Psychology Chapter 9 Language and Thinking

Midterm, Saturday March 7th.

Humans dominate the world because were able to create mental
representations (Images and Ideas) and then communicate them with
other humans. Language is the crown jewel of cognition.
Language: A system of symbols and rules to give messages and meanings
and
Language
underlies
almost
everything
that
we
do.
Psycholinguistics is the psychological aspect of language. All languages
share 4 main properties which are symbols, structure, meaning, and
generativity.
Grammar: A set of rules that dictate how symbols can be combined to
create units of meaning (Similar to Syntax in Programming). ACTUAL Syntax
is rules that govern the order of how words appear in a sentence.
Can apple have I? Vs. Can I have an apple?
Language also conveys meaning which is why if your friend says they nailed
the test it does not mean that they literally nailed their test to the desk but
rather performed exceptionally well.
Generativity means that the symbols of a language are capable of being
combined into a virtual infinite number of messages that technically make
sense. Donald Trump and I used to microwave red elephants in White Oaks.
Displacement: Language lets us communicate about events that are in the
past and future as opposed to only the present.
The Structure of Language
Surface Structure vs Deep Structure
The literal understanding of communication is the Surface Structure.
The Deep Structure is the actual underlying meaning which is basically
reading between the lines.
A single surface structure sentence can mean two deep structures.
The police must stop drinking after midnight.
The Hierarchy of Language:
Phoneme: Smallest unit of speech sound in language that can signal a
difference in meaning.
d- og vs l- og

Morpheme: The smallest unit of meaning in a language such as dog, log,

pre-, un-, re-, s (plural).
Phoneme > Morpheme > Words > Phrases > Sentences
Speech segmentation is the process of identifying the boundaries between
words, syllables, or phonemes in spoken natural languages
Recall, Bottom-Up Processing: Adding many elements into a whole.
Pragmatics: A Knowledge of the practical aspects of using a language.
(Demonstrates Top Bottom Processing)
Example: Asking your friend Do you have the time? and Yes I do have the
time. Instead of;
Do you have the time? and Yes, it is currently 10:20

Lecture Notes
What are the properties of language?
Anatomy
Semanticist
o Meaningful
Generativity
o Ability to use a finite number of worlds and rules to produce a
virtually infinite words & rules to produce infinite number of
sentences.
Displacement
o Conveying information about other times and places.
Organization
o Language is structured, words and phrases appear in specific
ways.
Example: The strangers left.
Its not just three words but there are;
Phrases The Strangers
Word The, Strangers
Morphemes Strange, er, s
The meaningful units OF a word. Things are being broken down and
this may include things like s for plural and Prefixes and suffixes and
also er making it a noun. The trick is to find the root word and
then find out what changes it.
Phoneme Streynj. eer, z
Words
Student Vocabulary (150,000), Average Dictionary has about 250,000
300,000 words.

Mostly anything in English can be said with 850 words. 96% of Phone Talk
falls into 737 words. Correlation between word frequency an word length =
-0.75
What is in the refrigerator? Whats in the Fridge?
Syntax Arranging the elements in a meaningful way. Proper
Structure, the importance of grammar.

Example: The wicked vampire bites the girl.

Noun Phrase
Articles, Adjectives, Nouns.
1. Colourless green ideas sleep furiously.
a. The sentence doesnt make any sense and is a paradox.
b. Beyond syntax you have to look at the meaning element.
2. Make me a coffee.
a. Do I want you to make me a coffee or turn into a genie and
morph me into a coffee?
3. Venetian Blind vs Blind Venetian
4. The French Bottle Smells
a. The bottle from France smells or people in France make
perfumes.
Syntax and other kinds of structures leads to humor.
Teenage pregnancy is a mounting problem.
Ability to appreciate ambiguous meaning and logical inconsistency.
Phonological Ambiguity
Confusion of sounds.
o Knock-Knock Jokes
Lexical Ambiguity
Something funny because of the double meaning of words.
o I work as a baker because I need the dough.
Syntactic Ambiguity
Confusion in structure.
o John saw a man eating shark but Mary saw a man eating salmon
at the restaurant. Adjective against Verb.
Kids progress from phonological & Lexical to Syntactic and
Semantic.

