Chapter 9: Language, thought, and intelligence
§ Learning objectives
1. Describe the basic characteristics of language
2. Explain the milestones of language development
3. Compare the behaviorist, nativist, and interactionist theories of language development
4. Describe the language centers of the brain
Language = a system for communicating with others using signals that are combined according to
rules of grammar and that convey meaning
Exchanging information about the world
Coordinating group action
Forming strong social bonds
Communication using symbols
Expressing wide range of ideas and concepts (including intangible things) which distinguishes
human language from simpler signaling systems
o Grammar = a set of rules that specify how the units of language can be combined to
produce meaningful messages
Phonemes = the smallest units of speech that distinguish one word from
another
Differ in how they are produced
Serve the same function
Does not equal meaning or letter(s)
Phonological rules = a set of rules that indicate how phonemes can
be combined to form words
When violated, the resulting speech sounds odd
Motherese = baby-talk: exaggerating phonemes
Morphemes = the smallest meaningful units of language
Adding 's' to dog changes it to 'dogs' which also changes the meaning
of the word: 's' functions as a morpheme in this context
Morphological rules = a set of rules that indicate how morphemes
can be combined to form words
Content morphemes refer to things and events (cat, dog,
take)
Function morphemes serve grammatical functions (and, or,
but) which make the human language grammatically
complex enough to permit us to express abstract ideas
Syntactic rules = a set of rules that indicate how words can be combined to
form phrases and sentences
Every sentence must contain one or more nouns, which may be
combined with adjectives or articles to create noun phrases, and one
or more verbs, which may be combined with adverbs or articles to
create verb phrases
Sentence: dogs bark
Not a sentence: the big gray dog over by the building
Telegraphic speech = speech that is devoid of function morphemes and
consists mostly of content words ('more milk', 'throw ball') (tend to be
grammatical because the words are ordered in a manner consistent with the
syntactic rules of the language)
Discourse = a complete story or tekst (consisting of sentences)
Characteristics of language development
1. Children learn language at a rapid rate: learning 6-7 new words per day
2. Children make few errors while learning to speak
, o Errors that are made are a result from overregularizing grammatical rules they've
learned
3. Children understand language better than they speak it
Language milestones
Orderly progression of language development: phonemes -> telegraphic speech -> simple sentences
including function morphemes
Could be due to general cognitive development whereby infants begin with phonemes
because their short-term memories are so limited that initially they can hold in mind only a
word or two
Could be due to experience with a specific language (this explanation was concluded:
language development depends on amount of exposure to that language in which the
orderly progression is the same despite age)
Theories of language development
1. Behaviorist (B. F. Skinner)
o Language learning is done through reinforcement, shaping, extinction, and the other
basic principles of operant conditioning
Vocalizations that are not reinforced gradually diminish while those that are
reinforced remain in the repertoire (reinforcement)
Imitation of speech patterns that the children hear (shaping)
2. Nativist (Chomsky)
o Nativist theory = the view that language development is best explained as an innate,
biological capacity
Universal grammar = a collection of processes that facilitate language
learning (in the human brain)
o Language processes naturally emerge as the infant matures, provided the infant
receives adequate input to maintain the acquisition process
Language capacity can be somewhat distinct from other mental capacities
Language can be fully acquired only during a restricted period of
development
3. Interactionist
o Humans are born with an innate ability to acquire language however, social
interactions play a crucial role in language learning
Mix of nativism and experience
Language centers of the brain
1. Broca's area
o Left frontal cortex
o Involved in the production of the sequential patterns in vocal and sign language
, o Broca's aphasia: can understand language well but struggle with speech production
Aphasia = difficulty in producing or comprehending language
Damage extends the surface of the left frontal cortex deeper into the
left hemisphere
Result from external factors (accident / violence)
Result from internal factors (stroke / diseases)
2. Wernicke's area
o Left temporal cortex
o Involved in language comprehension (spoken and/or
signed)
o Wernicke's aphasia: can produce grammatical speech
but it tends to be meaningless
Arcuate fasciculus connects the broca and wernicke's area
3. Right cerebral hemisphere
o Involved in language processing (subtle aspects:
drawing inferences from tekst and understanding
