CHP 9 - LANGUAGE AND THOUGHT

What’s Language?

• the grouping of spoken, written, or gestured symbols used to convey information

• experience, persuade, etc

Properties of Language - Symbolic

• sounds and written symbols represent objects, action, and ideas

Properties of Language - Semantic

• meaning behind words and combinations

Properties of Language - Generative

• limited number of symbols that can be combined in an infinite number of ways to generate messages

Properties of Language - Structured

• rules that govern how components are put together in a meaningful way

Structure of Language - Phonemes

• smallest speech unites

• ex. cat vs. bat are separated by the c and b

What are Morphemes?

• smallest unit of meanings

• prefixes, suffixes

• ex. s is not js a letter but it makes words plural

What are Words?

• combination of morphemes

What are Phrases?

• combination of words

What are Sentences?

• combination of phrases

What’s the Phonological Rule?

• indicates how phonemes are combined to form words

What are Morphological Rules?

• how morphemes are combined to form words

What’s Syntax?

• system of rules for arranging words into phrases and sentences

Why do children make few errors when learning to speak?

• their comprehension of language develops faster than production

• faster to understand than actually saying words

Elaborate on Distinguishing Speech Sounds for children

• distinguish phonemes that are specific to languages they’re surrounded by

• infants go through similar babbling sequences

• observation before production

Elaborate on Language Milestones for children

• they overgeneralize rules

• learn certain rules thinking every sentence has to be built the same way

• ex. overgeneralizing Tagalog rules into English language because of grammar

What’s Fast Mapping?

• associate a word with a concept already understood

What are Behaviorist Explanations on Language Acquisition?

• Skinner

• through conditioning and invitation

• saying words and reinforcing kids to say the words helps them learn

• kids learn languages because of their environment

What are Nativist Explanations of Language Acquisition?

• Chomsky

• that humans have an innate capacity to learn a language

• humans have a Language Acquisition Device (LAD) allowing the brain to facilitate language develop.

What are Interactionist Explanations for Language Acquisition?

• social interactions and experience are contributions

• both nativist and behaviorist explanations are just as important

What’s Skinner’s Behaviourist/Environment Theory of language?

• language can be modified through conditioning

• focused on operant conditioning and imitation

What’s Operant Conditioning?

• reinforcement by another person

• consequences that increase the action be performed again

What was the evidence with Skinner’s Behaviour Theory?

• specific caretaker speech patterns associated with improved word recognition → influences kid’s speech

• reduced speech rate in mothers = decrease in children’s stuttering

• language milestones reached when reinforcing

What’s the evidence against Skinner’s Theory?

• caretakers/parents don’t actually teach, they just speak

• children generate more than what they hear → may make noises but doesn’t mean they’re listening and understanding

• errors can’t be explained through conditioning or imitation

What was Chomsky’s Nativist Theory of Language?

• that language is innate and brains are evolved to produce language

• universal grammar → collection of processes that facilitate language learning

  • ex. learning nouns before verbs

Elaborate on Chomsky’s theory on how “language acq. is possible during a restricted period of development”

• language acq. more difficult after puberty

• MRI evidence; acq. a second language in early childhood = diff. representations in brain than when learned later

What’s a Language Acquisition Device? (LAD)

• innate internal framework that facilitates rapid language learning in kids

• series of switches to activate certain rules (natural)

  • ex. noun before or after verb

What’s the Language Acquisition Support System? (LASS)

• Bruner

• about social support than biological frames

• framework in brain that facilitates learning via social support

• social experience interacts with natural biological language abilities

Elaborate more on the LASS

• parents tailor verbal interactions w kids to simplify words

  • speaking slower, clearly, simpler

• evidence that no exposure to language = no language

What’s the Broca’s Area?

• lower left frontal lobe

• related to language production

• injuries induce aphasia

What’s Aphasia?

• damage to lower left frontal lobe

• the inability or difficulty in producing or comprehending language

What’s the Wernicke’s Area?

• left temporal lobe

• related with language comprehension/speech comprehension

What’s Wernicke’s Disease or Fluent Aphasia?

• left temporal lobe damaged

• can produce words but sentences don’t make sense

What does the Left Hemisphere of the brain control?

• speech and language production

What does the Right Hemisphere of the brain control?

• language processing and speech comprehension

• verbal meanings → activates during language tasks

What happens to the Right Hemisphere of the brain when damaged?

• language comprehension problems

Elaborate on Bilingualism with children

• no difference in language development

• cons: the kids take longer to speak for themselves

• increases ability of left parietal lobe to handle linguistic demands

Define the Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis

• theory by Whorf

• states that language shapes the nature of thought

Elaborate on the Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis

• language alters one’s perception or understanding of reality and the world

• concepts perceived because of language

Example from class that was supporting evidence for the Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis?

• experiment comparing color perception in Namibia and English kids/adults

• Namibia has many words for colour but in English there’s very few

What was the Russian Colour Experiment example from class?

