Cognitive Midterm Reviewer 2024 PDF

Memory Brain Areas Associated with Memory Imaging research and lesion studies have led scientists to conclude that certain areas of the brain may be more specialized for collecting, processing, and encoding specific types of memories. Activity in different lobes of the cerebral cortex have been li...

Memory Brain Areas Associated with Memory Imaging research and lesion studies have led scientists to conclude that certain areas of the brain may be more specialized for collecting, processing, and encoding specific types of memories. Activity in different lobes of the cerebral cortex have been linked to the formation of memories. Lobes of the cerebral cortex: While memory is created and stored throughout the brain, some regions have been shown to be associated with specific types of memory. The temporal lobe is important for sensory memory, while the frontal lobe is associated with both short- and long-term memory. The temporal and occipital lobes are associated with sensation and are thus involved in sensory memory. Sensory memory is the briefest form of memory, with no storage capability. Instead, it is a temporary “holding cell” for sensory information, capable of holding information for seconds at most before either passing it to short-term memory or letting it disappear. Three Stages of the Learning/Memory Process Psychologists distinguish between three necessary stages in the learning and memory process: encoding, storage, and retrieval (Melton, 1963) Encoding is defined as the initial learning of information. Storage refers to maintaining information over time; Retrieval is the ability to access information when you need it. If you meet someone for the first time at a party, you need to encode her name (Lyn Goff) while you associate her name with her face. Then you need to maintain the information over time. If you see her a week later, you need to recognize her face and have it serve as a cue to retrieve her name. Any successful act of remembering requires that all three stages be intact. However, two types of errors can also occur. Forgetting is one type: you see the person you met at the party and you cannot recall her name. The other error is misremembering (false recall or false recognition): you see someone who looks like Lyn Goff and call the person by that name (false recognition of the face). Or, you might see the real Lyn Goff, recognize her face, but then call her by the name of another woman you met at the party (mis- recall of her name). Encoding Memory encoding allows information to be converted into a construct that is stored in the brain indefinitely. Once it is encoded, it can be recalled from either short- or long-term memory. At a very basic level, memory encoding is like hitting “Save” on a computer file. Once a file is saved, it can be retrieved as long as the hard drive is undamaged. “Recall” refers to retrieving previously encoded information.  The process of encoding begins with perception, which is the identification, organization, and interpretation of any sensory information in order to understand it within the context of a particular environment. Stimuli are perceived by the senses, and related signals travel to the thalamus of the human brain, where they are synthesized into one experience. The hippocampus then analyzes this experience and decides if it is worth committing to long-term memory. Encoding is achieved using chemicals and electric impulses within the brain. Neural pathways, or connections between neurons (brain cells), are actually formed or strengthened through a process called long-term potentiation, which alters the flow of information within the brain. In other words, as a person experiences novel events or sensations, the brain “rewires” itself in order to store those new experiences in memory. Principles of Memory: The physical and mental environments are much too rich for you to encode all the happenings around you or the internal thoughts you have in response to them. So, an important first principle of encoding is that it is: 1. selective we attend to some events in our environment and we ignore others. 2. prolific; we are always encoding the events of our lives—attending to the world, trying to understand it. Normally this presents no problem, as our days are filled with routine occurrences, so we don’t need to pay attention to everything. But if something does happen that seems strange then we pay close attention and try to understand why we are seeing what we are seeing. 3. When vivid memories are tinged with strong emotional content, they often seem to leave a permanent mark on us. Public tragedies, such as terrorist attacks, often create vivid memories in those who witnessed them. But even those of us not directly involved in such events may have vivid memories of them, including memories of first hearing about them. The term flashbulb memory was originally coined by Brown and Kulik (1977) to describe this sort of vivid memory of finding out an important piece of news. The name refers to how some memories seem to be captured in the mind like a flash photograph; because of the distinctiveness and emotionality of the news, they seem to become permanently etched in the mind with exceptional clarity compared to other memories. That is, even though people may have great confidence in what they recall, their memories are not as accurate (e.g., what the actual colors were; where objects were truly placed) as they tend to imagine. Nonetheless, all other things being equal, distinctive and emotional events are well-remembered. Details do not leap perfectly from the world into a person’s mind. We might say that we went to a party and remember it, but what we remember is (at best) what we encoded. As noted, the process of encoding is selective, and in complex situations, relatively few of many possible details are noticed and encoded. The process of encoding always involves recoding— that is, taking the information from the form it is delivered to us and then converting it in a way that we can make sense of it.  