Language and Thought

Language Instinct

our language ability is an instinct that is the result of a biological arrangement in the brain

• humans speak language cause we have the human brains

• a prescholler’s tacit knowledge grammer is more sophisticated than the most state of the art computer lanagugae system

Language

system for communicating with others using signals that are combined according to rules of grammer and conveying meaning

grammar

set of rules that specify how units of laaguage can be combined to produce meaningful messages

Uniqueness of Human Langauge

• use words to refer to intangible things 

• use lanaguge to name, categorize, and describe things to ourselves when we think

Phonemes 

smallest unit of sounds that are recognizable as speech rather than as random noise

• no meaning

Phonological rules

set of rules that inidcate how phoneses can be combined to produce speech sounds

• if these rules are broke, you get an accent

Morphemes

smallest units of languages that have meanings

Morphological Rules

rules that indicate how morphemes can be combined to form words

Content morphemes

refer to things and events (cat, dog)

Function morphemes

serves as gramatical functions such as tying a sentence together (and, or)

Syntactical Rules

rules that indicate how words can be combiend to form phrases and sentences

Meaning

Deep Structure - meanign of sentence

Surface structure - how the sentence is worded

Sentences with different surface strucutres can have the same deep structure 

Langauge Development

children learn lanage at a quick rate

• 1 year old - 10 words, next 4 years knows 10,000 words

children make few errors when learning to speak

• most are systematic (overapplyign rules)

Passive mastery develops faster than active memory

• children understand langauge better than they speak it 

Language Milestones 

• at birth, infants can distinguish among alll the contrastign sounds that occur in human languages 

  • within the first 6 months they lose this ability

  • after 6 months, they can only distinguish between contrasting sounds in the language they speak

Theories of Language Development

Behavorist

• BF Skinner - learn language just like we learn anything else

  • through reinforcement, shaping, extinction and other principles of operant conditioning

Arguments against behavorist

• parents dont spend time teaching children to speak grammatically

• children generate more than they hear

• errors children make are often overgeneralizations of grammatical rules

Theories of Language Development (Nativist)

Language development is best explained as an innate, biological capacity — something humans are born with rather than something we simply learn through reinforcement or imitation

Noam Chomsky

Nativist theory of language development, language learning capacities are built into the brain 

Claimed that the brain is specialized to acquire language rapidly through exposure to speech.

Langauge Acquisition Device (LAD)

collection of processes that facilitate language learning 

• A hypothetical brain mechanism or collection of processes that makes language learning natural and automatic.

• It enables children to infer grammatical rules from the language they hear.

• It functions as the “mental engine” that drives language learning.

Theories of Language Development (Interactionalist)

although infants are born with the innate ability to acquire lanaguage, social interactions play a critical role in language 

Linguisic relativity Hypothesis

language shapes the nature of thought

Benjamin Whorf

cited that Inuits have different words for snow, therefore he belied they think about snow differently from how we do

Language and Thought

the language of though in which knowledge is couched can leave nothign to the imagination because it is the imagination

Steven Pinker

language and thought are not the same thing.
He believes that language is simply a tool for expressing thoughts that already exist in the mind — not the source or structure of those thoughts.

Ambiguity

Proves have lanaguage and thoughts are seperate

• one sentence can have 2 meanings, which shows that thoughts exists in a deeper mental code

Concept

mental representation that groups or categorizes shared features of related object,s events or other stimuli

Necessary condition

something that must be true of object to belong in the category

Sufficient condition

something that, if it is true of the object, orives it belongs in category

• if German Shephard, then it is a dog

Family Resemblance Theory

members of a category have features that appear to be characterisitc of category members but may not be possed by every member

Prototype theory

psychological categories are best decibed as organized aroudn a prototype

Prototype

best or most typcial member of a category

• for north americams, a prototyical bird would be a wren

Exemplar theory

we make category judgements by comparing new instances with stored memoreis for other instnaces of the category

• you see a hariry 4 legged animal, you categorize it as a dog because it looks similar to a German Shephard

Types of Problems

Ill-defined problem, Well defined problem

Ill Defined Problem

one that doesnt have a clear goal or well defined solution path

Well defined problem 

one with clearly specfied goals and clearly defined solution paths

Means Ends Analysis

process for searching foe the means or steps to reduce the differences between the current situation and the desired goal

Means Ends Analysis Process

1. analyze the goal state (desired outcome)

2. analze the current state (starting point)

3. list the differences between the current and goal state

4. reduce the list of differences by

• direct means

• generating a subgoal

• finding similar problem with known solution

Analogical Problem Solving

solving a problem by finding similar problem with a known solution and applying that solutoon to the current problem

Creativity and Insight

how people solve problems in new or non-obvious ways — especially when typical thinking patterns or “mental sets” get in the way

Functional fixedness

tendency to perceive the functions of objects as fixed

• process that constricts our thinking