humor)
4. Gray matter in a part of the left parietal lobe
o Involved in language
o Denser in bilingual individuals
Density is most pronounced in those who are most proficient in using their
second language
Bilingual individuals tend to have a later onset of Alzheimer's disease
because they have built up a greater amount of back-up cognitive ability
§ Learning objectives
1. Identify why concepts are fundamental to our ability to think
2. Compare the prototype and exemplar theories of concepts
3. Describe the involvement of the brain in organizing and processing concepts
Concept = a mental representation that groups or categorizes shared features of related objects,
events, or other stimuli
Prototype theory = the concept that we classify new objects by comparing them to the 'best'
or 'most typical' member (the prototype) of a category
o We classify new objects by comparing them to the prototype member of a category
o Visual cortex is involved in forming prototypes
Prototype formation involves image processing (holistic activity)
Exemplar theory = the concept that we make category judgments by comparing a new
instance with stored memories of other instances of the category
o We classify new objects by comparing them with all category members
o Accounts better for certain aspects of categorization
o Prefrontal cortex and basal ganglia are involved in learning exemplars
Exemplar-based learning involves analysis and decision making
Category-specific deficit = a neurological syndrome characterized by an inability to recognize
objects that belong to a particular category, even when the ability to recognize objects
outside the category is undisturbed
o Does not depend on visual experience
o Touch is one way that blind individuals develop category-specific brain responses
o Damage to the front part of the left temporal lobe: difficulty identifying humans
o Damage to the lower left temporal lobe: difficulty identifying animals
o Damage to region where the temporal lobe meets the occipital and parietal lobes:
impairs the ability to retrieve names of tools
, § Learning objectives
1. Explain why people sometimes fail to make rational decisions
2. Summarize the ideas underlying prospect theory
3. Describe the role of the brain in decision making
Variety of decision making
Rational choice theory = the classical view that we make decisions by determining how likely
something is to happen, judging the value of the outcome, and then multiplying the two
People are quite good at estimating frequency but people perform poorly on tasks that
require us to think in terms of probabilities
o Availability heuristic = a rule of thumb that items that are more readily available in
memory are judged as having occurred more frequently
Memory strength and frequency of occurrence are directly related:
frequently occurring items are remembered more easily therefore you
conclude that items for which you have better memory must also have been
more frequent
Better memory is due to greater familiarity (not greater frequency!)
Heuristic = a fast and efficient strategy that may facilitate decision making
but does not guarantee that a solution will be reached
o Representativeness heuristic = a mental shortcut that involes making a probability
judgment by comparing an object or event with a prototype of the object or event
o Conjunction fallacy = thinking that two events are more likely to occur together than
either individual event alone
The probability of two or more events all occurring together is always less
than the probability of any one event occurring alone
o Framing effect = a bias whereby people give different answers to the same problem
depending on how the problem is framed
70% effectiveness rate of a particular drug sounds impressive but 30% failure
rate is seen as risky and potentially harmful
Sunk-cost fallacy = a framing effect in which people make decisions about a
current situation on the basis of what they have previously invested in the
situation
Coaches should play their most productive players and keep them on
the team longer but instead the most expensive players are given
more time on court and are kept on the team longer even if the
csotly players are not performing up to par: coaches act to justify
their team's investment in an expensive player rather than recognize
the loss
o Optimism bias = a bias whereby people believe that, compared with other
individuals, they are more likely to experience positive events and less likely to
experience negative events in the future
People believe they are more likely than others to live a long life and that
they are less likely to have a heart attack
Optimism about the future is good but too much optimism can be
detrimental as it may prevent us from taking the necessary steps to achieve
our goals
Prospect theory = the theory that people choose to take on risk when evaluating potential losses and
avoid risks when evaluating potential gains
Damage to prefrontal cortex: inability to differentiate between important and unimportant
tasks and abstract intellectual functions become dissociated from social and emotional