Simon Reinhard is one of the best memory athletes in the world, holding both the first and second records for memorizing a shuffled deck of cards. This year, the German memory champ had victories in the UK, Singapore, Taiwan, and the US. Memory Storage Memories are not stored as exact replicas of experiences; instead, they are modified and reconstructed during retrieval and recall. Memory storage is achieved through the process of encoding, through either short- or long-term memory. During the process of memory encoding, information is filtered and modified for storage in short-term memory. Information in short-term memory deteriorates constantly; however, if the information is deemed important or useful, it is transferred to long-term memory for extended storage. Because long-term memories must be held for indefinite periods of time, they are stored, or consolidated, in a way that optimizes space for other memories. As a result, long-term memory can hold much more information than short-term memory, but it may not be immediately accessible. During the process of memory encoding, information is filtered and modified for storage in short-term memory. Information in short-term memory deteriorates constantly; however, if the information is deemed important or useful, it is transferred to long-term memory for extended storage. Because long-term memories must be held for indefinite periods of time, they are stored, or consolidated, in a way that optimizes space for other memories. As a result, long-term memory can hold much more information than short-term memory, but it may not be immediately accessible. The way long-term memories are stored is similar to a digital compression. This means that information is filed in a way that takes up the least amount of space, but in the process, details of the memory may be lost and not easily recovered. Because of this consolidation process, memories are more accurate the sooner they are retrieved after being stored. As the retention interval between encoding and retrieval of the memory lengthens, the accuracy of the memory decreases. Retrieval Memory retrieval, including recall and recognition, is the process of remembering information stored in long-term memory. Memory retrieval is the process of remembering information stored in long-term memory. Some theorists suggests that there are three stores of memory: sensory memory, long-term memory (LTM), and short-term memory (STM). Only data that is processed through STM and encoded into LTM can later be retrieved. There are two main types of memory retrieval: recall and recognition. In recall, the information must be retrieved from memories. In recognition, the presentation of a familiar outside stimulus provides a cue that the information has been seen before. A cue might be an object or a scene—any stimulus that reminds a person of something related. Recall may be assisted when retrieval cues are presented that enable the subject to quickly access the information in memory. three main types of recall: Serial Recall- recalling items or events in the order in which they occurred.  Serial recall helps a person to remember the order of events in his or her life. These memories appear to exist on a continuum on which more recent events are more easily recalled. When recalling serial items presented as a list (a common occurrence in memory studies), two effects tend to surface: the primacy effect and the recency effect. The primacy effect occurs when a participant remembers words from the beginning of a list better than the words from the middle or end. The theory behind this is that the participant has had more time to rehearse these words in working memory. The recency effect occurs when a participant remembers words from the end of a list more easily, possibly since they are still available in short-term memory. Free recall occurs when a person must recall many items but can recall them in any order. It is another commonly studied paradigm in memory research. Like serial recall, free recall is subject to the primacy and recency effects. Cued recall occurs when a person is given a list to remember and is then given cues during the testing phase to aid in the retrieval of memories. Cues can facilitate recovery of memories that have been “lost.” The stronger the link between the cue and the testing word, the better the participant will recall the words. Retrieval Failure Sometimes a person is not able to retrieve a memory that they have previously encoded. This can be due to decay, a natural process that occurs when neural connections decline, like