ASP 320 Exam 1

William Greenough

**Experience affects neural development ** raised rats in different environments -rats alone in box -a bunch of rats together in box -rats together at rat disneyland -sacrifice rats and count neural connections in each rat -more experience you have the better connections you have in your brain

Why Generativism?

-Behaviorism can't explain how we generate novel utterances -infinite # of utterances -recursion

Three hypotheses of early right hemisphere

-The left hemisphere isn't ready to process language at the beginning. It takes a while to mature -The right hemisphere processes language until the child learns grammar (or maybe the patterns in the input??) then the left takes over -Children process the incoming signal with the right hemisphere, but that the left is better at the processing and continues to get better so that the right eventually stops processing it altogether

Poverty of Stimulus Argument

-cannot learn patterns of language based on positive evidence, alone. Need negative evidence, too -there are errors in speech -children only ever presented with positive evidence for patterns -all (typical) children master their native language

wernickes aphasia

-fluent aphasia. articulation unaffected, melodic contour unaffected. speech is semantically meaningless. syntax and morphology occur, but again are meaningless -comprehension usually impaired to some extent *may not always be aware that they aren't making sense

What's wrong with behaviorism?

-for a behaviorist, language is no different than any other behavior -behaviorist's say, "its not that cognitive mechanisms don't exist, its just that they are irrelevant" -emphasis on observable & measurable behavior can obscure understanding of psych/ cognition

computational modeling

-good for testing theories -only as good as the algorithm -assumes much in terms of how language is learned

Usage-based/Constructionist

-grammar is learned from the input using general cognitive mechanisms -both semantics and syntax are part of what is learned -no deep structure/ only surface -how lang is used determines what is learned - grammar emerges -emphasis on the input and how it shapes learning (eg frequency)

Epigenesis Gene Expression

-just because you have a gene in your makeup does not mean it will turn on, you have to receive the right environmental influences -early experiences control which genes are switched on -input is very important can't learn without it

Dynamic systems

-language learning is the emergent product of the accumulation of many small moments of perceiving, attending, remembering, and behaving embedded in context

lexicon

-link between morpheme and meaning -not considered a component of language usually

experience expectant

-neural processes that exist innately because the species has evolved with them -organism expects to have whiskers, barrell cells exist in brain -if whiskers are surgically removed at birth, the barrell will eventually be pruned away *use it, or lose it*

Non-generativist cognitive approaches

-not exclusive, but often overlapping -becomes a matter of what is being emphasized in explaining learning of a particular matter -focus on explaining learning without resorting to LAD -language is just one part of cognition and shares abilities with other cognitive capacities

Cooperation Principle (grice)

-quantity, quality, relation, manner -discorse types -literal vs nonliteral ("my head is killing me")

Behaviorist (skinner)

-reinforcement, conditioning, association, stimulus response -stimulus (function of response) --> mind--> response (behavior) -only what is observable, measurable -langauge is verbal behavior and nothing else

phonology

-sound systems (phones(all sounds you can produce in a lang), phonemes( meaningful categories of sounds), allophones (variation of phonemes))

Can we account for what learning looks like with just thinking of those basic things?

-starts out very simple, becomes more complex -early things turn into bigger things -previous experience guides subsequent behavior -context influences learning -novelty things and words get more attention

Generativist

-we can "generate" language, we can say new things, combine units of language to generate language -language is a median

Neuron Basic Function

1) a stimulus in the environment activates a neuron 2)the neuron fires and an electrical charge is carried along the axon to synaptic cleft 3)neurotransmitters are released (serotonin,dopamine, etc.) 4) the signal is picked up the dendrites of the connecting neuron and carried to the neurons **a neuron has to be attached to another neuron if not it dies

problems with generativist approach

1) linguistics have failed to find and document universal characteristics of language 2) can't find any characteristics that are uniquely human ( recursion was last, but some birds can recognize recursion) 3) we can learn language based on positive evidence alone 4) other aspects help us learn: social context, statistical learning, child directed speech 5) may be unfalsifiable 6) tend to say its innate and not find a way to explain 7) LAD is unique to get language, really separating language from other types of cognition

language acquisition device (LAD)

Chomsky's term for a hypothesized mental structure that enables humans to learn language, including the basic aspects of grammar, vocabulary, and intonation.

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

Basic structure of brain

Frontal lobe - decision making, executive Parietal lobe-spatial orientation occipital lobe- vision temporal lobe- language/hearing limbic lobe - motion and memory

dialect

Geographically, socially distinct versions of a single language that vary somewhat from the parent form.

What things would we expect to find in children if UG or an LAD is there at birth?

Left hemisphere would be processing langauge at the same rate of an adult

has anyone found the LAD or UG in brain?

