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Manchester Cogneuro Year 2 Semester 1 > Issues In Developmental Psych 21021 > Flashcards

Issues In Developmental Psych 21021 Flashcards

1
Q

What is phonology

A

the study of the patterns of sounds in a language and across languages.

Language is comprised of these small units that can be combined.

(Think syllables and intonation).

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2
Q

What are semantics?

A

Language conveying meaning

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3
Q

What links word order and how words go together?

A

Syntax

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4
Q

What are 2 features of language

A

Language is social and generative

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5
Q

What type of studies do we use to understand language?

A

Infant designs

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6
Q

What is a preference study

A

With no training, what do infants want to listen or look to

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7
Q

What is a Habituation/familiarisation study

A

training infants and then measuring what they prefer

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8
Q

What are change detection studies?

A

We train infants to respond to a change (can infants tell the difference between two things)

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9
Q

What is Prosody

A

The pattern of stress and intonation in a language
(Languages have differing prosodic patterns)

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10
Q

What are Phonemes

A

The perceptually distinct units of sound in a language that distinguish one word from another e.g pat, bat, pad, bad
(Languages differ in the sounds that they use as phonemes)

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11
Q

What trimester does the foetal auditory system start functioning?

A

During the third/last trimester

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12
Q

List some innate things newborns can do/understand in regards to prosody. (4)

A

Newborns
- Prefer own mothers voice (De Caspar & Fifer, 1980)
- can discriminate languages with different prosody but not similar languages (Nazzi et al., 1998)
- prefer native language (Moon et al., 1993)
- cry with an accent (Mamie et al., 2009)

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13
Q

Out of 600 consonants and 200 vowels, how many does one language use?

A

40

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14
Q

What is children’s babble and how does it progess?

A

Initially wide range of sounds but moves towards producing sounds of target language in first year (Levitt and Wang, 1991)

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15
Q

Early phonological developments: Phonemes

What can infants do at 1-2 months in terms of sound discrimination compared to adults?

A

can discriminate between all sounds while adults can only discriminate sounds in there own language. (Eimas et al, 1979; Miyawaki et al., 1975)

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16
Q

When can infants Segment words from their language?

A

7.5 months (Jusczyk & Aslin, 1995)
BUT NOT 6 months.

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17
Q

Finding the words: Statistics

What do infants track when it comes to speech and why?

A

Infants track the co-occurrence of syllables because syllables that co-occur often are likely part of the same word

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18
Q

Outline the characteristics of infant directed speech (IDS) (Christia, 2013).

A

Infant directed speech is
- high pitched
- slower
- exaggerates important words
- enhances boundaries between phrases (making it easier to segment)

Infants prefer to listen to and interact with IDS and are more attentive around IDS.

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19
Q

Name two types of directed speech?

A

Infant Directed Speech (IDS) and Adult Directed Speech (ADS)

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20
Q

What type of speech do infants better segment words from?

A

Infants segment speech better with Infant directed speech than adult directed speech (Theissen, Hill & Saffran, 2005)

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21
Q

What kind of words act as an anchor?

A

Highly frequent salient words e.g mum

Highly frequent linguistic words e.g the

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22
Q

Why are ‘anchor words’ important? (2 example study findings listed too)

A

If you can identify a word in the speech stream you can identify one boundary of the adjacent words

  • Highly familiar words help 6 m/o segment words (Bortfeld et al., 2005)
  • Baby Maggie recognised words next to Maggie and baby hanna recognised words next to the name hanna
  • highly frequent articles and conjunctions (the) used by infants to segment nouns at 8 months (Shi & Lepage, 2008)
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23
Q

Finding the patterns: frequency

What do infants need to learn before they can understand syntax?

A

Infants need to learn the word order.

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24
Q

When do infants become aware of word order

A

They are sensitive to word order by 8 months, and have started to learn some of the ordering rules in their language.

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25
Q

Finding the patterns: rule learning

What does syntax require and what is an example study?

A

Syntax requires learning the abstract rules of a language.

6 month olds could learn an abstract rule with linguistic stimuli (Marcus et al., 1999):

  • those familiarised to ABA pattern listened longer to ABB
  • those familiarised with ABB pattern listened longer to ABA
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26
Q

Finding the patterns: frequency

what are the main differences in the japanese and italian languages and at what age does this impact infants in terms of understanding speech.

A

Italian is a frequent first while Japanese is a frequent final language.

