Lesson 3.2.2.3.3

3.2.2.3.3 Properties of human communication absent in animals Quiz: AQA Psychology, Unit 6

20 questions

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Lesson 3.2.2.3.3, Properties of human communication absent in animals: 20 multiple choice questions for the AQA GCSE Psychology (8182), Unit 6: Language, thought and communication, written with Revision Ninja.

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The 20 questions

  1. Which property of human language allows speakers to talk about events that will happen in the future?

    • Displacement, referring to things that are not present or are distant in time or place
    • Productivity, putting together a wide range of sounds into words in new ways
    • Cultural transmission, learning language from older speakers in the community in daily life
    • Reciprocity, taking turns in a conversation and responding to each other's messages

  2. Which property refers to creating an open-ended number of new messages from a limited set of words?

    • Productivity, combining a fixed set of words in new ways to express new ideas
    • Interchangeability, sending and receiving the same messages using the same language
    • Displacement, referring to objects and events that are not present at the time of speaking
    • Specialisation, a message serving only a single biological function such as warning

  3. Which property allows a human to say something and also hear it themselves?

    • Cultural transmission, passing language from one generation to the next through teaching
    • Arbitrariness, the sound of a word having no natural link to what it refers to
    • Displacement, talking about things that are not present in the place of speaking
    • Feedback, hearing and monitoring one's own messages as they are spoken

  4. Which feature describes the fact that any member of a community can both produce and understand the same signals?

    • Broadcast transmission, where a message spreads in all directions to every listener nearby
    • Interchangeability, where any member can both send and receive the same messages
    • Reflexivity, where speakers use language to talk about language and its grammar
    • Specialisation, where a signal is used for one purpose only and cannot be applied elsewhere

  5. A speaker says 'Tomorrow we will plant the apple trees'. Which property is most clearly shown?

    • Displacement, since the speaker refers to a future event not happening at the time of speaking
    • Interchangeability, since the speaker both gives and receives the sentence in one conversation
    • Feedback, since the speaker hears the sentence while saying it to friends in the garden
    • Specialisation, since the sentence can only be used to warn of a predator

  6. A monkey's alarm call has one meaning and cannot be combined with other calls to make new messages. Which property is missing?

    • Interchangeability, since monkeys cannot receive the alarm call from other monkeys in the group
    • Cultural transmission, since the alarm call can only be learned through genes at birth
    • Feedback, since the monkey cannot hear its own alarm call while making it
    • Productivity, since the calls cannot be recombined into an open-ended number of new messages

  7. Which property refers to language being passed on through teaching rather than through genes?

    • Productivity, combining words to produce an unlimited range of new messages
    • Arbitrariness, the sounds of words having no inherent link to the things they name
    • Displacement, referring to objects and events not present at the time of speaking
    • Cultural transmission, learning language from others in the community through teaching and imitation

  8. Which pair best illustrates a property absent from animal communication?

    • Human speakers discuss a plan for next year, while animal signals refer only to the immediate situation
    • Human speakers use words for food, while animal signals are never used to talk about food
    • Human speakers shout to warn of danger, while animal signals are always whispered quietly
    • Human speakers sing to attract partners, while animals never use signals in breeding seasons

  9. Why does the ability to talk about the past and future make human communication different in function from animal communication?

    • It lets humans make louder sounds, so messages can be heard over longer distances
    • It lets humans share plans and histories that are not tied to the immediate environment or needs
    • It lets humans ignore biological needs, so communication serves no survival purpose
    • It lets humans change their species' genes through speech, so each generation differs

  10. Which property means the form of a word has no natural link to its meaning?

    • Productivity, since words combine into sentences with endless possible meanings
    • Arbitrariness, since the same object has different names in different languages
    • Displacement, since words can refer to things that are not present in the room
    • Feedback, since speakers hear the words they produce and can correct them

  11. Which example best shows displacement in an everyday conversation?

    • Two friends discussing a holiday they took last summer while sitting in a winter classroom
    • Two friends shouting a warning as a car approaches them on a busy city street
    • Two friends calling across a field to signal they have found a patch of berries
    • Two friends touching shoulders to show they are happy during a loud game

  12. Which property describes speakers' ability to talk about language itself?

    • Broadcast transmission, sound spreading in every direction so anyone nearby hears it
    • Specialisation, each signal serving one purpose and no other function
    • Interchangeability, sending and receiving the same messages in a shared language
    • Reflexivity, using language to describe and discuss language and its rules

  13. Which of these is a property of animal signals rather than of human language?

    • Speakers can refer to past, present and future events using tense markers in grammar
    • Speakers can switch between speaker and listener roles during a conversation with ease
    • Words can be arranged into sentences with clear rules about word order and meaning in daily life
    • Signals are tied to a small range of immediate needs, such as food, territory or mating

  14. A child learns to say 'yesterday' and uses it correctly to describe what they did at school. Which property is shown?

    • Broadcast transmission, since the child's voice carries in all directions so everyone hears it
    • Displacement, since the child refers to an event absent in time from the moment of speaking
    • Interchangeability, since the child can only say the word and cannot receive it from others
    • Specialisation, since the child can only use the word to warn of a single danger at home

  15. Which description of productivity as a human communication property is best?

    • Language users can generate new sentences never heard before by combining known words by rule
    • Language users can only repeat sentences heard many times before in their own community in daily life
    • Language users produce sounds fixed by genes, so no new sentences can ever be created
    • Language users are limited to a fixed list of ten or fewer signals that cannot be recombined

  16. Which human property describes how meaningless sounds combine into a large number of meaningful units such as words?

    • Feedback, where a speaker hears their own message and adjusts it as they speak in daily life
    • Duality of patterning, where a small set of sounds is combined into many meaningful units
    • Displacement, where a message refers to something not present at the time of speaking
    • Arbitrariness, where a word's form has no natural link to its meaning in the world

  17. Which claim about human language is most accurate?

    • Human language shares no properties with animal communication, so the two are unrelated
    • Human language has only one property, which is that it can be heard by nearby humans in daily life
    • Human language has a fixed vocabulary that cannot be extended to describe new ideas
    • Human language combines displacement and productivity, so it can talk about almost any topic

  18. Why would a psychologist say that 'productivity' distinguishes human language from most animal signals?

    • Human speakers never repeat a message, so each sentence is unique in the history of a language
    • Human speakers can communicate only with other humans, so animals cannot understand them
    • Human speakers build an open-ended set of new messages from a limited vocabulary, while most animal signals are fixed
    • Human speakers always speak louder than animals, so their messages carry further

  19. Which statement about the 'plan ahead' point in the specification is most accurate?

    • Human language lets people predict the weather perfectly, which animals cannot do without instruments
    • Human language lets people discuss and coordinate future actions, which animal signals rarely do
    • Human language lets people stop time so events can be replayed for any listener in the room
    • Human language lets people avoid making any plans, so events happen with no coordination at all

  20. Which example uses the human property of talking about things that do not exist in the present?

    • A child describing a dragon from a storybook that is not real and not in the room
    • A cat hissing at a dog that is sitting in front of it on the mat
    • A dog barking at a visitor who has just arrived at the front door of the house
    • A bird singing to mark its territory in the tree near its nest in spring in daily life

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