Midterm 1 - COGS 156

Language

A system of communication through the use of speech, a collection of sounds understood by a group of people to have the same meaning.

Phonology

the sound system of a language

Lexicon

the vocabulary of a language

Morphology

structure of words

Syntax

Sentence structure

pragmatics

the appropriate use of language in different contexts

Literacy

the ability to read and write

What language development happens prior to one year old?

\-intentional communication

* vocal play
* canonical babbling
* recognition of name

What language development happens between one and two years old?

\-First word

\-distinguishable communication

\-recognition of phonology

* 50 words
* word spurt
* -first combination
* conversational initiation

What language development happens between second and third years?

\-phonetic inventory completion

* 500 word vocab
* increase in word length
* adding grammatical morphemes
* negatives and questions

What language development happens between from third year and beyond?

* Narrative skills
* phonological awareness
* increase vocab
* complex utterances

Behaviorism

behavior occurs in response to a consequence of a prior action

Cognitivism

the belief that much of human behavior can be understood in terms of how people think

baby biographies

detailed, systematic observations of individual children

Langauge socialization

language is a social behavior

language acquisition device

Chomsky's concept of an innate, prewired mechanism in the brain that allows children to acquire language naturally

Five approaches to langauge development

1. Biology - language is a biological process
2. Linguistic - Language is innate
3. Social - language is a social phenomena
4. Domain general - language is a learning problem
5. Dynamic system theory - language comes from the continuous interaction of components of the system

universal grammar

Noam Chomsky's theory that all the world's languages share a similar underlying structure

learnability approach

Focuses on explaining how language can be learned

Developmental Approach

Focus on earlier developing sounds first

Empiricism (Language)

mind is blank at birth

Nativism (language)

mind has pre-existing structure

interactivist view

language input impact the rate and course of language development

social interactionist theory

explains language acquisition as being caused by a motivation to communicate and interact with others

Constructivist Theory

Piaget's theory, in which cognitive development results from children's active construction of reality, based on their experiences with the world

Emergentist Theory

language learning involves

* genetic make up
* learning environment

connectionist approach

mechanism of pattern learning and seeks to explain language and learned patterns

Developmental systems approach

language \= genetics + interactions + environment

modularity thesis

The cognitive theory that holds that the ability to develop language is a self-contained module in the mind, separate from other aspects of mental functioning.

Formalism

acquisition of language has nothing to do with communication

functionlism

language acquisition is formed by communication

Generativist Theory

The theory that language acquisition and use are supported by an innate Universal Grammar. Language experience triggers innate knowledge and sets language-specific parameters. The language-learning mechanism is specific to language.

social interactionist theory

explains language acquisition as being caused by a motivation to communicate and interact with others

Usage-Based Theory

children attend to and understand other people's intentions and then imitate other persons' intentional communicative actions to learn language

Connectionist Theory

children learn language by creating neural connections in the brain

Behavioralist Theory

assumes a learner is essentially passive, responding to environmental stimuli

speech sample

A segment of speech used to assess a client's stuttering. A sample may be limited to 300 syllables. It may be spontaneous conversation or written work that is read aloud. It is meant to be representative of a client's speech in general.

LENA system

records data for speech sample collection

CHILDES

Child Language Data Exchange System. A computer program for the analysis of transcripts, and an archive of previously collected transcripts of children's speech.

2 ways to access child's language development

1. Speech Sample
2. Standardized test

CDI

communicative development inventory

PPVT

Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test

pidgin language

language formed by combining parts of several different languages

Creole language

a language that began as a pidgin language but was later adopted as the mother tongue by a people in a place of the mother tongue

language bioprogram hypothesis

Children are innately predisposed to acquire the syntax of language

How is speech produced?

The air enters lungs, vocal cords vibrate

functional architecture

how the brain is organized to serve the functions it performs

Neurolinguistics

the study of the relationship between language and the brain

cerbral cortex

outer layer of the cerbrum of a mammal's brain; center of thinking and other complex behaviors

subcortical structures

parts of the brain located under the cerebral cortex

contralateral control

each hemisphere of the brain controls the opposite side of the body

Ipsilateral

on the same side of the body

neural circuits

groups of interconnected neurons

lesion method

damage or remove section of brain and observe the effects

split brain patients

corpus collosum is severed, two hemispheres of the brain don't communicate as effectively

dichotic listening task

A task in which a person hears two or more different, specially recorded messages over earphones and is asked to attend to one of them.

functional brain imaging

provides information about the activity of the brain when people perform various kinds of cognitive or motor tasks

EEG/ERP

good temporal resolution, cheap, poor spatial resolution; uses electroencephalography to record electrical activity of the brain during cognitive processing

MEG (magnetoencephalography)

measures magnetic fields from the brain's natural electrical activity

fMRI

A technique for revealing blood flow and, therefore, brain activity by comparing successive MRI scans.