Italian 8 months olds listen longer to frequent first while Japanese 8 month olds listen longer to frequent final

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27
Q

What are the two main stages of early social skills?

A

Primary and secondary intersubjectivity

(Primary intersubjectivity involves direct social attention and attunement evident from birth

Secondary intersubjectivity is characterized by inclusion of objects into the primary mother–infant intersubjective interactions and is evident from 9 months)

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28
Q

What are the two key modes of communication important for language acquisition

A

Turn Taking and Joint attention

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29
Q

What is primary intersubjectivity (Trevarthen, 1979)? Give examples.

A

Non intentional communication, with no intent behind the interaction - present from birth.

First months: attention to faces and eye contact, produce vocalisations, imitate sounds and facial gestures

  • caregiver and infant share experiences (face to face dyadic interactions)
  • no assumption of others’ perspective
  • not intentional interactions
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30
Q

What is secondary Intersubjectivity (Trevarthen, 1979)?

A

Older infants (9mo): more sophisticated, pointing, eye contact, turn taking, shared attention, child waiting for a response, persistence if not understood

  • Triadic interactions develop
  • start to assume others have own perspectives
  • intentional interactions
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31
Q

Features of early mimicry? Why is it important?

A

It’s dyadic - only with one other (mother or toy, not both)
New-borns mimic facial expressions.
3-4 months imitate sounds.
No understanding of others intentions in these interactions.

But it is key because it shows that infants are motivated to engage with others!!!

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32
Q

What do babies have a preference to look at?

A

Faces or face like things in order to interact Goren et al… (1975)

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33
Q

Do babies prefer averted or direct gaze?

A

direct gaze (eye contact) over averted gaze (Farroni et al., 2002)

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34
Q

Outline the findings of Senju and Csbira (2008) research into attention to eye gaze and IDS.

A

6mo infants only follow gaze to object if preceded by mutual gaze
Same results found for IDS but not ADS
Communicative signal (IDS/gaze) encourages infants to attend to same object

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35
Q

Describe Still face experiment (Adamson & Frick, 2003), what concept is it researching into?

A

Parent “freezes” and stops responding.
Interaction breaks down
atttempts to repair the interaction (social engagement cues)

Secondary intersubjectivity (because there is intention behind communication etc).

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36
Q

Describe the Visual cliff experiment (Sorce et al., 1985)

A

Depth perception (the mirror trick on the checked table to make it look like a cliff they can fall off of).
Infants will look to the parent for an emotional cue of how to respond
Shared attention to the situation allows transfer of information

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37
Q

Give examples of how turn taking progresses over time - what is an example of turn taking?

A

Young infants from around 3 months old alternate vocalisations with their caregiver (Stern et al. 1975)

By 12 months old, very few overlaps between speakers (Schaffer et al, 1977)

Shown in proto-conversations (Bruner, 1975): practising conversations with words, sounds and gestures, attempting to convey meaning before the onset of language in that child.

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38
Q

Do infants really have turn taking skills?

A

Interruptions suggest not until children are 3 do they control turn-taking in language (Ritter & Durkin, 1987)

In early stages, its the caregiver that ensures a smooth interaction between speakers.

Difficult to establish exactly when mutually intentional.

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39
Q

What is joint attention?

A

Joint attention involves triadic interaction between the child, adult and object/event

There is shared awareness of the shared attention

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40
Q

Give some examples of studies findings into joint attention. (3)

A

By 9 months, children look to adult in unfamiliar or threatening situations to gauge emotional response

At 9 months, child and adult interact over an object. Child switches gaze between adult and object (Carpenter et al, 1997)

Caregivers talk about object of joint attention (West & Iverson, 2017)

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41
Q

What does having joint attention skills predict?

A

Joint attention skills predict later language skills (Tomasello & Farrar, 1986)

Children learn better the names for objects when they are attending to the object (Pereira, Smith & Yu, 2014)

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42
Q

How does routine help language acquisition?

A

(Bruner, 1983)
Much of early language is learnt in routines.

Caregivers structure routines around child which create shared context in which the child knows what is coming next.
These highly repetitive routines provide scaffold for language learning

Routines differ in types of words used (Tamils-LeMonda et a., 2018)

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43
Q

How do mothers help their children’s language acquisition? (4 items of knowledge listed)

A

During year 1, mother monitors child’s line of regard and regain child’s attention when focus is lost (Collins & Schaffer, 1975)

Mother is initially solely responsible for establishing topic and providing relevant language.