an unused muscle. Occasionally, a person will experience a specific type of retrieval failure called tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon. This is the failure to retrieve a word from memory, combined with partial recall and the feeling that retrieval is imminent. People who experience this can often recall one or more features of the target word such as the first letter, words that sound similar, or words that have a similar meaning. While this process is not completely understood, there are two theories as to why it occurs. The first is the direct-access perspective, which states that the memory is not strong enough to retrieve but strong enough to trigger the state. The inferential perspective posits that the state occurs when the subject infers knowledge of the target word, but tries to piece together different clues about the word that are not accessible in memory. Sensory Memory Sensory memory is the capacity for briefly retaining the large amounts of information that people encounter daily” (Siegler and Alibali, 2005). There are three types of sensory memory: echoic memory, iconic memory, and haptic memory. Iconic memory retains information that is gathered through sight, echoic memory retains information gathered through auditory stimuli haptic memory retains data acquired through touch. Miller’s Magic Number A favorite pop-psychology factoid, repeated in textbooks and popular media, is that human short-term memory is limited to 7, plus or minus 2, items (called "chunks"). While there is some truth to it, this factoid offers little as a pedagogical tool beyond stressing the need to break problems into manageable chunks for novices. Chunking Chunking refers to a phenomenon whereby individuals group items together when performing a memory task to improve the performance of sequential memory. The word “Chunking,” a phenomenon whereby individuals group items together when performing a memory task, was initiated by (Miller, 1956). (Lindley,  1966) showed that groups produced by chunking have concept meanings to the participant. Therefore, this strategy makes it easier for an individual to maintain and recall information in memory. For example, when recalling a number sequence 01122014, if we group the numbers as 01, 12, and 2014, mnemonic meanings for each group as a day, a month and a year are created. Psychologists believe that chunking plays as an essential role in joining the elements of a memory trace together through a particular hierarchical memory structure (Tan and Soon, 1996; Edin et al., 2009). At a time when information theory started to be applied in psychology, Miller claimed that short-term memory is not rigid but open to strategies (Miller, 1956) such as chunking that can expand the memory capacity (Gobet et al., 2001). According to this information, it is possible to increase short-term memory capacity by effectively recoding a large amount of low-information-content items into a smaller number of high- informationcontent items (Cowan, 2001; Chen and Cowan, 2005). Therefore, when chunking is evident in recall tasks, one can expect a higher number of correct recalls. Patients with Alzheimer's disease typically experience working memory deficits; chunking is also an effective method to improve patients' verbal working memory performance (Huntley et al., 2011). Short-Term Memory Short-term memory (STM) is a temporary storage system that processes incoming sensory memory; sometimes it is called working memory. Short-term memory takes information from sensory memory and sometimes connects that memory to something already in long-term memory. Short-term memory is supported by brief patterns of neural communication that are dependent on regions of the prefrontal cortex, frontal lobe, and parietal lobe. The hippocampus is essential for the consolidation of information from short-term to long-term memory; however, it does not seem to store information itself, adding mystery to the question of where memories are stored. The hippocampus receives input from different parts of the cortex and sends output to various areas of the brain. The hippocampus may be involved in changing neural connections for at least three months after information is initially processed. This area is believed to be important for spatial and declarative (i.e., fact-based) memory as well. The difference between Working Memory and Short-Term Memory Many theorists use the concept of working memory (WM) to replace the concept of Short Term Memory. This new model of STM “shifted the focus from memory structure to memory processes and functions”. To put it another way, WM refers to both structures and processes used for storing and manipulating information. To sum up, STM refers to the ability to hold information in mind over a brief period of time. As concept of STM has expanded and it includes more than just the temporary storage of information, psychologists have created new terminology, working memory. The term WM is now commonly used to refer to a broader system that both stores information and manipulates it. However, STM and WM are sometimes used interchangeably. Components of Memory: Central Executive, Phonological Loop, Visuospatial Sketchpad The original model of Baddeley & Hitch was composed of three main components: the central executive which acts as a