NIRS (near infrared spectroscopy)

brain activity measured by using infrared light to determine changes in blood oxygen levels in the brain

developmental cognitive neuroscience

brings together researchers from psychology, biology, neuroscience, and medicine to study the relationship between changes in the brain and the developing person's cognitive processing and behavior patterns

aphasia

impairment of language, usually caused by left hemisphere damage either to Broca's area (impairing speaking) or to Wernicke's area (impairing understanding).

Broca's area

speech production

Wernicke's area

language comprehension

Damage to right hemisphere

difficulty perceiving other's emotions, failure to understand humor and sarcasm, and a monotone voice

Childhood Aphasia

Children with left-hemisphere (but not right hemisphere) damage are likely to develop aphasia, recover better than adults, but may show residual problems (role of neuroplasticity and redundancy of the neural architecture)

Brain damage prior to langauge on right side

language delay

equipotentiality hypothesis

some parts of the brain can take over for damaged parts in forming and storing memories

invarience hypothesis

left side is specialized for language since birth

neural plasticity

the ability of the brain to change in response to experience

Critical Period Hypothesis

Erick Lenneberg - theory of language development that states language must be learned by a certain age, otherwise, we will experience continual difficulty learning language

"Proof" of the Critical-period Hypothesis

* wild children
* late signers of ASL can never do it as well as once doing it from infancy
* 2nd acquisition of 1st language in adopted children

age of exposure effects

Effects of age of first exposure to a language on the success of language acquisition. Typically, the earlier one is exposed to a second language, the higher the level of proficiency one is likely to ultimately achieve.

Lenneberg argues

that puberty ends language acquisition

Underlying age effects to language development

* time of exposure
* age of exposure
* early exposure effect
* changes in domain general (kids remember less than adults )
* opprotunity to learn language
* social/motivational factors

FOXP2

mutations of this gene impede ability to make mouth and jaw sequences required for speech; accompanied by difficulties for written language

examples of language in animals

* vervet monkeys = warning sounds
* bees = waggle dance
* birds = songs/subsongs

Why was couldn't primates learn human language?

* speech was mostly repetition and imitation
* mean length of utterances never changes
* no role of meaning
* lack culture
* lack domain-specific mental mechanisms

Language in Baboons

Kanzi learned langauge due to accompanying his mother to learn lexigram, learned up to a 2 year old vocab

Language as an evolved capacity

natural selection, developed with modification

Langauge as a by product of evolution

other changes allowed language to evolve

social gating hypothesis

the hypothesis that the social brain "gates" mechanisms that are responsible for language learning

joint attention

the ability to focus on what another person is focused on

secondary intersubjectivity

a form of interaction between infant and caregiver with communication and emotional sharing focused not just on the interaction but on the world beyond

gaze following

\`looking where another person has just looked

intention reading

child's ability to recognize the intentions and mental states of others

gesture is a \_____ of language

predictor

possible explanations for gestures in language development

* shows communication development
* communication interaction supports langauge development
* relationship between content of gestures and content of language

habituation process

a neural process that produces decreases in responsiveness

Non-nutritive nipple

frequency and strength of sucking gives info on preference of infants

conditional head turn procedure

present sound and when sound changes, there is a visual reward \= teaches association with sound and picture

intermodal preferential looking paradigm

A procedure that assesses language comprehension by showing infants side-by-side slides or videos, as the infant hears an audio presentation that matches only one of the videos. If infants consistently look longer at the matching video, it is taken as evidence that they understand the language of the audio.

looking while listening procedure

infants are presented with side-by-side videos and a paired audio, as in the preferential looking procedure, but in this procedure, the time course of the infants' eye movements toward the pictures is measured

prenatal hearing

* Measurement: Fetal heart rate changes
* 30 weeks gestational age (GA) detect white noise
* Mom's voice (Kisilevsky et al., 2003)
* Familiar story (DeCasper & Spence, 1986)

early attention in infants

prefer speech sounds and faces, find an association between them

Infant Speech Perception

Infants learning language must be able to segment the speech they hear into meaningful phrases and words

catagorical perception

range of stimuli that differ continuously are perceived as belonging to different catagories

voice onset time

the length of time between when air passes through the lips and when the vocal cords start vibrating

tuning of speech perception

Changes in infants' speech perception that occur as a result of exposure to the target language. Infants decline in their abilities to hear contrasts their language does not use, and in some cases, they improve in their abilities to hear contrasts their language does use.