ch 9 language and thought

Cognition and Language

• Cognition is the mental process of acquiring knowledge through thought, experience, and senses. It's an independent ability.
• Language is a system for communicating using signals combined grammatically to convey meaning.
• Grammar is a set of rules defining how language units combine meaningfully.

Language Structure

• Phonemes are the smallest speech sounds.
• Phonological rules combine phonemes for speech.
• Morphemes are meaningful language units (phonemes combined).
• Morphological rules combine morphemes into words.
• Content morphemes represent things and events (e.g., cat, dog, take).
• Function morphemes are abstract concepts, or grammatical markers (e.g., -s, and, but, when).
• Syntactic rules combine words into phrases and sentences.

Language Development

• Infants distinguish all sounds at birth; by 6 months, only those of their language.
• Early speech includes cooing, babbling (meaningless combinations of vowels and consonants).
• Milestones include first words (around 1 year), a vocabulary growing to 10,000 words by age five, and eventually, mastery of grammatical rules.
• Language learning is rapid, using fast mapping and telegraphic speech.

Theories of Language Development

• Behaviorist theory (Skinner): language acquired through reinforcement.
• Nativist theory (Chomsky): innate language acquisition device with universal grammar.
• Interactionalist theory: emphasizes innate abilities alongside social interaction in learning.
• Genetic dysphasia: difficulty learning grammar despite normal intelligence, possibly a single-gene issue.

Language and the Brain

• Language centers include Broca's area (speech production) and Wernicke's area (comprehension).
• Aphasia involves difficulty producing or comprehending language.
• The right hemisphere also plays a role in language, potentially recovering language ability after left-hemisphere damage in children.

Bilingualism

• Bilingualism may protect against Alzheimer's; no clear executive function advantage.
• No evidence of slowed cognitive development in bilingual children.

Language in Apes

• Apes may show limited vocabulary, conceptual understanding, and grammar comprehension. Research can uncover further development with language use.

Linguistic Relativity

• Linguistic relativity (Sapir-Whorf hypothesis) proposes that language shapes thought.
• Limited support exists; language influences color processing and categorization.
• Codability—how easily something is described in a language—affects thinking.

Concepts

• Concepts categorize shared features of objects, events, and stimuli. They are crucial for thinking.
• Necessary conditions are essential for category membership; sufficient conditions prove membership.

Theories of Concepts

• Prototype theory proposes to compare to best examples of a category.
• Exemplar theory compares to specific examples.

Decision Making

• Rational choice theory posits decisions based on likelihood and value.
• Errors in decision making stem from biases like prospect theory (riskier choices to avoid loss).
• Frequency estimation is better than probability estimation and more commonly used.

Problem Solving

• Means-end analysis finds steps to reduce current state differences from goals.
• Analogical problem solving applies solutions from similar problems.
• Insight problems involve unconscious activation of relevant memories and knowledge.
• Functional fixedness limits thinking to typical object functions.

Reasoning and Logic

• Reasoning involves organizing information to reach conclusions.
• Logic is the system of rules for valid conclusions.
• Belief bias prioritizes believability over logic.
• Illusory truth effect: Frequent exposure to a statement increases perceived truth.
• Reasoning may be affected by pre-existing beliefs or familiarity (repetitive exposure).
• Truth and validity are distinct concepts; one can have a valid argument with false premises and vice versa.