Psy1603: Language and Thought

1. Psy1603: Language and Thought Role of language in conceptual development Combinatorial Nature of Language Case Study #1: Reorientation

2. The Phenomenon Hide a sticker here Children search here ~50% of the time Even when one wall is red! And here ~50% of the time Hermer & Spelke, 1994 *Lecture notes adapted from slides provided by A. Shusterman

3. Evidence that language might support spatial representation 1.5 - 2 YEAR OLDS (Hermer & Spelke, 1996) 10 39 8 31 No red wall Red wall 39 12 49 12 • Creatures with little or no spatial language (like rats, or children before the age of 5) fail to search correctly in a disorientation task. • The age at which children acquire adult-like search patterns correlates with the age at which they can produce the phrases “left of X” and “right of X.”

4. Evidence that language might support spatial representation VERBAL SHADOWING (Hermer, Spelke, & Katsnelson, 1999) 5 83 17 36 No shadow Shadow 5 8 33 15 • Creatures with little or no spatial language (like rats, or children before the age of 5) fail to search correctly in a disorientation task. • The age at which children acquire adult-like search patterns correlates with the age at which they can produce the phrases “left of X” and “right of X.” • 2. Only verbal shadowing impairs search in human adults. v.s. RHYTHM SHADOWING

5. Evidence that language might support spatial representation VERBAL SHADOWING (Hermer, Spelke, & Katsnelson, 1999) 5 83 2 17 6 73 36 95 No shadow No Shadow Shadow Shadow 5 8 0 33 11 15 3 9 RHYTHM SHADOWING

6. Evidence that language might support spatial representation • Creatures with little or no spatial language (like rats, or children before the age of 5) fail to search correctly in a disorientation task. • The age at which children acquire adult-like search patterns correlates with the age at which they can produce the phrases “left of X” and “right of X.” • Only verbal shadowing impairs search in human adults. • Acquisition of spatial language (“left of X”) correlated with subsequent success on a search task 1-2 years earlier than typically observed.

7. 22 4-year-olds Acquisition of left and right language on reorientation performance SUBJECTS SESSION ONE Language training in Body Parts Game Language training on Object-Body Game SESSION TWO Body Parts Post Test Object-Body Post Test Search Task (up to 8 trials)

8. Body Parts Game Objects Game Kick your right leg. Raise your left arm. Wiggle the fingers on your left hand. Show me the one on your right. Point to the toy on your left. Give me the one to the right of you.

9. SESSION 2 LANGUAGE LEARNING Non - Learners (n=11) 100 Learners 90 (n=8) 80 70 60 % correct chance 50 40 30 20 10 00 Body Parts Objects Non-learners: Performed at levels below chance in one or both tasks in Session 2 post-tests. Learners: Performed at levels above chance in both tasks in Session 2 post-tests.

10. Learners 75 0 7 18 Non-learners Controls 41 12 49 9 39 11 32 7

11. Evidence that language might support spatial representation • Creatures with little or no spatial language (like rats, or children before the age of 5) fail to search correctly in a disorientation task. • The age at which children acquire adult-like search patterns correlates with the age at which they can produce the phrases “left of X” and “right of X.” • Only verbal shadowing impairs search in human adults. • Acquisition of spatial language (“left of X”) correlated with subsequent success on a search task 1-2 years earlier than typically observed.

12. How does language create thought? Ways in which language could create a thought: • create link between innate modules • facilitate an analogy or an insight • enable greater cognitive complexity

13. How does language create thought? The linguistic combination hypothesis. Geometry system Object system Left vs. right. (Can do “left of a short wall”) Red wall. (Tracks objects & features) Notice: No way to represent “left of the red wall.” Spelke, 2003.

14. How does language create thought? The linguistic combination hypothesis Geometry system Object system Left vs. right. (Can do “left of a short wall”) Red wall. (Tracks objects & features) “left of the red wall” Spelke, 2003.

15. Controversy Revisiting the evidence

16. Evidence that language might support spatial representation • Creatures with little or no spatial language (like rats, or children before the age of 5) fail to search correctly in a disorientation task. • The age at which children acquire adult-like search patterns correlates with the age at which they can produce the phrases “left of X” and “right of X.” • Only verbal shadowing impairs search in human adults. • Acquisition of spatial language (“left of X”) correlated with subsequent success on a search task 1-2 years earlier than typically observed. • Some researchers’ opposition: • Is there a geometric module? If there is, it is “leaky” and not encapsulated. • Acquisition of “left of X” or “right of X” unnecessary for the integration of geometric and object information. • Creatures with no such spatial languages do make use of landmark/object features such as color to reorient.

17. Newcombe & Ratliffe (in press). Leaky module, language not necessary: • Animals make use of wall color • Success w/o language • Foraging vs. Escape tasks • Pre-linguistic children make use of wall color • Room size: small fail, large succeed Alternative: Adaptive Combination of Information View • Newcombe, N.S. & Ratliff, K.R. (2007) Explaining the development of spatial reorientation: Modularity-plus-language versus the emergence of adaptive combination. In J. Plumert & J. Spencer (Eds.), The emerging spatial mind (pp. 53-76). Oxford University Press.

