Cognitve Revolution
- started late 50s early 60s
- needed to incorporate mental processes
- comparison of the mind to a computer
Artificial Intellignence
- calculations
- sequence of operations
- language
- emotion
Concepts
- Classic Model
- all instances of a concpet share
defining properties
- Prototype Model
- comparing item with the most typical
item of that concept
Problem Solving
1) find and frame problem
2) develop strategies
- subgoals
- algorithms
- heuristics
3) evaluate solutions
4) rethink and redefine problem and solutions over time
Obstacles to Problem Solving
Fixation
Functional fixedness
Mental Set
Motivation and Emotion
Expertise
Knowledge base
Strategies
Deliberate Practive
Critical Thinking
Reasoning
Inductive v deductive
(relation to bottom up and top down
processing)
Decision Making
Confirmation Bias
Belief perserverance
Overconfidence Bias
Hindsight Bias
Availability Heuristic
Representativeness Heuristic
Language
Phonemes - basic units of sound that are used in spoken language
Morphemes - smallest meaningful units of language
(prefixes, suffixes, verb tense modifiers ....)
Semantics - actual meaning expressed in the words/sentence
Syntax - rules for how words are combined to produce meaning
Pragmatics - principles that underlie effective and appropriate communication
Receptive language - comprehension
- ability to understand language
- Wernicke's area - left temporal lobe
Productive language - expressive
- ability to communicate information to others
- Broca's area - left frontal lobe
Language and Cognition
- ? Is language dependent on thought or is thougth dependent
on language?
Whorf's idea that Language drives thinking
Inuit (Alaska) - number of words for
snow compared to English
Hopi - no word for past or future,
culture focuses on present
America - number of words for automobile
compared to 3rd word culture
If cognition drives language then individuals with low
cognitive skills should also have low
language skills
- generally this is true
Separation of Cognition and Language
- William's Syndrome
- deaf children with limited knowledge
of sign or written communication
Animal Language
- Evolutionary perspective - Chimpanzees closest relative
? can we teach Chimps to communicate
with Human Language
- see signaling
behavior
- Washoe and ASL
- learned association between sign and object
- could put signs together into "sentences"
"You drink"
"You me tickle"
- Chimps learned Symbols
- Can Chimps learn Syntax?
- Kanzi
- tried to train mother with lexicons ... mom did not learn well
- Kanzi learned lexicons WITHOUT formal training
Theories of Language acquizition
Learning - Skinner
Nativist - Chomsky
Interactionist
Critical Period for learning Language
- Wild Boy of Averyon
- Genie - deprived of contact with outside world until
13
Language Development
Newborns
Productive - crying
Receptive - Motherese
- Open eyes & look at speaker
- preference for mom's voice
over stranger
- preference for speech over
rhythmic sounds
- discrimination of consonant
sounds (1 month)
- respond differently to different
intonations
2 months
Productive - Cooing
Receptive - discrimination of vowel sounds
Harmonize
4-6 months
Productive - Babbling
7-8 months
Receptive - Turn taking - vocalize in response to vocalizations
- wait for pause to vocalize
8-10 months
Productive - gestures and nonverbal communication
- facial expressions, pointing
protodeclarative gestures - direct
attention to an object
protoimperative gestures - attempts
to get request granted
12 months
Productive - first word that has meaning
Holophrases -1 word = entire sentence
By evaluating the environment/situation, a person can infer what the child
means.
Single words can have different meanings in different situations.
Gestures and nonverbal communication added to convey meaning
Early words tend to be simplified versions of the word
baw = ball ghetti = spaghetti
unstressed syllables are deleted
ending syllable is replaced with a vowel sound
Early words tend to be primarily object names (family members,
animals, toys, pets, things that they can manipulate)
Children also learn action words (verbs), modifiers(adjectives), and social
expressions (please, thank you) to a lesser extent.
Initial word learning is slow
18-24 months
Productive -vocabulary spurt - naming explosion
- children learn 10-20 new words/week
Receptive - Fast mapping
- overextension
- underextension
Inferring New Word Meanings - Wugs
Object scope constraint
Mutually Exclusive
Syntactical Bootstrapping
Productive - Simple sentences - Telegraphic speech
- contains only crucial words (articles/prepositions left out)
2- 5 years
Productive - voice level appropriate so a listener can hear you
- consider what listener knows
- pronunciation improves
- sentences increase in complexity
- better understanding of syntax
- begin to use morphemes
- overregularization (goed, tooths)
Receptive - passive sentences misinterpreted
1) The girl hit the boy.
active sentence - children can identify who is doing the hitting and who
is being hit
2) The boy was hit by the girl.
passive sentence - children often identify the boy as doing the hitting
and the girl as being hit
3) The tree was hit by the boy.
passive sentence - but because a tree can not hit a person, children will
correctly identify the boy as doing the hitting and the tree as being the
object hit
6-14 years
Receptive - passive and conditional sentences understood
Productive/Receptive - morphological knowledge increases
- metalinguistic awareness
Language and Education
Bilingualism
- exposure before 3 - some crossover effects early in learning
- no significant problems with learning language
- exposure after 4 - approx 1 year to reach near native ability
- early learning of 2nd language may actually increase metalinguistic skillsbecause
of translation between 2 languages
- Language scores and proper pronounciation fo accent sharply decreased
if language learning occurred after 10-12 years of age