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Psy1306 Language and Thought

Psy1306 Language and Thought. Introduction. Why should we care?. Language is Special.

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Psy1306 Language and Thought

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  1. Psy1306 Language and Thought Introduction

  2. Why should we care? Language is Special What is so special about language? Maybe nothing if you are a snail or a camphor tree. But language is paramount among the capacities that characterize humans, setting us off from even the most perfectly formed and functioning of the other beasts on earth; so, as a matter of species pride – if nothing else – we would hold up language as a marker of our humanity and thus a focus of our scientific interest. (Gleitman & Liberman 1991: xix)

  3. Why should we care? • Imagine a life without language… • How would our lives be different?

  4. What is language for? • Communication

  5. Language is for communicating Transfer/Evoke Thoughts Really? Senator Clinton is cute!

  6. Language as Communication: Influencing Memory & Associations Power of Suggestion • Potency of Verbal vs. Pictorial Cues • Choice of words and names to evoke thoughts & feelings • Via Priming & Associative Mechanisms http://www.mindvideos.com/video/Subliminal-Political-Messages-S

  7. Language as Communication: Influencing Memory & Associations Power of Suggestion • Labeling effects on the categorization of individuals into social groups • Bush supporter vs. Maverick?

  8. Language as Communication: Influencing Memory & Associations Power of Suggestion • Stereotype threats • Race, Gender Stereotype reminders • How? Mechanisms?

  9. Language as Communication: Influencing Memory & Associations Power of Suggestion • Shaping memories • Creating false memories • Susceptibility of the individuals • Plausibility of the message

  10. Language as Communication: Influencing Memory & Associations Carmichael, Hogan, & Walter (1932) • Divide the class into 2 groups • Exercise: • You will see four line drawings • Remember what was drawn • You will be asked to redraw from memory the four drawings

  11. Group 1 Eyeglasses

  12. Group 1 Hourglass

  13. Group 1 Seven

  14. Group 1 Gun

  15. Group 1 • Now draw the figures

  16. Group 2 Dumbbell

  17. Group 2 Table

  18. Group 2 Four

  19. Group 2 Broom

  20. Group 2 • Draw the figures

  21. Compare the two groups Group 1 • Eyeglasses • Hourglass • Seven • Gun Group 2 • Dumbbell • Table • Four • Broom

  22. Language as Communication: Influencing Memory & Associations

  23. Language as Communication: Influencing Memory & Associations Another Example http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XS-HJDUEZNc On a scale of 1 to 7 (1 = least loud, 7 = loudest): Group #1: How loud was the balloon when it popped? Group #2: How loud was the balloon when it exploded?

  24. Language as Communication: Influencing Memory & Associations Loftus & Palmer (1974) Retrospective Bias

  25. Language as Communication: Influencing Memory & Associations Retrospective Bias Exp. 1: How fast was the car going? Any criticisms of the study???

  26. Language as Communication: Influencing Memory & Associations Retrospective Bias Exp. 2 (1 week later): Was there any broken glass? Correct answer should be “NO”

  27. Language as Communication: Influencing Memory & Associations Summary • Memory is fallible. • The language used (which is a piece of memory itself) could influence one’s memory.

  28. What is language for? What is language for? • Communication & Thinking • “the private uses of language are equally varied and important, including functions like problem-solving, enhancing social intelligence by rehearsing the thoughts of others, memory aids, focusing attention, etc. They seem to extend into almost every domain of thought.” Fitch, Hauser, & Chomsky (2005)

  29. What is language for? What is language for? • Thinking (inner/private speech) PJ: “we are inclined to think that if anything is a by-product (or “spandrel”) here, it is inner speech. The primary adaptation is communication, with enhanced thought as an additional benefit. Hauser, Chomsky, Fitch (2002) Pinker & Jackendoff (2004) Jackendoff & Pinker (2005) Fitch, Hauser, & Chomsky (2005) vs.

