Psychology Ch. 9 Language

What happens during the babbling stage of language development? How does babbling change over time?

Development of Language - 1-2 months - crying, cooing (ooh, ahh) - 4 months - babbling stage - spontaneous production of phonemes, including sounds from many different languages - 10 months - "Native" language babbling; first words by year 1 (Ma, Da, Ba) - 2 years - Telegraphic Speech (2-3 word sentences, "Nanny go sleep."); sentences follow rules of syntax - 2-3 years - Longer multiword sentences - 4 years - Adult-like speech, grammar fairly well mastered

How did Eleanor Rosch's study of the Dani tribe challenge Whorf's hypothesis?

Eleanor Rosch (1973): Study of the Dani tribe of New Guinea Dani language has only two color words: Mola - for light hues Mili - for dark hues - Rosch had members of the Dani tribe to sort color cards into groups that they believed were the same color - If Whorf was right, they would only be able to distinguish two categories; So red, yellow and orange would be seen as the same; and green, blue, and gray would be seen as the same - In fact, the Dani made the same fine distinctions between colors English speakers do - So perception is independent of language: we are probably all seeing the same world

How do parents help children learn to produce complex language?

Mom "Shapes" Baby to say "Kitty Cat" A cat enters the room. Mom points at it to make sure baby is attending to the cat Baby: Goo pah noo noo Mom: Kitty Cat. Say pretty kitty cat Baby: Nah nah goo Mom: Kitty Cat, Kitty Cat Baby: Kee Mom: Yes! Kitty! A kitty cat! (Reinforcement)

What is a relational frame?

Relational frames are not things in a mind; they are patterns of operant responding only found in humans

What did Searle's famous "Chinese Room" thought experiment demonstrate?

- Anti-Behaviorist John Seattle: Chinese Room thought experiment - Person with no knowledge of Chinese language is in a room, where Chinese speakers feed Chinese symbols into the room - The person in the room has a rule book showing what symbols to return to the Chinese speakers in response to the symbols they present - The person in the room can produce all the right words, at the right time, and the "listeners' never know the difference - But, surely the person in the Chinese room does not understand what he or she is "saying"

How do behaviorists such as B.F. Skinner view the development of language?

- Behaviorism - language is learned behavior (B.F. Skinner) - Language is operant behavior (active, purposeful) - Language is learned through operant conditioning (reinforcement & punishment) - Learning to say a new word under appropriate circumstances is no different from learning to press a lever when a green light is flashing

How does the cognitive view of meaning differ from the behaviorist view?

- Cognitive View of Meaning: The meaning of a word is the idea (mental representation) that a word is associated with - Behaviorist View of Meaning: Meaning is ostensively defined (pointing) or based on synonymity (paraphrase)

What are 4 criticisms of the behaviorist view (i.e., 4 facts about language that make it hard to explain as simple operant conditioning)?

- Critics believe that Skinner's operant approach cannot account for the generativity of language: its rapid, creative, and complex growth - It's speed of growth in childhood is remarkable: Virtually all children successfully learn their native language at a time in life when they would not be expected to learn anything else so complicated - Language seems separate from other aspects of development (e.g., problem-solving ability, personality, empathy, etc). - Its creativity: Uttering complex novel sentences we've never heard (children: "Me goed to the store.") - Critical Period: language is learned without effort and very rapidly before puberty. Afterwards, difficult. Something innate and internal must take place during the critical period

What is a Duchenne smile? How does it differ from a "social smile"?

- Duchenne smile (named after a French physician): true smile involving corners of the mouth, cheek muscles, and "crow's feet" around the eyes - Non-Duchenne smile: social or "phony" smile; only involves the corners of the mouth

What are the 4 types of verbal behavior (verbal operants) that we discussed in class? What kinds of stimuli tend to elicit these each type?

- Echoics (Repeating what is heard) - Mands (Requesting) - Tacts (Labeling) - Introverbals (Answering questions/Conversation)

What is Paul Ekman's facial feedback hypothesis?

