?
McGurk effect
Palilalia
Changes in pitch of speech
Atonality
The McGurk effect is a well-known illusion which takes place when a person hears a component of a word while watching (or reading) a visual component for a different word. The overall effect blends the two into a third sound interpreted by the brain. This effect seems to be extremely robust, as even those fully aware it is about to happen still experience the illusion. It is thought to originate from the early age at which we learn to blend visual and auditory stimulus when communicating verbally.
A person who hears the sentence "I enjoyed the beer I had with lunch" uttered in a high falsetto voice is more likely to report anxious feelings compared to when they hear the same sentence in a deep baritone voice. This is most closely an example of which of the following?
Semantic marking
Lexical ambiguity
Phonetic discrimination
Meta-communication
Semantic marking occurs when the clarity of a message and its reception is directly affected by one or more aspects of paralanguage within the message itself. In this case, hearing a reference to alcohol in a voice with childlike qualities is enough of an anomaly to register in the mind of the listener, and the message is "marked" as abnormal.
Which of the following is not an example of meta-communication?
A speaker delivers a speech both in Spanish and English in order to make it easier for nonnative speakers of either language to understand the message
A politician's stutter is interpreted by others as a sign of weak political conviction in the subject being discussed
A teacher elongates vowel sounds when reading aloud a passage to demonstrate irony or disbelief in a text
A police officer responds differently to the sound of loud laughter at a parade than to the same sound on a street patrol late at night
Meta-communication refers to any qualities of communication which are designed to impart information about how the message itself should be received, rather than the content of the message. Intonation, cadence, and even the context in which verbal communication occurs are all types of meta-communication, because each of these things can affect how a message is perceived. In contrast, repeating a message in another language does not (generally) change how a message is perceived, but simply expands whom can perceive it.
The idea that grammar is a system of rules explicitly designed to produce those sentences which contain words in grammatical order is most closely associated with which theory of grammar?
Generativists
Lexical functionalists
Relationalists
Stochastics
Generative grammar was first proposed by Noam Chomsky in the 1950s, and primarily focuses on the study of syntax as it relates to hierarchies of grammars.