No -evidence suggests that language is proceccessd by left hemisphere, while non-speech sounds are processed in right hemisphere

corpus callostomy

Separation of the two hemispheres in the brain to treat epilepsy -Gazzaniga

Eric Kandel

Studied the sea slug Aplysia and posited that learning and memory are evidenced by changes in synapses and neural pathways. -learning physically changes brain -inverterbrates have huge neurons compared to vertebrates

Merge **

a syntactic objects combine to create unordered linguistic objects -does not change SO, only combines them hierarchelly

intention reading (part of si)

ability of the person to understand the intention of the other

prescriptive grammar

all the rules of a language

All ______ are ________, but not all ______ are _______.

allophones, phones, phones, allophones

over production of synapses

brain doesn't know what to make, so it tries different connections

free morphemes

can exist on their own

generative

can produce novel utterances

Teleological change/evolution ********not sure

change is a result, not changing for a purpose -change is caused by language variation

Recovery from aphasia is more complete in......

children and faster; they generally catch up if injury occurs before language acquisition begins (though some slight delays often remain)

conventional/signs

communication or self expression -generative

standardized tests

compare individual to norms

Chomsky's solution --> Universal grammar

contains core universal constructs of language -innate and unique to humans -universal properties of language -experience helps us set parameters - variability of language is only on the surface

left cortex controls right side of body

contralaterrally arranged

wernikes area

corner right where sylvan issue ends -language comprehension

language variations

dialect, pidgin, creole

Wada test

disrupts language -administers sodium amobarbitol through the carotid artery, which turns off left or right side of brain to test where language occurs -used when people have epilepsy before surgery to correct it

joint attention (part of si)

drawing attention to an object, then naming object

social interactionist (usage based)

emphasizes the role of communication -the purpose of communication in language learning

cell body

executes commands

dendrites

feeding INTO the neuron

bound morphemes

have to be attached to something else

early plasticity of the brain makes it

highly malleable in responses to environment

Motor cortex

housed by frontal lobe -generates motor function -arranged topographically to parts of your body

auditory cortex

housed in temporal lobe

auditory cortex

houses the lateral sulcus or the sylvian fissure (separates temporal and frontal lobe)

pragmatics

how language is used -intentions and recognized ways of carrying them out -conversational cues

descriptive grammar

how people actually use language -how did people learn language

syntax

how words are arranged -gives much of language meaning -tree diagrams w/word classes

greater degrees of lateralization

in adults than in children

Diachronic change

language change over time

75%of left handed people

language in left temporal lobe

95% of right handed people

language in left temporal lobe

broca's area

language production

normative studies

large scale, sectional studies, expensive time consuming, allows snapshot of what is "normal"

most people's language is in.....?

left hemisphere

population studies

look at characteristics of population in order to make correlations -can not draw cause and effect

experiments

may not reflect real life situations well controlled best received in science

connectionist approach (usage based)

models language and language learning on the concept of a network and neural nodes -a collection of neurons that create a more complicated concept -simple tasks become more complex - learning creates connections between nodes and the nodes conspire to provide some function -networks of association

corpus studies

multiple subjects, all speech recorded at particular interval, time consuming, dependent on sampling frequency *deb roy video

creole

native speakers of a certain pidgin

experience dependent

neural processes that occur in response to experience

axon

neuron can have one axon only (but it can branch) feeding OUT of neuron

special cases

nicuarauagn sign language, wild child

5 basic parts of language

phonology syntax morphology semantics pragmatics

systematic

phonology, lexicon,morphology, syntax, pragmatics

diary studies

single subject, record what child says, focused on one thing, tune ear, selective

Brocas aphasia

speech will not be produced right -non-fluent aphasia, speech is telegraphic, halting. speech is labored and slow. syntax and morphology is minimally produced. word finding difficulties -comprehension generally ok

morphology

structure of the meaningful units of language (morphemes) -suffixes, prefixes, infixes?

Pruning

synaptic growth in first 2 years is massive -at 8 months neurons begin to be pruned back -keeps the most used, best connections -determined by child's experiences

language is....

systematic and conventional use of sounds (or signs, or written symbols) for the purpose of communication or self expression

semantics

the meaning of language -separate from other aspects of language

Imprinting

the process by which certain animals form attachments during a critical period very early in life -konrad lorenz

construction grammar (usage based)

thought of as frames composed of slots into which words, morphemes, parts of speech, semantic relationships can fit -only surface structure *idea* fit things in that do fit, exclude what does not

introspection

uncontrolled, unreliable, maybe a place to start hypothesis -corpus studies- multiple subjects, all speech recorded at particular interval, time consuming, dependent on sampling frequency

pidgin

variation of 2 languages coming together for the purpose of trade and communication

synapse

where axon ends and comes in close contact with another neuron