Chapter 12 Language and Thought

Theories on the Evolution of Language Language evolved because it was a social adaptation that solved the problem of cooperative communication. Language evolved because it served a primarily social function. A three-stage cognitive transformation of language evolved, from prelanguage through protolanguage and speech to reading and writing.

Brain Organization and Language In both chimpanzees and humans, the planum temporale is larger in the left than in the right hemisphere.

Language Areas of the Brain

Aphasia A person with Wernicke's aphasia can hear but cannot understand words. A person with Broca's aphasia can understand language, but has difficulty producing fluent language. This picture was shown to aphasia patients. People with Broca’s aphasia had trouble generating phrases and sentences with which to describe the action in the picture. People with Wernicke’s aphasia could generate words, but could not explain what was going on.

Human and Animal Language Compared human languageanimal language communicates through pheromones communicates through visual displays communicates through vocalizations language is a window to the mind restricted to stimulus-response sequences

Language Acquisition Crying Cooing Babbling Referential Pointing One-word Utterances Telegraphic speech

Phonemes, Morphemes, and Words Language is formed from meaningless sounds, called phonemes, which can be combined into meaningful syllables, called morphemes, and words.

Chomsky versus Skinner: The Language Debate Chomsky –Chomsky proposed a theory of universal grammar: that humans have an innate, species-specific language ability that allows them to speak in a grammatically correct manner. –Chomsky argued for the existence of a language acquisition device (LAD), a species-specific brain mechanism that allows a child to acquire language rapidly. Skinner and behaviorists –Behaviorists argued that those sounds that are closest to the sounds of the parent's language are reinforced. –Skinner argued that stimulus generalization and discrimination explain the learning of words. –Children tend to imitate what they hear, and a child's first words are a result of generalized imitation.

Motherese Child-directed speech (motherese) holds the child's attention better than adult-directed language.

Critical Period for Language Acquisition The human capacity for language is present only in early childhood and can be expressed only in environments that support language: Infancy through 6 years of age Given minimal language environments, most children about 6 years of age and under can readily learn to speak. Between age 6 and puberty The brain appears to lose its plasticity for language. Beyond puberty Language that is lost to brain injury can rarely be recovered.

Mental Images In this task, the problem is to determine whether the two objects in each pair are identical. Solving the problem requires a person to mentally rotate one object to align it with the other.

Mental Models Subjects were asked to make mental models of the likely path of a marble dropped through a coiled tube and the likely angle of water in a tilted glass. The solutions on the top are correct.

Cognitive Maps Humans and other animals make cognitive maps of their relative position in the environment and use those maps to solve problems of spatial relationships.

Heuristics and Algorithms Heuristic: a simple rule that is used to solve a problem. Algorithm: a systematic, exhaustive problem-solving strategy that is guaranteed to produce a correct solution.

Means-End Analyses The Tower of Hanoi puzzle asks you to move the stacked rings from peg A to peg C by moving the rings one at a time, and never placing a large ring over a smaller one.

Insight A chimp named Sultan had an insight that he could reach a bunch of bananas by stacking some boxes on top of one another and standing on them. Insight depends on prior learning, including imitation and modeling.

Functional Fixedness Given the materials show here--a candle, a book of matches, and a box of thumbtacks--how would you attach the candle to the wall? Failure to solve Duncker's candle problem is evidence of functional fixedness: a mental set involving rigid thinking about the functions of objects, which hinders the discovery of unique solutions to problems.

The Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis According to the linguistic relativity hypothesis, differences in language are responsible for differences in the way people think. –Example: the number of words Inuits have for snow

Luchin's Water Jar Problem In each problem, find the desired quantity (column 5) by filling and emptying some combination of the jars A, B, and C.

Deductive and Inductive Reasoning Deductive reasoning: a type of rational thinking in which specific instances are inferred from a general rule or principle. –Example": "If A is equal to B, and B is equal to C, then A is equal to C.” Inductive reasoning: a type of rational thinking in which particular instances are used to form a general rule. –Example: Children who encounter specific instances of the phrase "less than" and "more than" learn the general concepts of less and more.

Word Problems Making a sketch of a word problem often helps in its solution.