supervisory system and controls the flow of information from and to its slave systems: the phonological loop and the visuo-spatial sketchpad. The phonological loop stores verbal content, whereas the visuo-spatial sketchpad caters to visuo-spatial data. Both the slave systems only function as short-term storage centers. Baddeley and Hitch suggested the central executive, a system that controls the phonological loop (a subsystem for remembering phonological information such as language by constant refreshing through repetition in the loop), and the visuospatial sketch pad (a subsystem for storing visual information). A fourth component of Baddeley's model was added 25 years later to complement the central executive system. It was designated as episodic buffer. It is considered a limited-capacity system that provides  temporary storage of information by conjoining information from the subsidiary systems, and long-term memory, into a single episodic representation. It is still unclear whether it is a single system or more systems working together. Central executive's functions include attention and focusing, active inhibition of stimuli, planning and decision-making, sequencing, Central executive updating, maintenance and integration of information from phonological loop and visuospatial sketchpad. These functions also include communication with long-term memory and connections to language understanding and production centers. Episodic buffer Episodic buffer has the role of integrating the information from phonological loop and visuospatial sketchpad, but also from long-term memory. It serves as the storage component of central executive, or otherwise information integration wouldn't be possible. Phonological loop According to Baddeley, phonological loop consists of two components: a sound storage which lasts just a few seconds and an articulatory processor which maintains sound information in the storage by vocal or sub vocal repetition. Verbal information seems to be automatically processed by phonological loop and it also plays an important, maybe even key role in language learning and speech production. It can also help in memorizing information from the visuospatial sketchpad. (For example, repeating “A red car is on the lawn.”) Visuospatial sketchpad This construct according to Baddeley enables temporary storing, maintaining and manipulating of visuospatial information. It is important in spatial orientation and solving visuospatial problems. Studies have indicated that visuospatial sketchpad might actually be containing two different systems: one for spatial information and processes and the other for visual information and processes. Long –Term Memory Long-Term Memory Long-term memory is maintained by stable and permanent changes in neural connections spread throughout the brain. The processes of consolidating and storing long-term memories have been particularly associated with the prefrontal cortex, cerebrum,frontal lobe, and medial temporal lobe. However, the permanent storage of long-term memories after consolidation and encoding appears to  depend upon the connections between neurons, with more deeply processed memories having stronger connections. If information makes it past STM it may enter long-term memory (LTM), memory storage that can hold information for days, months, and years. The capacity of long-term memory is large, and there is no known limit to what we can remember. Although we may forget at least some information after we learn it, other things will stay with us forever. Long-term memory (LTM) is the continuous storage of information. Unlike short-term memory, the storage capacity of LTM has no limits. It encompasses all the things you can remember that happened more than just a few minutes ago to all of the things that you can remember that happened days, weeks, and years ago. Long-term memory is divided into two types: explicit and implicit. EXPLICIT MEMORY is defined as the intentional recollection of newly learned information, including facts and specific events acquired during the study phase. It involves the conscious retrieval of material recently introduced to memory stores, measured through tests like free recall and recognition. Explicit memory is assessed using measures in which the individual being tested must consciously attempt to remember the information. A recall memory test is a measure of explicit memory that involves bringing from memory information that has previously been remembered. We rely on our recall memory when we take an essay test, because the test requires us to generate previously remembered information. A multiple-choice test is an example of a recognition memory test, a measure of explicit memory that involves determining whether information has been seen or learned before. Episodic memory refers to the firsthand experiences that we have had (e.g., recollections of our high school graduation day or of the fantastic dinner we had in Tagaytay last year). Semantic memory refers to our knowledge of facts and concepts about the world (e.g., that one definition of the word “affect” is “the experience of feeling or emotion”).  