Language And Thought

Front 1

What is language?

Back 1

Language is a unique property of the human cognitive system.

Front 2

Languages in the World

Back 2

>6,000 languages in the world.

English used as lingua franca

-Many countries have >1 official language e.g. Canada & Switzerland

Front 3

The Properties of Language

Back 3

Language is:

-Symbolic: e.g. using written signs to refer to objects.

-Structured: Rules govern how words may be combined.

-Creative: Words can be combined in an infinite amount of ways.

-Meaningful: Each word is associated with a concept.

Front 4

Speech and Language

Back 4

Speech: The oral expression of language.

Language: A code used to communicate with others

Front 5

Phonemes

Back 5

-Smallest unit of sound that change meaning of a word e.g. gave->Save

-Alphablocks: Used to teach children how to read.

-English has more than 40 phonemes.

Front 6

Morphemes

Back 6

-Morphemes are smallest meaningful unit of language.

Word stems: e.g. 'dog' and 'run'.

Prefixes: 'un'

Suffixes: '-ed' '-ing'

Rules

e.g. Add '-ed' or '-d' to make word past tense

Add '-s' to make word plural.

Front 7

Higher Units of analysis

Back 7

Words: Stand alone and still have meaning.

Syntax: Words combined using a set of rules.

Semantics: Meaning of the word/ phrase.

Pragmatics: relationship between context and meaning

eg We need to talk may mean bad news in context.

Front 8

Lexicon

Back 8

Lexicon: All the words we know (mental dictionary)

Average student has between 50,000 and 100,000 words in vocabulary.

Front 9

Sign language

Back 9

a system of communication using visual gestures and signs, as used by deaf people.

Front 10

Which hemisphere is language typically lateralised to?

Back 10

Left Hemisphere

Front 11

Language Development

Back 11

-Prenatal: Fetus sensitive to language

-Postnatal: Cooing: interactional vocalisation :( Physical limitations in the vocal tract

-4-12 months: Babbling: Putting vowels and consonants together/ Phonological Development

-2years: Babbling->word production/ 1 word or 2 word speaker/ Semantic/Syntactic

-6 years: Vocab 8,000-> 14,000/ Pragmatic Development

Adulthood: language development continues throughout life.

Front 12

Studies of Language

Back 12

Linguistic Anthropology: How language influences social life etc.

Linguistics: Study rules of language etc.

Psycholinguistics: Studies process of language acquisition etc.

Front 13

Crucial Questions

Back 13

How do we acquire language?

Is language INNATE/ learnt from ENVIRONMENT or BOTH?

What happens if we are not exposed to language early in life?

How do we recognise, understand and produce language?

How does language develop in the brain?

What is the relationship with rest of the cognitive system?

Front 14

Methods/Tools for Investigation

Back 14

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)

NIRS (Near Infrared Spectroscopy)

Electro-encephalography (EEG)

Neuroimaging methods- studying the brain 'in vivo"

Front 15

Prenatal Language Perception (methods of investigation)

Back 15

-microphone to see fetus hears

-measuring fetal sensitivity to language

-method of Habituation

-measuring reactions

Findings: a fetis can differentiate language from other sounds. They can also recognise (and prefer) the voice of the mother. (hepper et al 1994).

Front 16

Postnatal Language Perception (methods of investigation)

Back 16

-baby presented with either various sounds or his/ her mothers voice

-dummy connected to computer given to baby

-auditory stimuli programmed to be controlled by sucking rate.

Findings: Infants of only a few days old can control their behaviour to activate the playing of their mothers voice (Mehler et al 1988)

Front 17

Experimental studies (methods of investigation)

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Pre-verbal language comprehension: the selective looking experiment.

child hears: Oh look! Big bird is tickling Cookie Monster!

or

Oh look! Cookie Monster is tickling Big Bird!

Findings:

Children look at the screen that matches with the sentence, showing them to understand "who" did "what" to "whom"(Gleitman, 1990)

Preverbal children understand the logic of a sentence.

Front 18

Clinical Studies (neuropsychology) How damage can reveal function

Back 18

Aphasiology: study of language impairments.

Front 19

Standardised tests (methods of investigation)

Back 19

Test of receptive grammar e.g. 'Not only the girl but also the cat is sitting)

British Picture Vocabulary Scale: child points to the picture that matches the spoken word

Front 20

Animal Studies (methods of investigation)

Back 20

Instense (and expensive) animal training.