abilities (no anticipatory feelings)
§ Learning objectives
1. Describe the basic characteristics of language
2. Explain the milestones of language development
3. Compare the behaviorist, nativist, and interactionist theories of language development
4. Describe the language centers of the brain
Language = a system for communicating with others using signals that are combined according to
rules of grammar and that convey meaning
Exchanging information about the world
Coordinating group action
Forming strong social bonds
Communication using symbols
Expressing wide range of ideas and concepts (including intangible things) which distinguishes
human language from simpler signaling systems
o Grammar = a set of rules that specify how the units of language can be combined to
produce meaningful messages
Phonemes = the smallest units of speech that distinguish one word from
another
Differ in how they are produced
Serve the same function
Does not equal meaning or letter(s)
Phonological rules = a set of rules that indicate how phonemes can
be combined to form words
When violated, the resulting speech sounds odd
Motherese = baby-talk: exaggerating phonemes
Morphemes = the smallest meaningful units of language
Adding 's' to dog changes it to 'dogs' which also changes the meaning
of the word: 's' functions as a morpheme in this context
Morphological rules = a set of rules that indicate how morphemes
can be combined to form words
Content morphemes refer to things and events (cat, dog,
take)
Function morphemes serve grammatical functions (and, or,
but) which make the human language grammatically
complex enough to permit us to express abstract ideas
Syntactic rules = a set of rules that indicate how words can be combined to
form phrases and sentences
Every sentence must contain one or more nouns, which may be
combined with adjectives or articles to create noun phrases, and one
or more verbs, which may be combined with adverbs or articles to
create verb phrases
Sentence: dogs bark
Not a sentence: the big gray dog over by the building
Telegraphic speech = speech that is devoid of function morphemes and
consists mostly of content words ('more milk', 'throw ball') (tend to be
grammatical because the words are ordered in a manner consistent with the
syntactic rules of the language)
Discourse = a complete story or tekst (consisting of sentences)
Characteristics of language development
1. Children learn language at a rapid rate: learning 6-7 new words per day
2. Children make few errors while learning to speak
, o Errors that are made are a result from overregularizing grammatical rules they've
learned
3. Children understand language better than they speak it
Language milestones
Orderly progression of language development: phonemes -> telegraphic speech -> simple sentences
including function morphemes
Could be due to general cognitive development whereby infants begin with phonemes
because their short-term memories are so limited that initially they can hold in mind only a
word or two
Could be due to experience with a specific language (this explanation was concluded:
language development depends on amount of exposure to that language in which the
orderly progression is the same despite age)
Theories of language development
1. Behaviorist (B. F. Skinner)
o Language learning is done through reinforcement, shaping, extinction, and the other
basic principles of operant conditioning
Vocalizations that are not reinforced gradually diminish while those that are
reinforced remain in the repertoire (reinforcement)
Imitation of speech patterns that the children hear (shaping)
2. Nativist (Chomsky)
o Nativist theory = the view that language development is best explained as an innate,
biological capacity
Universal grammar = a collection of processes that facilitate language
learning (in the human brain)
o Language processes naturally emerge as the infant matures, provided the infant
receives adequate input to maintain the acquisition process
Language capacity can be somewhat distinct from other mental capacities
Language can be fully acquired only during a restricted period of
development
3. Interactionist
o Humans are born with an innate ability to acquire language however, social
interactions play a crucial role in language learning
Mix of nativism and experience
Language centers of the brain
1. Broca's area
o Left frontal cortex
o Involved in the production of the sequential patterns in vocal and sign language
, o Broca's aphasia: can understand language well but struggle with speech production
Aphasia = difficulty in producing or comprehending language
Damage extends the surface of the left frontal cortex deeper into the
left hemisphere
Result from external factors (accident / violence)
Result from internal factors (stroke / diseases)
2. Wernicke's area
o Left temporal cortex
o Involved in language comprehension (spoken and/or
signed)
o Wernicke's aphasia: can produce grammatical speech
but it tends to be meaningless
Arcuate fasciculus connects the broca and wernicke's area
3. Right cerebral hemisphere
o Involved in language processing (subtle aspects:
drawing inferences from tekst and understanding
humor)