Phonological Sounds
Lexical Word Meaning
Syntactic Structure
Semantic Overall meaning.
Noam Chomsky: Transformational Grammar
Surface Structure vs Deep Structure
Sequence of words vs Actual Meaning
Flying planes can be dangerous. But what did it really mean? Did he
mean planes are dangerous or actually the act of flying a plane is
dangerous?
Language Learning
Maybe its all just imitation and reinforcement? NO, most language
learning is whether or not it gets reinforced. The trick is creativity
and how its used
Mistakes in grammar are not corrected but facts are.
So how do we learn language?
From 1st moments of life, infants vocalize (cry, coo, babble, etc.). Even deaf
infants do the vocalization.
Sounds can be capitalized on (Crying brining the mother and the milk).
By 2 months of age, infants show Phoneme Discrimination. Infants are
hard-wired for language acquisition prepared to learn any language.
Motherese, High Pitch, Slow Rate and Exaggerated Tone. Infants prefer
this type of speech to normal adult speech.
Learning about pausing pitch, characteristics, and etc
The One-Word Speaker
5-8 Months of age, respond to parents words. Talking begins 10 to 20
months.
Nouns (Mama, Duck)
Interactions (Hi, Peekaboo)
Adjectives (Hot, Big)
#1 Word is, No
Crosswords
Root word = crossword
Morphemes = 2

Words kids use are more likely to contain objects that they can manipulate
such as a ball rather than a ceiling. So nothing abstract or nothing that they
cant touch. Kids tend to undergeneralize,
The Two-Word Speaker Phase
Telegraphic Speech
Starts around 2 years old
Vocabulary ~= Several Hundred Words
Speech shows proper syntax organization.
By 2 years the child moves beyond two words and sentences and
become more complex, start searching for rules of generalization.
4 or 5 year old often makes mistakes in tense.
Child now overgeneralizes rules, then formal school takes over.
Nature vs Nurture
Seems as the brain is ready to speak and all the linguistic programs are built
in there. So will language develop on its own? Will a child speak if they dont
have interactions with people who speak the same language?
Exhibit A: Wild Children
>No
Consider Amala (1.5 Years) and Kamala (15 Years), raised by wolves
apparently
Exhibit B: Isolated Children
>Maybe
Isabelle (6 Years Old) Yes
Dominique (5 Years Old) Yes
Both Dominque and Isabelle were younger when they were found
which suggests the way that language needs to be learned and about
the development about language and maybe were looking at a critical
period of some kind or a sensitive window of some kind to learn a
language.
Genie (14 Year Old) No
Exhibit C: No Models
e.g. Deaf kids with hearing parents who do not sign.
>Kids develop own signs with rudimentary syntax.
Exhibit D: Other species such as a chimp or whale.
Basics only
No real syntax
No propositional thought

Seems unlikely given data on wild and isolated children.

Critical Period, even with innate abilities experience may be critical at a

particular developmental phase. Bird song is hard wired but it needs an
experience triggered to learn it. (7th 60th day of life)
Human Language? No ethics to really study this but probably somewhere
between 3 months and early teens.
Bilingualism: Learning a Second Language

Thinking and Problem Solving

What is a thought?
Directed Thinking
Thought & Language are closely related
Inner Speech or talking to yourself. Moving vocal cords inside of
yourself a small amount.
Propositional Thought: Expressing internal propositions or statements such
as Im Hungry or Its almost time for dinner
Imaginal Thought: Images we can feel or see in our mind.
Motoric Thought: Mental representations of motor movements such as
throwing an object.
Thought best described in abstract, logical terms.
Concepts & Propositions
o Concepts
Categories
Collections of Related Elements
City New York, Paris, London, Toronto.
Relations Taller than, shorter than, larger than.
o Propositions
A statement about concepts or a statement that expresses
ideas.
May be true or false.
Cities are larger than towns.
Concepts: Mental grouping of similar objects, people, ideas or events.
(Nouns)

Propositions: A statement about concepts.

Algorithms: Logical step-by-step procedures.
Heuristics: Simple strategies that let us solve problems faster but more error
prone. Memories of winning more available, Availability Heuristic
with gambling. Representativeness heuristic, how close does something fit
to our prototype? Linda problem asking if shes a feminist and a banker.

Trial and Error: Slowest

Confirmation Bias: Tendency to look for and favor evidence that confirms our
ideas avoiding contradictory evidence.
Belief Perseverance: Tendency to cling to initial conceptions or beliefs despite
proof to the contrary.
Framing: How an issue is presented, 95% chance of living vs 5 out of 100
people die.
Note: Concepts & Propositions imply much more that the words we use to
express them.

Mental Set: Sticking to solutions that have worked in the past

Organization of Thought
Hierarchical Structure
o Hyper Complex Breaks down into two complex which breaks into
simple.
Goal Directed
Schema Driven, Schema: Mental framework, organized pattern of
thought about some aspect of the world. Concepts and categories are
tpes of schemas. Another type of schema is a script which is the
sequence of events which occur in an order Search and Destroy
The way we structure thinking into schema-driven hierarchies is learned by
experience with a problem. Example: Average Chess Players vs. Grand
Masters
Schemas can lead us in the wrong direction and we might ignore information.
Representativeness is a heuristic that will often cause us to miss important
information
HHH TTT

Vs
HTHHTT
Concrete Information > Advertising because of our bias
Kahneman & Tversky
Wisdom: System of knowledge and meaning to conduct life.
Mental Image: A representation of stimuli.

Know Heuristics and Semantics Problems.