Front 21

Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) - methods of investigation

Back 21

Computer simulations of language processing.

Front 22

Neuroconstructivist approach- for studying cognitive development

Back 22

Convergence of different methods:

Behavioural

Neuroimaging

Genetics

Computational

Front 23

Nature vs. nurture

Back 23

Are we prewired to language acquisition or not?

Front 24

Noam Chomsky (Nativist Theory)

Back 24

-born with ability to build grammatical structures (UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR, UG) and specialised language learning mechanisms (Language Acquisition Device, LAD)

Front 25

B.F. Skinner (Behaviourist Theory)

Back 25

-newborn brain is TABLA RASA- blank slate on which experience imprints structure.

Front 26

Learning Grammar: nature & nurture

Back 26

Chomsky (1958) & Pinker (1994)

-Imitation and reinforcement (corrections) are not enough to learn a language because e.g. children produce sentences they've never heard

Front 27

Language Grammar

Back 27

Chomsky's argument:

If children solely imitate, why say: 'goed' instead of 'went'

if children are not corrected how do we get rid of "goed"?

Answer: innate knowledge of grammar

Front 28

Deep and Surface Structure- Chomsky's Theory of Transformational Grammar

Back 28

Surface structure: parts of the actual sentence

Deep structure: the underlying form.

Languages differ in their surface properties

all share a deep structure

Front 29

The Critical Period Hypothesis

Back 29

Critical period for learning language.

as mature critical period draws to a close

Later language learning becomes more difficult (Lenneberg 1967)

Front 30

The Story of Genie (testing the critical hypothesis)

Back 30

-neglected

-isolated

-no linguistic skills

-studied from 1971 to 1975

-was communicative through sounds and language

-gained some limited language

-Early childhood may be more a sensitive period than a critical period (johnson 2001)

Front 31

Nativism

Back 31

-independent (modularity)

-nature not nurture

-different areas in the brain have specific language processes

Front 32

Non-nativism

Back 32

-interactivity with other cognitive functions

-Nature and nurture

-Brain areas are not language specific

Front 33

Evidence for innate language skills?

The birth of Nicaraguan Sign Language (NSL)

Back 33

-Investigating the innate component of language (which is more evident in impoverished environments)

Front 34

Senghaus & Coppola (2001)

Back 34

a natural experiment, the emergence of a new language developed by successive cohorts of deaf Nicaraguan children.

Front 35

What makes NSL a language?

Back 35

Spatial modulations

Front 36

NSL is taken as evidence for innate language skills

Back 36

:( surrounded by researchers who knew ASL

How much does this matter?

Front 37

An inherited speech and language disorder- the KE family: speech difficulties- verbal dyspraxia

Back 37

Lai, Fisher, Hurst, Vargha-Khadem& Monaco 2001)

FSIQ low average (all unaffected members had IQs above this range)

Front 38

Is the FOXP2 the 'language gene'?

Back 38

FOXP2-specific to language

:( in other species & important for rapid planning i.e. critical for articulation during speech

not language specific but language relevant

Front 39

Can animals use language?

Back 39

Chimps

can't talk-vocal tract too narrow

can use hand gestures

Is this language or imitation?

Front 40

Chimp studies: washoe

Back 40

-taught ASL

-learnt 40 signs

:( informal studies

:(not clear

:) later studies more scientific

Front 41

Nim Chimpsky

Back 41

-taught at Columbia university

-treated as child

-learnt 125 signs

-could combine signs

-lots of footage enabled analysis

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Project Nim: Results- Terrace, Pettito, Sanders & Bever (1979)

Back 42

-showed evidence of syntax

:( could not produce long phrases

Mean length utterance Nim:1-2

deaf children 1.5-4 (19 months)

Front 43

Is language innate?

Back 43

not enough evidence

Front 44

Spoken language

Back 44

1st mode of communication

Front 45

written

Back 45

literacy relatively recent development

Front 46

Recognition of Spoken Words

Back 46

Complex:

Lack of invariance

Speaker variability

segmentation

Front 47

Recognition of Written Words

Back 47

Important

to teach children to read etc

Front 48

Studying word recognition (Rubinstein et al. 1970, 1971)

Back 48

lexical decision task

press yes/ no key to stimuli of real word or non-word.

response time (RT) and accuracy (CR)

Front 49

What does the lexical decision tell us about word recognition?