• some participants were presented colours and asked to name them

• some had the names beforehand, some didn’t

• Russian participants matched the shades more quickly when told the words

• English participants took a while when they weren’t given the word associated

Why was Whorf only half right with his theory?

• too general to say that language affects thought

• language influences thought

  • highlights specific properties of concepts

  • verbal rules to help solve the problem

What’s a Concept?

• mental representation that categorizes shared features of related objects or events

• rules that specify conditions for being in a category

What’s a Necessary Condition?

• something that must be true for the statement to be true

• must haves to belong in a category

What’s a Sufficient Condition?

• something, if true, guarantees the statement to be true

• a guarantee that if something meets the condition, it belongs to the category

• ex. a fly is an insect, but not all insects are flies

Example of Necessary Condition

• having feathers to be a bird

• if it’s a bird, it must have feathers

• having feathers guarantees an animal is a bird

Example of Sufficient Condition

• a blue jay is a bird

• if it’s a blue jay, it must be a bird

• but there are other birds that aren’t blue jays so being a blue jay isn’t necessary for being a bird

What’s the Prototype Theory?

• categorizing based on typical or “best example” of a category

• categorizing based on similarity to prototype

• ex. when you think of a bird you think of a robin, rather than less typical birds like a penguin

What’s the Exemplar Theory?

• judgements made by comparing something new with memories/info we already know

• ex. asked to check if a picture is a bird or not and so we think of all examples we know/birds we know to see if it fits the category

What are Neuroimaging Techniques

• techniques that allow us to visualize activity in the brain

• we use it when forming concepts and categories

What side of the brain in neuroimaging shows involvement in forming prototypes

• left hemisphere

• visual cortext

What side of the brain in neuroimaging shows that it’s acting in recognizing exemplars

• right hemisphere

• prefrontal cortex

• basal ganglia

What’s the Rational Choice Theory?

• decisions made by

  • determining how likely something is to happen

  • judging the value of the outcome

What’s the issue with the Rational Choice Theory?

• people are good at estimating frequency of an event, but not probabilities

• to make better decisions, you should describe the problem w/ frequencies than probabilities

What are Framing Effects in Irrational Decisions?

• when people give different answers to the same problem

• depends on how the problem is phrased

• how the problem is presented will influence the decisions made

What’s the Prospect Theory?

• that people are more sensitive to potential losses than potential gain

• take on risks when evaluating potential losses

What are Heuristics

• short cut rules that are applied to solve problems quickly

• making decisions without having to think too much about it

• may not lead to accurate solutions

What’s an Algorithm?

• well defined sequences of rules that guarantees a solution to a problem

• ex. following a recipe

• useful because you’ll know the outcome

What’s an Availability Heuristic?

• items more readily available in memory

• judge them as having occurred more frequently

• the harder is it to think of them, we think the less frequent they happen

What’s a Representative Heuristic?

• mentally comparing something something to our stored prototype of an event, object, or person

• assumes smth belongs to a category bc of the prototype in that category

Example of Representative Heuristic

• seeing someone reading a book in a cafe and assuming they’re a librarian but they’re not

• assume librarian bc that’s what comes to mind

What’s the Conjunction Fallacy?

• two events are more likely to occur together than happening individually

• prob. of having two events occur tgt decreases prob. of them having indv.

• if one event is true, then the other must be true too

What’s the Sunk Cost Fallacy?

• making decisions abt a situation based on what’s been invested

• ex. wanting to leave the line for a the ferris wheel but you’re so close and it would be a waste of time if you left

What’s the Confirmation Bias?

• people only pay attention to evidence that supports their position

• ignore evidence they don’t like or goes against their beliefs

What’s the Optimism Bias?

• belief that, compared w other indvs., you are more likely to experience positive events and less likely to experience bad ones

What’s the Belief Bias?

• judgements about whether to accept conclusions depends on how believable the conclusions are

• even if evidence supports it, if you don’t find conclusions believable, you don’t think info is accurate

What’s Syllogistic Reasoning?

• determining whether a conclusion follows from two statements that are assumed to be true

• ex. if dogs are mammals and my pet is a dog, then my pet is a mammal as well

What’s the Means-End Analysis?

• keeping the end goal in mind (goal state) while reaching for means/steps

• done to reduce the differences between the current decisions and goal

• planning out

Means-End Analysis - Step 1

• analyze the goal state

Means-End Analysis - Step 2

• analyze the current state

Means-End Analysis - Step 3

• list the differences between the goal and the current state

Means-End Analysis - Step 4

• reduce the differences by:

  • direct means

  • generating a subgoal

  • find a similar problem w a known solution for reference

What’s Analogical Problem Solving?

• finding a similar problem w a known solution and apply the solution to the current problem

• if you’ve encountered a similar problem before, successful solutions are more likely to occur

What’s a Mental Set?

• expectation of how to solve a problem

• if we come across a familiar problem, we use our mental set bc we know how to solve it

• influences how we approach a problem

What’s Functional Fixedness?

• tendency to view an object as only have one function

• the function is one that’s commonly used for

• neglecting to see other possible uses