  30. Language and Problem Solving: Working Memory Baddeley (1986) Slave Systems Visuospatial Sketchpad Phonological Loop Central Executive • Give me directions to the Science Center. • Copy this number onto your paper: 3.14159265358979323846

  31. Language and Problem Solving: Working Memory Baddeley, Thomson, & Buchanan (1975) • You are going to see a list of 5 countries. • Task: Memorize and then Recall.

  32. List 1 Chad, Burma, Greece, Cuba, Malta

  33. List 2 Czechoslovakia, Somaliland, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia

  34. Which list is easier? • List 1 Chad, Burma, Greece, Cuba, Malta • List 2 Czechoslovakia, Somaliland, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia

  35. Language and Problem Solving: Working Memory Vallar & Baddeley (1986) • Lists varying in # of syllables: • 1 Syllable Words: • “tan, man, sin, hop, wax” • 2 Syllable Words: • “market, table, lesser, picket, garden” • Participants’ Task: • Read words aloud a.q.a.p. • Recall list of words.

  36. Language and Problem Solving: Working Memory Vallar & Baddely (1986) * Reading rate has the same functional relation as % Correct wrt # of syllables!

  37. Language and Problem Solving: Working Memory Summary • Our recall is dependent on the number of syllables we can say quickly (Vallar & Baddeley, 1982). • Study show: Verbal rehearsing is a strategy that we use to maintain things in active memory

  38. Language and Problem Solving Language is a symbolic system • Cognitive off-loading “three on the left, and one on the right”

  39. Language and Problem Solving Symbolic System • Buses 1, 2, and 3 make one trip each day, and they are the only ones that riders A, B, C, D, E, F, and G take to work. • Neither E nor G takes bus 1 on a day when B does. • G does not take bus 2 on a day when D does. • When A and F take the same bus, it is always bus 3. • C always takes bus 3. • Traveling together to work, B, C, and G could take which of the same buses on a given day? • How did you solve this problem?

  40. What makes us smart? Dennett, D. C. (1997). Kinds of Minds: Toward an Understanding of Consciousness Spelke, E. S. (2003). What makes us smart? Core knowledge and natural language. In D. Gentner and S. Goldin-Meadow (Eds.), Language in Mind: Advances in the Investigation of Language and Thought. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

  41. How is Human Language Special Unique things about human language • Big, discrete vocabulary 10,000-100,000 “words”… or more • Recursive compositionality making bigger messages by combining smaller ones, more complex meanings by combining simpler ones

  42. How is Human Language Special After 450 million years… Human vs. Mollusks & Other Non-Human Primates Cephelopods: 15-35 distinct displays Non-human primates: 15-35 distinct displays

  43. How is Human Language Special Human Language Design • Duality patterning: A relatively small number of basic elements to create a larger number of meaningful elements. • All languages have a systematic set of rules for combining the former into latter.

  44. How is Human Language Special Linguistic Productivity Infinite number of phrases & sentences Large number of words Smaller amount of morphemes Several dozens of (sounds) phonemes

  45. How is Human Language Special Compositionality • We are capable of: • Combining existing phonemes to form new words • “fax”, “fedex”, “xerox”. • (Also last names!)

  46. How is Human Language Special Compositionality • We are capable of: • Combining morphemes using existing morphological rules • COMPOUNDING • DERIVATIONAL • E.g., re + gift, sensation + al • INFLECTIONAL • E.g., shoot  shooting, shoots

  47. How is Human Language Special Compositionality • We are capable of: • Combining existing words/morphemes to form new sentences I know what I believe. I will continue to articulate what I believe and what I believe - I believe what I believe is right.

  48. Language makes us smart What makes us smart? • Spelke (2003): Languages have the magical property of compositionality • “Thanks to their compositional semantics, natural languages can expand the child’s conceptual repertoire to include not just the preexisting core knowledge concepts but also any new well-formed combination of those concepts.” (p. 306)

  49. Recap: Language for communicating (affecting others minds) Language for thinking (affecting one’s own mind) What language-thought questions can we ask? Questions to think about… Language-Thought

  50. If we grant that we use language (inner or private) for thinking, how much do we rely on it in our daily life for thinking? Are there thoughts that we can only entertain through language? Questions to think about… Qs regarding the role of language in our thinking.

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