Back 49

The Frequency Effect: quicker response for more frequently occurring words.

Front 50

The Lexical Status Effect

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a non word takes longer to respond to than a word

Front 51

Non-word Legality Effect

Back 51

quicker response with non-plausible letter strings

Front 52

Additional Phenomena

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Word Similarity Effect: e.g. Pear/Paer

Repetition Priming Effect: quicker response if the same word presented twice

Semantic Priming Effect: quicker response when a word is preceded by a semantically related word.

Front 53

Models of Lexical Processing

Back 53

Two types of model:

1) Serial access models

2) Direct access models

Front 54

Search Model (forster 1976, 1979)

Back 54

Access file divided into bins

ordered based on frequency use

Faster RT if at top

if rejected slower RT

Front 55

The word superiority Effect

Back 55

Reicher 1969: letters easier to identify in a real written word

Front 56

Interactive Activation Model (Rumelhart and McClelland, 1982)

Back 56

- A computational model.

-Combines top down and bottom up (interactive approach)

-can use top down knowledge of words to understand bottom up representations of letters.

1) the visual feature level

2) the letter level

3) the word level

Front 57

Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs)- connectionist model.

Back 57

neurons= units

connections= weights

knowledge is distributed throughout different connections

Front 58

Limitations of the models

Back 58

:( don't explain how lexicon develops

:( don't include second language learning

:( mere mechanistic description (Thomas and Van Heuven)

Front 59

Basic brain anatomy

Back 59

2 cerebral hemispheres

Gyrus: ridge

Sulcus: grooves

Grey matter: neurons

White matter: axons- connections like a road map.

Cerebrospinal fluid: In the brain.

Front 60

Lobes of the brain

Back 60

Frontal

Temporal

Parietal

Occipital

Front 61

Cognitive neuropsychology- how damage can reveal function Aphasia

Back 61

the loss of a previous ability to speak or understand language.

Front 62

Aphasia

Back 62

Broca's non-fluent aphasia: production difficulties.

Conduction aphasia: damage to white matter- poor repetition.

Wernicke's fluent aphasia: poor comprehension.

Front 63

Brain imaging methods

Back 63

Positron Emmission Tomology: PET

Magnetic Resonance Imaging: MRI

Magneto-Encephalography: MEG

Front 64

process of language

Back 64

Listening

Speaking

Reading

Meaning

Front 65

Decision Making

Back 65

Normative/ Descriptive

Normative: Ideal outcome

Descriptive: how it really should be taken.

Front 66

Expected Value Theory

Back 66

Says people should want to maximise expected value

However- people don't always do this

Front 67

Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky

Back 67

would you prefer 85% chance of winning exp.

Front 68

Prospect Theory

Back 68

-focus on financial decisions

-relative gains and losses

-loss aversion

Front 69

Loss Aversion

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Utility-subjective value

dislike for losing utility is greater than liking gaining same amount

any kind of loss

Front 70

Endowment Effect

Back 70

participants would sell ($7) mugs for more than participants would buy($3) them

pain of losing something costs more than pleasure of buying something.

Front 71

Framing effects

Back 71

-how situation is presented effects decision. e.g. based on gains and losses

Front 72

Impact and Durability Bias

Back 72

Impact bias: overestimating length/ intensity of future feelings

Durability Bias: overestimate negative effects lengths

Front 73

Availability Heuristic

Back 73

Decisions biased on information that is familiar/ salient or recent

Front 74

Representativeness Heuristic

Back 74

judge probability by how typical it is

results from misconceptions about chance/ poor knowledge of base rates/ poor understanding of sample size.

Front 75

Satisfying

Back 75

-people search for an acceptable solution

-based on minimal requirements

Front 76

Problem Solving

Back 76

problem: have a goal but don't know how to achieve

thinking: process of mental exploration

problems: well defined/ ill defined

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Well defined problems

Back 77

Initial state & goal: clearly defined

Possible moves& constraint rules: clearly defined.

knowledge rich (requiring specialist knowledge)/ knowledge lean

Adversary problems/ non-adversary problems.

Front 78

Gestalt Approach to problem solving

Back 78

emphasis insight/ understanding

-restructuring

Front 79

Barriers to Insight: Set Effects

Back 79

-tendency to persist with the wrong solution to a problem

-incorrectly understanding the constraints of a problem

-must restructure