Mothers sensitivity to child’s focus of attention is related to a child’s vocabulary development - Children more likely to learn object they attend to than for one their attention is directed to (Tomasello & Farrar, 1986)

Twins often show language delay - linked to amount of time spent in joint attention episodes with mother (Tonasello et al, 1986), highlighting mothers role.

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44
Q

What are 2 examples of infants following attention?

A

Following points
Following eye gaze

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45
Q

What are 2 types of direction attention? (Pointing)

A

Imperative pointing - to ask for something.

Declarative pointing - produced with communicative intention of sharing attention to an object or event, or expressing emotion, information about an object event etc.

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46
Q

How does an infants ability to follow points develop over their age?

Give specific ages

A

9mo: can follow points in front of another person
12mo: begin to check back with pointer
14mo: follows point across line of sight

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47
Q

What does gaze following allow us to do? Give findings of an example study too.

Study - what age?

A

Allows us to track where someone else is looking, and join them - engaging in joint attention.

By 9mo, infants will turn to follow adults gaze and share an object of attention (Scaide & Bruner, 1975)

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48
Q

When do infants start to track SPECIFICALLY gaze?

A

18 months.

Prior to that, they track head movements (Corckum & Moore, 1995; Moore & Corckum, 1998)

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49
Q

Outline the findings of the study into blindfolded gaze following (Brooks and Meltzoff, 2002).

A

12mo will follow a head turn even if adult blindfolded.
They will also gaze follow if the partner has their eyes open, but NOT if eyes are closed!

14mo will only follow when eyes are visible

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50
Q

What did Moll & Tomasello, 2004 find about gaze following in infants?

A

Infants will follow gaze behind barriers.

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51
Q

Why do infants gaze follow?

A

Tricky to determine.

There is conflicting evidence about when children begin following because they think the looker sees something interesting.

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52
Q

Can infants follow point and gaze direction to retrieve objects of interest?

Think ages

A

(Behne et al., 2005)
Infants of ages 14, 18 & 24 months can do both to retrieve an object of interest, but do not follow non-communicative points and gaze direction.

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53
Q

What is imperative pointing?

A

Get adult to do something

Infant learns if they point, she gets what she wants (Camaioni, 1993)

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54
Q

What is declarative pointing? why do infants do this?

A

To direct adults attention

Infant learns they get increased attention when pointing (Moore & D’entremont, 2001)

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55
Q

What happens when an adult finds wrong object after infant has pointed to indicate a specific object?

A

12 mo indicate when adult finds wrong object (Liszkowski, et al., 2006) and attends to it, causes negative reaction from infant (Bound et al., 2019)

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56
Q

What’s are the problems with point and name word learning?

A

Is not common and not universal
Only usually works with nouns

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57
Q

What is the mapping problem (Quine, 1960)?

A

The problem of how language learners connect a label to its referent.

If I’m stroking a dog and calling it a dog, how does the infant know I’m referring to the whole animal, not just a part of it/colour of it/feel of it etc.

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58
Q

What is overextension

A

The tendency of very young children to extend the use of a word beyond the scope of its specific meaning.

E.g., calling all 4 legged animals ‘dogs’.

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59
Q

What is under-extension?

A

Categorical term (a word used to describe a group of things) is used in language improperly by only using it for one object instead of all objects that belong in that category.

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60
Q

Do infants comprehend or produce language first?

A

Comprehension, it precedes production.

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61
Q

How many more words can 2yo comprehend than produce?

A

2yo comprehend 2-3x as many words that they produce (Goldin-Meadow et al., 1976)

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62
Q

What does early speech lack?

A

Early speech lacks articles

63
Q

At which ages of development can infants comprehend verbs and nouns?

A

Nouns 6mo (Bergelson & Swingley, 2013)
Verbs 10mo (Bergelson & Swingley, 2013)

64
Q

What is the looking while listening task (Fernald et al., 1998)?

A

Uses real-time measures of the time course of young children’s gaze patterns in response to speech.

There are 2 picture of objects and infants look at them, then the name of one of them is said.

If they have understanding they look at correct label for longer.

18-24 month olds get much faster at this.

At 18 months old they start looking to the correct picture before hearing the full word (Fernald, Swingley, & Pinto, 2001).