18. Shusterman & Spelke (2005) Shusterman, Lee, & Spelke (unpublished data) Language acquisition is not necessary • Learning expressions “left of X” or “right of X” is not necessary for incorporating colored wall.

19. Influence of Language Cues Shusterman, Lee, & Spelke (unpublished data) Subjects: 4-year-olds, 16 per condition Task: Reorientation, 2 blocks

20. 45 17 45 11 0.12 0.25 33 11 20 17 Influence of Language Cues Shusterman, Lee, & Spelke (unpublished data) Block 1 Block 2 Control

21. Control Salient 8 55 17 45 “I’m hiding it over here.” “Look at the pretty red wall!” 0.28 0.25 20 17 27 11 Spatial Relevant 6 77 3 72 “The red wall can help you get the sticker.” “I’m hiding it at the red wall.” 0.69 0.58 8 9 14 11 Influence of Language Cues Shusterman, Lee, & Spelke (unpublished data)

22. Influence of Language Cues Shusterman, Lee, & Spelke (unpublished data) Language acquisition is not necessary • Learning expressions “left of X” or “right of X” is not necessary for incorporating colored wall. Language is useful • Language may be a means to “unlock” latent knowledge. • Colored wall needs to be construed as relevant to search task. Language can be used to point this out to children who do not make use of such cues.

23. Shusterman & Spelke’s response? • “[H]uman and animal minds are endowed with domain-general, central systems that orchestrate the information delivered by core knowledge systems. One such system, associative learning, is common to human adults, infants, and nonhuman animals; it allows organisms to adapt their behavior to long-term regularities in the environment. A second system, however, is unique to human children and adults: the language faculty and the specific natural languages whose acquisition the language faculty supports. The latter system provides a medium that human children and adults use to combine information rapidly and flexibly, both within and across core domains.” • “We suspect that the majority of children end up learning via some version of linguistic combination process, but there may be different paths to the same end. We would not be surprised if the occasional child found an alternative way to solve the reorientation game, as did trained animals and children in our first experiment [i.e., cued children].” • Unitary vs. Two step: “learning a particular linguistic structure (left of X) enables children to construct a unitary representation of a concept like left of the red wall.”

24. Evidence that language might support spatial representation • Creatures with little or no spatial language (like rats, or children before the age of 5) fail to search correctly in a disorientation task. • The age at which children acquire adult-like search patterns correlates with the age at which they can produce the phrases “left of X” and “right of X.” • Only verbal shadowing impairs search in human adults. • Acquisition of spatial language (“left of X”) correlated with subsequent success on a search task 1-2 years earlier than typically observed. • Newcombe & Ratliff (2008) in Cognitive Psychology. • Dual task impairs adults in problem-solving. • It is not just verbal shadowing. Choice of other non-verbal concurrent task impairs search in human adults. • Again, language is unnecessary for integration of geometric and object information. • Instruction given prior to verbal shadowing could influence incorporation of wall color. Adaptive Combination of Information View better explains this than Language Overcoming Encapsulation View.

25. Newcombe & Ratcliff used Brooks (1968)’s spatial interference task • TASK: Given a letter (such as below), starting from the asterisked vertex and going with the direction of the arrow, indicate if the vertex is the most “top/bottom”. • YES, YES, YES, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, YES Performance: No secondary task blue wall > No secondary task white room. No secondary task white room = Spatial visualizing task blue wall.

26. Shusterman & Spelke’s response?

27. Digression: More data Does spatial language guide spatial representation? Evidence from NSL. Pyers, J., Shusterman, A., Senghas, A., Emmorey, K., & Spelke, E. (2007). SRCD. • Participants: • Nicaraguan Sign Language users in Managua, exposed to NSL community before age of 6 • 8 1st cohort (entered before 1986) and • 9 2nd cohort (entered after 1986) • About NSL: • NSL is a young language (~30 yrs old). • Children introduce more linguistic complexity than adults can acquire. • Older signers are inconsistent in marking left-right relations.

28. Digression SEARCH ACCURACY 12 68 Cohort 1 10 10 0 95 Cohort 2 2 3 r=-0.77, p<.02 LANGUAGE EFFECT: Accuracy significantly correlated with consistency in marking left-right relationships (r=0.67, p=.02).

29. Digression Role of linguistic label for adults? • In the absence of stable frame-of-reference language, representation is noisy and inefficient. • Language serve to enhance memory by providing a verbal label.

30. Evidence that language might support spatial representation • Creatures with little or no spatial language (like rats, or children before the age of 5) fail to search correctly in a disorientation task. • The age at which children acquire adult-like search patterns correlates with the age at which they can produce the phrases “left of X” and “right of X.” • Only verbal shadowing impairs search in human adults. • Acquisition of spatial language (“left of X”) correlated with subsequent success on a search task 1-2 years earlier than typically observed. Re #4: “These findings provide the strongest evidence to date that the acquisition of spatial language closely mirrors the development of reorientation abilities within an individual child.”