Implicit memories is defined as the memory for information that is expressed unconsciously or automatically through improved performance on related tasks, without the need for explicit recall. These are memories that are not part of our consciousness. They are memories formed from behaviors. Implicit memory is also called non-declarative memory. While explicit memory consists of the things that we can consciously report that we know, implicit memory refers to knowledge that we cannot consciously access. However, implicit memory is nevertheless exceedingly important to us because it has a direct effect on our behavior. Implicit memory refers to the influence of experience on behavior, even if the individual is not aware of those influences. There are three general types of implicit memory: procedural memory, classical conditioning effects, and priming. o Procedural memory is a type of implicit memory. It stores information about how to do things. It refers to our often unexplainable knowledge of how to do things. It is the memory for skilled actions. (such as how to brush your teeth, how to drive a bike, how to swim) When we walk from one place to another, speak to another person in English, dial a cell phone, or play a video game, we are using procedural memory. Procedural memory allows us to perform complex tasks, even though we may not be able to explain to others how we do them. There is no way to tell someone how to ride a bicycle; a person has to learn by doing it. The idea of implicit memory helps explain how infants are able to learn. The ability to crawl, walk, and talk are procedures, and these skills are easily and efficiently developed while we are children despite the fact that as adults we have no conscious memory of having learned them. o Classical conditioning effects, in which we learn, often without effort or awareness, to associate neutral stimuli (such as a sound or a light) with another stimulus (such as food), which creates a naturally occurring response, such as enjoyment or salivation. The memory for the association is demonstrated when the conditioned stimulus (the sound) begins to create the same response as the unconditioned stimulus (the food) did before the learning. o Priming, or changes in behavior as a result of experiences that have happened frequently or recently. Priming refers both to the activation of knowledge (e.g., we can prime the concept of “kindness” by presenting people with words related to kindness) and to the influence of that activation on behavior (people who are primed with the concept of kindness may act more kindly). Forgetting While you might find yourself wondering why is my memory so bad, forgetting is part of life. In fact, people forget surprisingly fast. Did you know?... Research has found that approximately … 56% of information is forgotten within an hour, 66% after a day, and 75% after six days Two main explanations for memory loss have been proposed. On the one hand, decay theories consider that over time memory fades away. On the other hand, interference theories sustain that when similar memories are encoded, they become more prone to confusion. What is memory decay in psychology? In psychology, memory decay theory states that memories that are not frequently retrieved tend to fade naturally with time. This theory suggests that memories are like traces left on the brain that fade with time. Essentially, interference occurs when some information makes it difficult to recall similar material. Similar memories compete, causing some to be more difficult to remember or even forgotten entirely. Because of this, some long-term memories cannot be retrieved into short-term memory. Decay vs. Interference  Retroactive interference refers to new activities that interfere with retrieving the specific, older memory. Retroactive interference occurs when learning something new impairs our ability to retrieve information that was learned earlier. Retroactive interference refers to new activities that interfere with retrieving the specific, older memory. Retroactive interference occurs when learning something new impairs our ability to retrieve information that was learned earlier. Think of what you had for lunch yesterday—a pretty easy task. However, if you had to recall what you had for lunch 17 days ago, you may well fail. The 16 lunches you’ve had since that one have created retroactive interference. (i.e., the subsequent lunches) during the retention interval (i.e., the time between the lunch 17 days ago and now) (i.e., the lunch details from 17 days ago). But just as newer things can interfere with remembering older things, so can the opposite happen. Proactive interference is when past memories interfere with the encoding of new ones. Proactive interference occurs when earlier learning impairs our ability to encode information that we try to learn later. If you have ever studied a second language, often times the grammar and vocabulary of your native language will pop into your head, impairing your fluency in the foreign language. Causes of Forgetting ENCODING One very common and obvious reason why you cannot remember a piece of information is because you did not learn it in the first place. If you fail to encode information into memory, you are not going to remember it later on. Usually, encoding failures occur because we are distracted or are not paying attention to specific details. DECAY Another proposed reason why we forget is that memories fade, or decay, over time. It has been known since the