65
Q

At what age are infants first words and when can they produce 50 words?

A

12 mo first words and at 24-30 mo 50 words
(Lots of variability in this).

66
Q

What type of words are babies’ first words? (4 categories)

A

Nouns - Mum, Dog
Verbs - jump, get
Social (routines) - bye, hello
Adjectives - cold, dirty

67
Q

What is the Early Noun Bias?

A

Cross-linguistically nouns are more predominant in early vocabularies and speech.

(E.g., 40% of English-speaking children’s first 50 words - Nelson, 1973)

68
Q

Why does the early noun bias exist? (2 theories)

A

Natural partitions hypothesis (Gentner, 1982)
Early nouns easily individuated from surroundings, therefore easier to understand than verbs.

Socially mediated word learning (Tomasello, 2003)
Learning occurs where its easiest to read adults intentions which happens most with nouns.

69
Q

What word types are produced most often? (3)

A

Names for people and objects (nouns)
Names for actions (verbs)
Names for properties (e.g., gone, more, dirty)

70
Q

Give examples of under-extension. (3 listed)

A

Saying ‘Bye’ only when putting telephone down (Bates et al, 1979)

‘There’ when putting an object in a location (Barrett, 1982)

Refer to the word ‘flower’ when only mean a rose (Fernandez & Cairs, 2011)

71
Q

Outline some characteristics of overextension. What are some potential reasons for its occurrence? (2 reasons)

A

Overextension errors are frequent (Rescorla, 1980) and generally occur until ~ 2.5 years old.
E.g., call ball an apple

Could be due to a category error (concept of ball in same category of apple) or vocabulary limitations (lack the word ‘ball’).

72
Q

What is the object constraint (Gertner, 1982) as an explanation of how children know what a word refers to?

A

Children have an innate belief that words refer to objects, which could explain early noun bias.

73
Q

What is the whole object constraint (Markman, 1991) as an explanation of how children know what a word refer to?

A

The belief that words refer to whole objects rather than their parts.

74
Q

What is the principle of contrast (Clark, 1995) as an explanation of how children know what a word refers to?

A

No two words have exactly the same meaning (you can call a dog: a dog, its name, or an animal).

Explains how child overcomes overextension

75
Q

What is mutual exclusivity (Markman, 1988) as an explanation of how children know what a word refers to?

A

No object has more than one name.

Helps children override the whole object constraint and learn names for parts of objects

76
Q

Evaluate the potential problems with constraints theories. (3)

A

Do constraints explain or just describe word learning?

Are constraints innate or learned via experience?
(little research has been done on this in infants)

Are constraints specific to language? (Diesendruck & Marskon, 2001)

77
Q

What is the syntactic bootstrapping hypothesis (Gleitman, 1990)?

A

Proposes that children learn word meanings by recognizing syntactic categories (such as nouns, adjectives, etc.) and the structure of their language.

78
Q

Outline the procedure of the Brown, 1957 study into syntactic bootstrapping.

(hint :sib)

A

3-5 year olds shown video of someone kneading a substance in bowl.

Asked them the following questions:
- do you know what it means to sib?
- do you know what a sib is?
- have you seen any sib?

Task: pick sibbing, a sib, or sib from selection of pictures depicting several actions, substances, and containers.

Answers:
- sibbing = picture of kneading
- a sib = picture of bowl
- sib = picture of substance
(refers to definitions that would be assumed from syntax)

79
Q

How do structural cues help word meaning?

give examples

A

Nouns refer to objects, adjectives refer to properties and both of them are used differently in sentences (syntax).

Therefore, children can infer the meaning of a word based on the syntactical position in a sentence.

80
Q

Outline the study by Gelman & Markman, 1985 into structural cues giving meaning to words. What did it show?

Hint (4 objects, 3/4…)

A

4 objects in total. 3 are the same but with different patterns. 1 is totally different.

Asked to find the ‘fep’ they picked the odd object out.

When asked to find the ‘fep’ one, picked the similar object with a different pattern.

Shows the use of syntax for understanding.

81
Q

How do 14mo children extend novel nouns (Waxman and Booth, 2001)?

(Hint:purple & blickets)

A

Children extend the noun to the CATEGORY but not the property.

Example/explanation:
- Children see objects (e.g., purple elephant, purple dog,
purple bear, purple lion).
- Children are told “Look! These are blickets! This one is a
blicket and this one is a blicket.”
- When shown a purple horse and a purple plate and asked
to give a blicket, they give the horse
- When shown a purple horse and a blue horse and asked
to give a blicket, they give randomly.

