Chapter 7: Language and thought Slides prepared by Randall E. Osborne, Texas State University-San Marcos, adapted by Dr Mark Forshaw, Staffordshire University, UK 1 Language and Communication: Nothing’s More Personal 2 Language and Communication The complex structure of human language: – phoneme – morpheme – phonological rules – grammar – morphological rules – syntactical rules 3 Units of Language 4 Syntactical Rules 5 Language Development • At birth - infants can distinguish all contrasting sounds in human language • 6 months - can only distinguish those sounds in language being spoken around them • 4-6 months - begin to babble speech sounds 6 Language Milestones 7 Language Milestones • Fast mapping – Children can ‘glue’ a word onto a concept after hearing it just once • Telegraphic speech – Content words only but can convey basic meaning • Overgeneralisations – “you eated”, “we ranned”, “he singed all day” 8 Theories of Language Development • Behaviourist explanations – principles of operant conditioning – learn to talk through reinforcement, shaping, and extinction – limits: (1) parents don’t spend much time teaching grammar, (2) children generate more grammatical sentences than they hear, (3) errors children make do not duplicate what they hear 9 Theories of Language Development • Nativist explanations – language acquisition device (LAD) – “wired” to learn grammar – Those with genetic dysphasia cannot grasp grammar – e.g. the “wug” test 10 Theories of Language Development • Interactionist explanations – how does innate, biological capacity for language combine with environmental experience? – parents tailor verbal interactions with children in ways that simplify language acquisition – deaf children NOT taught sign language often develop own system of hand signals 11 Theories of Language Development • Neurological specialisation – Broca’s area (involved in language production) – Wernicke’s area (involved in language comprehension) – Aphasia 12 Theories of Language Development • Can other species learn human language? • Washoe taught sign language – learned 160 words – could construct simple sentences – novel constructions – apes can learn signs for concepts they understand (not abstract) 13 Thought and Language • How are thought and language related? • Linguistic relativity hypothesis – Inuit: many different words for “snow” is not true • Language and colour processing • Language and views of time – forward and backward (time is horizontal) – up and down (time is vertical) 14 Concepts and Categories: How We Think 15 Concepts and Categories • Concept – fundamental to our ability to think • Category-specific deficits – damage to front part of left temporal lobe— difficulty identifying humans – damage to lower left temporal lobe—trouble identifying animals – damage where temporal and occipital lobes meet —trouble naming tools 16 Concepts and Categories • Nature of human concepts • Early theories focused on rules • Later theories focused on “family resemblance” 17 Concepts and Categories • Rosch’s Prototype theory – “best” example defines the set – Typicality enables categorisation • Medin & Schaffer’s Exemplar theory – We compare new examples with other stored examples, and categorise accordingly. – Explains how we can identify specific dogs, not just prototypical dogs… 18 Judging, Valuing, and Deciding: Sometimes We’re Logical, Sometimes Not 19 Decision making • Rational choice theory – likelihood of something happening multiplied by perceived value of that outcome • Heuristics • Algorithms 20 Heuristics • Availability bias • Conjunction fallacy – decreasing probability of all things being true of person • Representativeness heuristic • Framing effects • Sunk-cost fallacy 21 Decision making • Prospect theory – people simplify available information – choose prospect that offers best value (personal) • Frequency format hypothesis – Our minds evolved to notice how often things occur, not how likely they are • Decision making and the brain – Prefrontal lobe damage can create inability to judge risk or decide importance of tasks 22 Problem Solving: Working It Out 23 Problem Solving • Two major types of problems that complicate our lives: – ill-defined problem (no clear goal or solution) – well-defined problem • Means-ends analysis • Analogical problem solving 24 Creativity and Insight • Analogical problem solving does not work for all problems • Research suggests insight is actually incremental • Functional fixedness 25 Creativity and Insight Word Association 26 Creativity and Insight Answers Solutions: • Card, paper, pawn, carpet, ball, bar 27 Transforming Information: How We Reach Conclusions 28 Reaching Conclusions • Reasoning – practical reasoning – theoretical reasoning • Belief bias – focus on conclusions instead of arguments – does the answer ‘ring true’? • Syllogistic reasoning – does conclusion follow from statements we assume to be true? 29