pioneering work of Hermann Ebbinghaus (1885/1913) that as time passes, memories get harder to recall. RETRIEVAL FAILURES This type of forgetting may occur when we lack the appropriate retrieval cues for bringing the memory to mind; when a memory exists yet we temporarily cannot access it. INTERFERENCE When other memories are blocking or getting in the way of recalling the desired memory. Interference can be either proactive, in which old memories block the learning of new related memories, or retroactive, in which new memories block the retrieval of old related memories. Language & Cognition Language Development Language-a system of communication that uses symbols in a regular way to create meaning. Language gives us the ability to communicate our thoughts to others by talking, reading, and writing. Although other species have at least some ability to communicate, as far as we know, none of them have language. Components of Language: Phoneme: A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound that makes a meaningful difference in a language. The word “bit” has three phonemes. In spoken languages, phonemes are produced by the positions and movements of the vocal tract, including our lips, teeth, tongue, vocal cords, and throat, whereas in sign languages phonemes are defined by the shapes and movement of the hands. Infants are born able to detect all phonemes, but they lose their ability to do so as they get older; by 10 months of age a child’s ability to recognize phonemes becomes very similar to that of the adult speakers of the native language. Phonemes that were initially differentiated come to be treated as equivalent (Werker & Tees, 2002). Morpheme: Whereas phonemes are the smallest units of sound in language, a morpheme is a string of one or more phonemes that makes up the smallest units of meaning in a language. Some morphemes are prefixes and suffixes used to modify other words. For example, the syllable “re-” as in “rewrite” or “repay” means “to do again,” and the suffix “-est” as in “happiest” or “coolest” means “to the maximum.” Semantics: Semantics refers to the set of rules we use to obtain meaning from morphemes. For example, adding “ed” to the end of a verb makes it past tense. Syntax: Syntax is the set of rules of a language by which we construct sentences. Each language has a different syntax. The syntax of the English language requires that each sentence have a noun and a verb, each of which may be modified by adjectives and adverbs. Some syntaxes make use of the order in which words appear. For example, in English the meaning of the sentence “The man bites the dog” is different from “The dog bites the man.” Pragmatics: The social side of language is expressed through pragmatics, or how we communicate effectively and appropriately with others. Examples of pragmatics include turn-taking, staying on topic, volume and tone of voice, and appropriate eye contact. Contextual information: Lastly, words do not possess fixed meanings, but change their interpretation as a function of the context in which they are spoken. We use contextual information, the information surrounding language, to help us interpret it. Examples of contextual information include our knowledge and nonverbal expressions, such as facial expressions, postures, and gestures. Misunderstandings can easily arise if people are not attentive to contextual information or if some of it is missing, such as it may be in newspaper headlines or in text messages. Language Developmental Progression An important aspect of cognitive development is language acquisition. The order in which children learn language structures is consistent across children and cultures (Hatch, 1983). Starting before birth, babies begin to develop language and communication skills. At birth, babies recognize their mother’s voice and can discriminate between the language(s) spoken by their mothers and foreign languages, and they show preferences for faces that are moving in synchrony with audible language (Blossom & Morgan, 2006; Pickens et al., 1994; Spelke & Cortelyou, 1981). Do newborns communicate? Of course, they do. They do not, however, communicate with the use of oral language. Instead, they communicate their thoughts and needs with body posture (being relaxed or still), gestures, cries, and facial expressions. A person who spends adequate time with an infant can learn which cries indicate pain and which ones indicate hunger, discomfort, or frustration. Cooing Intentional vocalizations. In terms of producing spoken language, babies begin to coo almost immediately. Cooing is a one-syllable combination of a consonant and a vowel sound (e.g., coo or ba). Interestingly, babies replicate sounds from their own languages. These gurgling, musical vocalizations can serve as a source of entertainment to an infant who has been laid down for a nap or seated in a carrier on a car ride. Cooing serves as practice for vocalization, as well as the infant hears the sound of his or her own voice and tries to repeat sounds that are entertaining. Infants also begin to learn the pace and pause of conversation as they alternate their vocalization with that of someone else and then take their turn again when the other person’s vocalization has stopped. At about four to six months of age, infants begin making even more elaborate