4. Gray matter in a part of the left parietal lobe
o Involved in language
o Denser in bilingual individuals
Density is most pronounced in those who are most proficient in using their
second language
Bilingual individuals tend to have a later onset of Alzheimer's disease
because they have built up a greater amount of back-up cognitive ability
§ Learning objectives
1. Identify why concepts are fundamental to our ability to think
2. Compare the prototype and exemplar theories of concepts
3. Describe the involvement of the brain in organizing and processing concepts
Concept = a mental representation that groups or categorizes shared features of related objects,
events, or other stimuli
Prototype theory = the concept that we classify new objects by comparing them to the 'best'
or 'most typical' member (the prototype) of a category
o We classify new objects by comparing them to the prototype member of a category
o Visual cortex is involved in forming prototypes
Prototype formation involves image processing (holistic activity)
Exemplar theory = the concept that we make category judgments by comparing a new
instance with stored memories of other instances of the category
o We classify new objects by comparing them with all category members
o Accounts better for certain aspects of categorization
o Prefrontal cortex and basal ganglia are involved in learning exemplars
Exemplar-based learning involves analysis and decision making
Category-specific deficit = a neurological syndrome characterized by an inability to recognize
objects that belong to a particular category, even when the ability to recognize objects
outside the category is undisturbed
o Does not depend on visual experience
o Touch is one way that blind individuals develop category-specific brain responses
o Damage to the front part of the left temporal lobe: difficulty identifying humans
o Damage to the lower left temporal lobe: difficulty identifying animals
o Damage to region where the temporal lobe meets the occipital and parietal lobes:
impairs the ability to retrieve names of tools
, § Learning objectives
1. Explain why people sometimes fail to make rational decisions
2. Summarize the ideas underlying prospect theory
3. Describe the role of the brain in decision making
Variety of decision making
Rational choice theory = the classical view that we make decisions by determining how likely
something is to happen, judging the value of the outcome, and then multiplying the two
People are quite good at estimating frequency but people perform poorly on tasks that
require us to think in terms of probabilities
o Availability heuristic = a rule of thumb that items that are more readily available in
memory are judged as having occurred more frequently
Memory strength and frequency of occurrence are directly related:
frequently occurring items are remembered more easily therefore you
conclude that items for which you have better memory must also have been
more frequent
Better memory is due to greater familiarity (not greater frequency!)
Heuristic = a fast and efficient strategy that may facilitate decision making
but does not guarantee that a solution will be reached
o Representativeness heuristic = a mental shortcut that involes making a probability
judgment by comparing an object or event with a prototype of the object or event
o Conjunction fallacy = thinking that two events are more likely to occur together than
either individual event alone
The probability of two or more events all occurring together is always less
than the probability of any one event occurring alone
o Framing effect = a bias whereby people give different answers to the same problem
depending on how the problem is framed
70% effectiveness rate of a particular drug sounds impressive but 30% failure
rate is seen as risky and potentially harmful
Sunk-cost fallacy = a framing effect in which people make decisions about a
current situation on the basis of what they have previously invested in the
situation
Coaches should play their most productive players and keep them on
the team longer but instead the most expensive players are given
more time on court and are kept on the team longer even if the
csotly players are not performing up to par: coaches act to justify
their team's investment in an expensive player rather than recognize
the loss
o Optimism bias = a bias whereby people believe that, compared with other
individuals, they are more likely to experience positive events and less likely to
experience negative events in the future
People believe they are more likely than others to live a long life and that
they are less likely to have a heart attack
Optimism about the future is good but too much optimism can be
detrimental as it may prevent us from taking the necessary steps to achieve
our goals
Prospect theory = the theory that people choose to take on risk when evaluating potential losses and
avoid risks when evaluating potential gains
Damage to prefrontal cortex: inability to differentiate between important and unimportant
tasks and abstract intellectual functions become dissociated from social and emotional
abilities (no anticipatory feelings)
