1. Topics Terms/Ideas Language phonemes, morphemes
grammar (syntax, semantics)
Broca’s aphasia, Wernicke’s aphasia
Thinking
linguistic relativity (Whorf)
algorithms vs. heuristics
heuristics: availability, representativeness, anchor & adjust
confirmation bias
Important People
Hermann Ebbinghaus
Elizabeth Loftus
Benjamin Whorf
Noam Chomsky

2. THOUGHT/LANGUAGE (17 most frequent concepts in 33 textbooks)
Heuristic 100
Algorithm 91
Prototype 88
Concept 85
Morpheme 82
Phoneme 82
Syntax
Insight (learning) 76
Mental set
Availability heuristic 73
Representativeness heuristic
Semantics
Language
Confirmation bias
Telegraphic speech 52
Cognition

3. Chapter 8: Language and Thought

4. The 19th Century focus was on the mind
But, introspective methods did not yield reliable results
Behaviorists then focused on overt responses because they were empirically more sound
But, theorists argued this didn’t provide a complete picture of human functioning

5. The Cognitive Revolution
Renegade theorists studied cognition
Cognition = the mental processes involved in acquiring knowledge

6. Empirical study of cognition: 1956 conference
Simon and Newell – first computer program simulating human problem solving
Chomsky: new model of language
Miller – 7 plus or minus two capacity of STMemory

7. Cognitive science has grown into a robust, interdisciplinary field focusing on language, problem solving, decision-making, and reasoning.

8. Language: Turning Thoughts into Words
symbols convey meaning, plus rules for combining those symbols can be used to generate an infinite variety of messages.
Properties of Language
Symbolic
Semantic
Generative
Structured

9. The Hierarchical Structure of Language
Phonemes = smallest speech units
100 possible, English uses about 40
Morphemes = smallest unit of meaning
50,000 in English, including root words, prefixes, suffixes
Semantics = meaning of words and word combinations
Objects and actions to which words refer
Syntax = a system of rules for arranging words into sentences
Different rules for different languages

10. Language Development: Milestones

11. Initial vocalizations similar across languages
Crying, cooing, babbling
6 months – babbling sounds begin to resemble surrounding language

12. 1 year – first word similar cross-culturally
very young children may actually understand (receptive language) more language than they can produce (expressive language)

13. 18 - 24 months – sudden vocabulary spurt - Some 2-year- olds learn as many as 20 new words a week.
fast mapping: the process by which children map a word onto an underlying concept after only one exposure

14. Overextensions: a child incorrectly uses a word to describe a wider set of objects or actions than it is meant to…using the word ball for anything round.

15. Underextensions: a child incorrectly uses a word to describe a narrower set of objects or actions than it is meant to…using the word doll only to refer to a favorite doll

16. End of second year: combine words to produce meaningful sentences
Telegraphic speech: less critical words omitted…ex., “Give doll,"
Scientists use MLU or Mean Length of Utterance to study language of young children (average length of their spoken statements, measured in morphemes)

17. End of third year – complex ideas, plural, past tense
Overregularization: generalizing grammatical rules incorrectly to irregular cases where they do not apply
“he goed home,” for example.

18. by the first grade the average child has a vocabulary of approx
by the first grade the average child has a vocabulary of approx. 10,000 words, by the 5th grade, 40,000

19. Bilingualism: Learning More Than One Language
Research findings:
Smaller vocabularies in one language, combined vocabularies average
Higher scores for middle-class bilingual subjects on cognitive flexibility, analytical reasoning, selective attention, and metalinguistic awareness

20. Language Development When Do We Learn Language?

21. Language Development When Do We Learn Language?

22. Language Development When Do We Learn Language?

23. Language Development When Do We Learn Language?

24. Language Development When Do We Learn Language?

25. Language Development When Do We Learn Language?

26. Bilingualism: Learning More Than One Language
Research findings:
Slight disadvantage in terms of language processing speed
2nd languages more easily acquired early in life
Greater acculturation facilitates acquisition

27. Overview of Typical Language Development

28. Age and second language learning

29. Can Animals Develop Language?
Researchers have attempted to teach language to a variety of animals, but the most success has been shown with chimpanzees.
One of the biggest problems is that the vocal apparatus is not the same.
Researchers, therefore, began to use ASL with chimpanzees.

30. The Bottlenose Dolphin is the most intelligent species of dolphins, with a very large brain and cerebral cortex.
They have the ability to think, plan, solve problems, comprehend ideas, and learn from previous experience.
Their frontal lobe is 40% larger than humans. They use echolocation to hunt prey, and certain forms of squeaks and whistles to communicate with one another.

31. The African gray parrot can imitate human speech, associate words with meaning and form small sentences.
Alex could identify more than fifty objects, seven colors, five shapes, numeric values to six, and the difference between large and small, and above and below. He told his handlers "to go away" when he became bored.
An African Gray Parrot in Japan got lost and wounded, was brought to an animal hospital, and told the vet "I'm Mr. Yosuke Nakamura." He provided a complete home address, and was returned.

32. Allen and Beatrice Gardner (1969) were successful at teaching Washoe, a chimpanzee, to use 160 words in ASL, and construct simple sentences.
Sue Savage-Rumbaugh have trained Kanzi, a Bonobo pygmy chimpanzee to use geometric symbols that represent words on a computer monitor keyboard. Kanzi has taught his younger sister much that he learned. His receptive language is more developed, and can carry out 72% of 660 requests

33. Theories of Language Acquisition
Behaviorist: Skinner
children acquire language through conditioning and imitation.
learning of specific verbal responses

34. Theories of Language Acquisition
Nativist: Chomsky
humans have an innate capacity to learn the rules of language
Language Acquisition Device (LAD) facilitates language development.
learning the rules of language

35. Interactionist Theories
biology and experience both make important contributions.
the cognitive and the social communication theories are prominent
language development is an important aspect of cognitive development
interpersonal communication has functional value and emphasizes the social context in which language evolves.

36. Emergentist Theory of Language Acquisition
neural circuits supporting language are not prewired, but rather emerge gradually in response to learning experiences via incremental changes in connectionist networks.

37. Interactionist theories of language acquisition

38. Whorf’s hypothesis: Linguistic Relativity Linguistic Determinism
Language determines the way we think

39. Language ad Thought
The linguistic relativity hypothesis, or Whorfian hypothesis, argues that differences among languages cause differences in the thoughts of their speakers.
Research does not support Whorf’s contention that language determines perception and the structure of thought
Research does support the idea that language can influence perception and thought.

40. Broca’s aphasia

41. Wernicke’s aphasia