vocalizations that include the sounds required for any language. Guttural sounds, clicks, consonants, and vowel sounds stand ready to equip the child with the ability to repeat whatever sounds are characteristic of the language heard. Eventually, these sounds will no longer be used as the infant grows more accustomed to a particular language. Babbling At about 7 months, infants begin babbling, engaging in intentional vocalizations that lack specific meaning and comprise a consonant-vowel repeated sequence, such as ma-ma-ma, da-da-da. Children babble as practice in creating specific sounds, and by the time they are a 1 year old, the babbling uses primarily the sounds of the language that they are learning. Gesturing. Children communicate information through gesturing long before they speak, and there is some evidence that gesture usage predicts subsequent language development Because gesturing seems to be easier than vocalization for some toddlers, sign language is sometimes taught to enhance an infant’s ability to communicate by making use of the ease of gesturing. Understanding. At around ten months of age, the infant can understand more than he or she can say, which is referred to as receptive language. You may have experienced this phenomenon as well if you have ever tried to learn a second language. You may have been able to follow a conversation more easily than contribute to it. One of the first words that children understand is their own name, usually by about 6 months, followed by commonly used words like “bottle,” “mama,” and “doggie” by 10 to 12 months. Infants shake their head “no” around 6–9 months, and they respond to verbal requests to do things like “wave bye-bye” or “blow a kiss” around 9–12 months. Children also use contextual information, particularly the cues that parents provide, to help them learn language. Children learn that people are usually referring to things that they are looking at when they are speaking (Baldwin, 1993), and that that the speaker’s emotional expressions are related to the content of their speech. Holophrasic speech. Children begin using their first words at about 12 or 13 months of age and may use partial words to convey thoughts at even younger ages. These one-word expressions are referred to as holophrasic speech. For example, the child may say “ju” for the word “juice” and use this sound when referring to a bottle. The listener must interpret the meaning of the holophrase, and when this is someone who has spent time with the child, interpretation is not too difficult. But someone who has not been around  the child will have trouble knowing what is meant. Imagine the parent who to a friend exclaims, “Ezra’s talking all the time now!” The friend hears only “ju ga da” to which the parent explains means, “I want some milk when I go with Daddy.” Language Errors: The early utterances of children contain many errors, for instance, confusing /b/ and /d/, or /c/ and /z/. The words children create are often simplified, in part because they are not yet able to make the more complex sounds of the real language. Children may say “keekee” for kitty, “nana” for banana, and “vesketti” for spaghetti because it is easier. Often these early words are accompanied by gestures that may also be easier to produce than the words themselves. Children’s pronunciations become increasingly accurate between 1 and 3 years, but some problems may persist until school age. First words and cultural influences First words and cultural influences. If the child is using English, first words tend to be nouns. The child labels objects such as cup, ball, or other items that they regularly interact with. In a verb-friendly language such as Chinese, however, children may learn more verbs. This may also be due to the different emphasis given to objects based on culture. Chinese children may be taught to notice action and relationships between objects, while children from the United States may be taught to name an object and its qualities (color, texture, size, etc.) Two-word sentences and telegraphic (text message) speech. By the time they become toddlers, children have a vocabulary of about 50-200 words and begin putting those words together in telegraphic speech, such as “baby bye-bye” or “doggie pretty”. Words needed to convey messages are spoken, but the articles and other parts of speech necessary for grammatical correctness are not yet used. These expressions sound like a telegraph, or perhaps a better analogy today would be that they read like a text message. Telegraphic speech/text message speech occurs when unnecessary words are not used. “Give baby ball” is used rather than “Give the baby the ball.” Infant-directed speech Infant-directed speech. Why is a horse a “horsie”? Have you ever wondered why adults tend to use “baby talk” or that sing-song type of intonation and exaggeration used when talking to children? This represents a universal tendency and is known as infant-directed speech. It involves exaggerating the vowel and consonant sounds, using a high-pitched voice, and delivering the phrase with great facial expression Infants are frequently more attuned to the tone of voice of the person speaking than to the content of the words themselves and are aware of the target of speech. Werker, Pegg, and McLeod (1994) found that infants listened