- Facial expression sends info to others, and - Facial muscles send info to ourselves about our emotional state - If you carefully guide people to constrict specific facial muscles into an angry expression, their physiology (heart rate, breathing, hormone secretion) will begin to resemble the autonomic pattern associated with anger

What was Chomsky's view of language development? What is the Language Acquisition Device? Universal Grammar?

- Humans are genetically predisposed (hard-wired) to develop language Species-specific neurological system in human brains that supports language acquisition - "Language Acquisition Device" or LAD - LAD contains a Universal Grammar - a knowledge of rules common to all possible languages which allows children with sufficient vocabulary to create new combinations of words, which they may never had heard before - Children are exposed to samples of language and LAD produce a finite set of grammar rules - Language acquisition is influenced by a verbal community, not controlled by it - We learn a particular language (e.g., English, Spanish, etc.), but all particular languages meet the constraints of our innate Universal Grammar

What is communication? How does communication among lower animals (birds, ants, etc) differ from language? What are some forms of human communication that cannot be classified as language?

- Language - our spoken, written, or gestured words and the way we combine them to communicate meaning - Communication is a casual influence of a behavior of one organism (a signal) on the behavior of another - In most species, communication (signal sending) seems inflexible, reflexive, unlearned, repetitive, and triggered by specific stimuli - Not all communication is language: Bees dance to communicate (to other bees in the hive) the direction and distance of food; Ants communicate chemically, sending signals to other ants about food or danger

What is the transformation of stimulus functions? What properties of language does relational frame theory help explain?

- One effect of relational framing is called transformation of stimulus functions: people often respond to words, thoughts, and images as if they were real events - The word "snake" can have an effect on me as strong as the presence of a real snake - People can live in misery because of complex relational framing - A dog might be afraid of people when it sees someone physically present, but only people can respond emotionally and behaviorally to verbal descriptions and internal images of others - Language can make us neurotic, we are responding with fear, anxiety, etc. - to nothing really

Know the 5 levels of the linguistic hierarchy (i.e., know the difference between phonemes, morphemes, phrases, sentences, grammar, and pragmatics).

- Phonemes (Basic, distinct sounds) - Morphemes (smallest units of meaning) Phrases (groups of words that have meaning): - Sentences (sequence of words that express a thought, intention, or question) - Grammar (a system of rules for combining morphemes, phrases, and sentences) - Pragmatics (the purpose and social intent of a linguistic act)

Define the following three properties of language: semanticity, generativity, and displacement.

- Semanticity - the property of language that accounts for the communication of meaning - Generativity - the property of language that accounts for the capacity to use a limited number of words to produce an infinite variety of expressions - Displacement - the property of language that accounts for the capacity to communicate about matters that are not in the here-and-now

What is the name of the recent (post-Skinner) behavioral theory of language?

- Stephen C. Hayes - RFT follows Skinner's view that language is operant behavior, but the development of language is somewhat more complex than Skinner thought - RFT still denies mental entities as casual agents - According to RFT, only humans possess language - With the development of language, arbitrary noises and markings can come to have a profound influence on our psychological life - Words become associated with other words and with images and external stimuli in complex patterns called Relational Frames

What are the universally recognized facial expressions (of emotions) among humans?

- Universal facial signals of emotion: happiness, surprise, fear, sadness, anger, and disgust - These are unlearned and rigid. They appear to be cross-culturally universal

What is Whorf's linguistic determinism hypothesis? Why was this a threat to our understanding of science?

- Whorf proposed that language determines the way we think. In other words, our thoughts are relative to our language - This linguistic influence goes all the way down to perception. People with different languages see the world differently - Science aims to be empirical (i.e., based on seeing) - Science aims to be objective (i.e., universally agreed upon) - But, IF LD is true, then observation is relative to linguistic cultures, and therefore science cannot provide universal knowledge, but only relative knowledge

What is telegraphic speech?

2 years - Telegraphic Speech (2-3 word sentences, "Nanny go sleep."); sentences follow rules of syntax

At what age is language basically mastered?

4 years - Adult-like speech, grammar fairly well mastered

What is the difference between semantics and syntax in grammar?

Grammar: A system of rules that enables us to communicate and understand others - Semantics - rules we use to derive meaning from morphemes, words and sentences - Syntax - rules used to order words into sensible sentences