31. Importance of Shusterman & Spelke’s language training data: To the Combinatorial View of Language • Acquiring spatial language (that does not specify anything specific with regards to features of objects s.a. wall color) in one fell swoop allows children to integrate object information with geometric information. • … but evidence potentially problematic… (STILL CORRELATIONAL)

32. Learners & Non-Learners Learners 75 54 0 6 “[P]erhaps these children [the learners] were simply better problem-solvers, and therefore succeeded at the language games and the reorientation game independently. 7 18 9 30 Non-learners Controls 41 12 49 9 39 11 32 7

33. Where does this leave us? Inconclusive: • Acquisition of spatial language (“left of X”) is responsible for subsequent integration of geometric and object information in search task. Conclusive: • Language is not necessary. • Language is beneficial. • Explicitness of instruction to highlight the incorporation of landmark/wall color improves search (Shusterman, Lee, & Spelke, in prep.; Shusterman & Spelke, 2005) • Removal of use of language via shadowing could impair search (Hermer, Spelke, & Katsnelson, 1999) • Impoverished linguistic means/lack of linguistic expression impairs search (Pyers et al. 2007)

34. Where does this leave us? DISCUSSION QUESTIONS • From these studies, what can we say about role of language? • What other studies do you want to see?

35. Role of language in conceptual development Combinatorial Nature of Language Case Study #2: Number

36. san1 wu3 si4 liu4 qi1 數字 • san1 si4 wu3 liu4 qi1 三 四 五 六 七 • Zhe4li3 you3 _____ ge pin2guo3.

37. Number of objects requested by experimenter “one” “two” “three” “four” “five” “six” > > > > > 1-knowers > > > > Pre-Induction 2-knowers > > > 3-knowers induction Post- counters Stages of Children’s Number Word Comprehension “Will you give me _______ apple/s?”

38. Longitudinal Study(Wynn 1992: English speaking Children) • 1. Memorize the count list. • 2. Become 1-knower (learn “one”), then 2-knower, then 3-knower. • 3. Learn how count list represents integers. Counters CP-knower Memorize list 1-knower 2-knower 3-knower 24 27 37 38 42 18 months

39. Puzzles • Why does it take so ?*!@ long for children to learn the meaning of number words? • In contrast, why did it take you so little time to learn the meanings of: san1 si4 wu3 liu4 qi1? • IS THIS A CASE OF LANGUAGE CONSTRUCTING NEW CONCEPTS?

40. Core Knowledge • At the foundations of human knowledge is a set of core systems for representing significant aspects of the environment: • Objects and their motions • Agents and their goal-directed actions • Places and their geometric relations • Sets and their approximate numerical relations • Core systems have signature limits: domain-specific, task-specific, encapsulated. • Core systems are shared by other animals, persist in adults, and show little variation by culture, language, or sex. Content of this slide is from Liz Spelke.

41. Combinatorial Nature of LanguageSpelke (2003) Two core systems combined via language • Object File System • Analog Magnitude System

42. Object File System(A System of Core Knowledge) • Wynn (1992): 1+1 = 1

43. Object File System(A System of Core Knowledge) • Wynn (1992): 2-1 = 1

44. Object File System(A System of Core Knowledge) • Feigenson, Carey, & Hauser (2002), etc. • Infants watched as crackers are placed into 2 buckets. • Then infant is given a choice of one of two buckets.

45. Object File System(A System of Core Knowledge) • Feigenson, Carey, & Hauser (2002), etc. • Infants watched as crackers are placed into 2 buckets. • Then infant is given a choice of one of two buckets. SET SIZE LIMIT: 3!!!

46. 1-in-1-out (Box Expected Empty) Measure infant’s searching for more balls. Object File System(A System of Core Knowledge) • Feigenson & Carey (2003), etc. • Infants watched as experimenter placed ball(s) into a box. • Then infant is allowed to search for the balls. Infant’s search time is measured 1 vs. 4 condition depicted: step 1 step 2 step 3 Infant retrieves 1 ball. 4-in-1-out (Box Expected Non-empty) Measure infant’s searching for more balls. Infant retrieves 1 ball. Experimenter secretly hides the other ball.

47. Object File System(A System of Core Knowledge) • Set size limit: • infants (3) • adults (4-5) • Linked to object tracking ability: • http://ruccs.rutgers.edu/faculty/pylyshyn/DemoPage.html • animals same. • Applies for not just objects, but also abstract individuals (e.g., events, sounds) • BOTTOM LINE: represent EXACT small numbers. (e.g., Exactly 3 objects)

48. Analog Magnitude System(A System of Core Knowledge) • Approximate number system -- Cannot represent EXACT numerosities!

49. Analog Magnitude System(A System of Core Knowledge) • Approximate number system -- Cannot represent EXACT numerosities! • System is usually engaged only for large numbers and not small numbers. • Evidence from failures of 4+ objects in earlier mentioned studies • When comparing two numbers, the comparison depends on the ratio of the numbers (subjected to Weber fraction). • Abstract representation • Cross-modal comparisons • Shared with other animals

50. Analog Magnitude System(A System of Core Knowledge) • Xu & Spelke (2006) • Depicting 8 vs. 16 condition Habituation phase or Etc. Etc. Test Phase and