longer to a woman who was speaking to a baby than to a woman who was speaking to another adult. Adults may use this form of speech in order to clearly articulate the sounds of a word so that the child can hear the sounds involved. It may also be because when this type of speech is used, the infant pays more attention to the speaker and this sets up a pattern of interaction in which the speaker and listener are in tune with one another. Theories of Language Development Nativism. The linguist Noam Chomsky is a believer in the nature approach to language, arguing that human brains contain a language acquisition device (LAD) that includes a universal grammar that underlies all human language. According to this approach, each of the many languages spoken around the world (there are between 6,000 and 8,000) is an individual example of the same underlying set of procedures that are hardwired into human brains. Chomsky’s account proposes that children are born with a knowledge of general rules of syntax that determine how sentences are constructed. Language develops as long as the infant is exposed to it. No teaching, training, or reinforcement is required for language to develop. Chomsky differentiates between the deep structure of an idea; that is, how the idea is represented in the fundamental universal grammar that is common to all languages, and the surface structure of the idea or how it is expressed in any one language. Once we hear or express a thought in surface structure, we generally forget exactly how it happened. Brain areas for language For the 90% of people who are right-handed, language is stored and controlled by the left cerebral cortex, although for some left-handers this pattern is reversed. Broca’s area, an area in front of the left hemisphere near the motor cortex, is responsible for language production.This area was first localized in the 1860s by the French physician Paul Broca, who studied patients with lesions to various parts of the brain. Wernicke’s area, an area of the brain next to the auditory cortex, is responsible for language comprehension. critical period for learning language Is there a critical period for learning language? Psychologists believe there is a critical period, a time in which learning can easily occur, for language. This critical period appears to be between infancy and puberty (Lenneberg, 1967; Penfield & Roberts, 1959), but isolating the exact timeline has been elusive. Children who are not exposed to language early in their lives will likely never grasp the grammatical and communication nuances of language. Case studies, including Victor the “Wild Child,” who was abandoned as a baby in 18th century France and not discovered until he was 12, and Genie, a child whose parents kept her locked away from 18 months until 13 years of age, are two examples of children who were deprived of language. Both children made some progress in socialization after they were rescued, but neither of them ever developed a working understanding of language. Yet, such case studies are fraught with many confounds. How much did the years of social isolation and malnutrition contribute to their problems in language development? Learning theory Perhaps the most straightforward explanation of language development is that it occurs through the principles of learning, including association and reinforcement (Skinner, 1953). Bandura (1977) described the importance of observation and imitation of others in learning language. There must be at least some truth to the idea that language is learned through environmental interactions or nurture. Children learn the language that they hear spoken around them rather than some other language. Also supporting this idea is the gradual improvement in language skills over time. It seems that children modify their language through imitation and reinforcement, such as parental praise and being understood. Between the ages of 18 months and 5 years, children learn up to 10 new words every day (Anglin, 1993). More importantly, language is more generative than it is imitative. Language is not a predefined set of ideas and sentences that we choose when we need them, but rather a system of rules and procedures that allows us to create an infinite number of statements, thoughts, and ideas, including those that have never previously occurred. When a child says that she “swimmed” in the pool, for instance, she is showing generativity. No adult speaker of English would ever say “swimmed,” yet it is easily generated from the normal system of producing language. Social pragmatics Another view emphasizes the very social nature of human language. Language from this view is not only a cognitive skill, but also a social one. Language is a tool humans use to communicate, connect to, influence, and inform others. Most of all, language comes out of a need to cooperate. The social nature of language has been demonstrated by a number of studies showing that children use several pre-linguistic skills (such as pointing and other gestures) to communicate not only their own needs, but what others may need. So, a child watching her mother search for an object may point to the object to help her mother find it. Eighteen-month to 30-month-olds have been shown to make linguistic repairs when it is clear that another person does not understand them