Learning, Language, and Thought: Lecture 2
PSYC 1301
Building Blocks of Language
Building Block #1: Language
Language has long been thought of as separating us from the animals. Although animals can communicate, they do not have language. Without language, our ways of thinking, understanding, and transmitting knowledge would be limited to the here and now. Language systems are dynamic. Human language is unique in that it can convey abstract ideas. Language is open, in that the system is free to change. Language is symbolic, in that there is no real connection between a sound and the meaning associated with it. Spoken language is based on phonemes, the basic sounds that make up a language such as "th" and "sh." Phonemes group together to form morphemes, the smallest meaningful units of speech, such as simple words, prefixes, and suffixes. When we wish to communicate an idea, we start with a thought, and then choose words and phrases that will express the idea, and produce the speech sounds of those words and phrases. Sentences have both a surface structure (particular words and phrases) and a deep structure (the underlying meaning).
Language has rules of grammar and allows the speaker to express abstract and distant ideas. In English, grammar includes such things as subject-verb agreement, plurals, and possessives. Semantics and syntax are the two major components of grammar. Semantics refers to the system of rules that govern how we assign meaning to morphemes. Syntax refers to the rules of how words should be arranged in a particular language.
The first form of speech expressed by infants prior to six months of age is known as cooing. Cooing consists of sounds of vowels being repeated.
Babbling emerges around 5 to 6 months of age. Babbling is the repetition of sounds that babies hear consisting of phonemes such as "da da da" or "ba ba ba." As the baby hears more and more of his/her own language, the baby will drop the sounds not used in his/her own language.
One-word utterances appear around 12 months and this first word is a familiar person or object. By about 18 months of age, the toddler speaks in two-word simple sentence phrases known as two-word utterances. Around 2 ½ - 3 years of age, children enter the sentence phase and begin to talk in simple sentences.
The critical period for language acquisition in humans is thought to end by age 12. Researchers believe that when children are not exposed to any human language before this age, their language abilities never fully develop. Have you ever tried to learn a language as an adult, and it seemed too difficult to master? Researchers believe this is because your critical period has passed, and you are not as receptive to new languages.
All humans learn to speak, including those who were born deaf, unless they experienced a major deficit or trauma. Based on this fact, researchers believe that we have innate, genetically-based structures in the brain that enable us to learn language. However, there are numerous theories of language acquisition.
Sociocultural Theories
Sociocultural theorists suggest that environmental influences such as culture, socioeconomic status, birth order, school, peers, and parents shape language development. Children learn language by hearing other people speak and interpreting it within context.
Conditioning and Learning Theory
B. F. Skinner, on the other hand, proposed the conditioning and learning theory. He proposed that language uses shaping, successive approximations, and reinforcement to learn speech. Skinner argued the word-like utterances of babies are strongly reinforced by the parents. In other words, children speak because they have been reinforced for doing so. This theory asserts that children learn language through imitation, rather than having an innate ability to learn language (see Chomsky's view below).
Nativist Theory
According to the Nativist view, we discover language rather than learn it. Language development is inborn. The brain is wired for language acquisition as evidenced by Broca's and Wernicke's areas of the brain which are dedicated to speech production and comprehension. Noam Chomsky is a pioneering linguist who argued that humans are born with a language acquisition device, an innate, biologically-based capacity to acquire language. The age at which children begin to form grammatically correct sentences is relatively the same throughout the world. Chomsky contended that parents only reinforce content, not grammar. Based on this assertion, he argued that behaviorists such as Skinner could not explain why children formulate grammatically correct sentences.
An image is a mental representation or recollection of a sensory experience. This mental representation is a structure in our mind such as an idea or image that stands for something else, such as an external object or thing sensed in the past or future, not in the present. We think both in images and words. Visual imagery consists of visual representations created by the brain after the original stimulus is no longer present. Using images gives us the power of visualization and helps us think about and solve problems. Neuroscientists have found that the brain is activated in the same way by imagining a task as it is by performing the same task.
A concept is a mental category for classifying or grouping objects, people, and experiences based on their common features. Using concepts, we can organize our perceptions of the world and categorize new experiences. Through concept hierarchy, we organize information in a particular way, with some concepts being general and others specific.
A category is a concept that organizes other concepts around what they share in common. We use prototypes, mental models of the most typical examples of a category, to classify new objects.
An example of classifying an unknown object according to category, based on its similarity to the prototype (or archtype) we have in mind.
Reasoning is the process of drawing conclusions or inferences from available evidence or principles. Through deductive reasoning, we reason from general statements to specific conclusions. For instance, if this happens, then this will happen. Drawing general conclusions from specific evidence is known as inductive reasoning. Causal inferences are statements that explain specific facts. For example, A causes B.
Confirmation bias is the tendency to remember information that supports our belief and ignore the rest.
Heuristics are rules of thumb, or mental shortcuts that help to simplify and solve problems, though they do not guarantee a correct solution. Many types of heuristics are in use.
We use the representative heuristic to estimate the probability of one event based on how typical it is of another event.
We use the availability heuristic to make decisions based on the ease with which estimates come to mind or how available they are to our awareness.
Hill climbing is a heuristic in which each step moves the problem solver closer to the final goal.
Another heuristic is the creation of sub goals-intermediate, more manageable goals that may make it easier to reach the final goal.
Means-end analysis, a heuristic that combines hill climbing and sub goals, aims to reduce the discrepancy between the current situation and the desired goal at a number of intermediate points.
Heuristics allow us to make snap judgments quickly, but we may sacrifice accuracy in our haste to reach a decision.