They identified the animals as ‘blickets’, therefore they picked horse over plate, but when it is two horses, they are lost.

82
Q

When does the learning of structural cues to nouns and adjectives appear? Why is this difference present?

A

Nouns seem to be learned early but structural cues to other words appear later.

Adjectives - 18mo show same pattern (Booth & Waxman, 2009)
21mo getting better but not great (Waxman and Markow, 1998)

This could be because is takes longer to understand the syntactic structure of adjectives.

83
Q

How do structural cues help understand verb meanings? (Naigles, 1990)

A

They can be used to narrow down verb meanings.

I.e., depending on how the structure refers to already known words (such as nouns) infants can calculate the potential meaning of the word and learn it’s a verb.

84
Q

What are some issues with structural cues as an explanation to learning word meaning? (3)

A

Children are sensitive to some aspects of sentence structure, but it is not clear exactly what and when.(cant pinpoint a specific time)

Some knowledge of words and word categories is needed to understand sentence structure. (chicken and the egg paradox, what comes first, knowledge of words or knowledge of sentence structure)

Structural information can’t solve all problems - gives info but isn’t conclusive.

85
Q

What is the social-pragmatic approach (Tomasello, 2003)? What are the two main ways that word learning is constrained in?

A

Children learn words and word meaning from pragmatic clues in environment which remove ambiguities around word meaning.

Word learning is constrained in two main ways:

  • social world is structured in routines/games etc
  • infant using social cognitive skills such as joint attention, intention reading, which gives them the ability to narrow down meaning.

(pragmatic = relating to matters of fact or practical affairs often to the exclusion of intellectual or artistic matters)

86
Q

How do routines aid word learning?

A

Children learn language in familiar social contexts in repeated daily routines.

Almost all their early language in cultural routines (Ratner & Bruner, 1978)

Cross culturally, children are engaged in wide range of social routines and learn early words in familiar contexts (Lieven, 1994).

87
Q

At how many months old do children have a social revolution?

A

9 months (when they can use their social relationships and skills to learn language quicker)

88
Q

How does childrens joint attention skills aid word learning?

A

During joint attention, adults use language and children attempt to interpret communicative intent - this is how word learning occurs.

This shared common ground reduces possible referents (Baldwin, 1993) - making word learning easier.

89
Q

Name 2 social cognitive skills children use to identify referents from adults.

A

Joint attention
Eye gaze

90
Q

Provide evidence eye gaze and joint attention help infants to learn language.

ages

A

Gaze following behaviour at 10mo predicts language skills at 18mo (Brooks & Meltzoff, 2005)

18-20mo learn names for objects better when jointly attending with speaker (Baldwin et al., 1996)

91
Q

How does intention reading help word learning? (4)

A

Children use speakers intentions to infer meaning (Baldwin, 1991).

2yo understand that a new word (novel referent) refers to object that an adult is looking for, rather than objects they rejected (Tomasello & Barton, 1994)

Acquisition of verbs - children are able to interpret adults anticipation of what will happen and learn verbs relating to forthcoming action (Tomasello & Kruger, 1992).

Children can differentiate between intended and accidental actions when learning new verbs (Tomasello & Barton, 1994).

92
Q

What is syntax? What does it allow for?

A

The ways in which a language allows words to be combined.

Allows for understanding between speakers

And productivity, with a finite set of words we can produce an infinite number of possible sentences (using provided syntax).

93
Q

What is the ‘agent’ in a sentence?

A

The subject/noun phrase (the thing doing the action)

94
Q

What is the ‘patient’ in a sentence

A

The object/noun phrase (receiver)

95
Q

Languages are species ____ ?
(2)

A

Species specific - little evidence primates can acquire syntax.

Species Universal : virtually all children have acquired the majority of their language’s grammar by 5.

96
Q

What are early word combinations like? (4)

What do these features suggest about children?

A

Mainly content words.
- refers to here-and-now, easily understood in context.
- Creative (more sing, all gone sticky etc)
- Observes adult word order

Suggests ownership of some kind of organising principles.

97
Q

Do children understand lexical rules?

A

There is little variety of utterances until children are able to generalise between schemas (so, not until they can do this^).

Rules are item-specific and based on individual words or schemas (sets of words).

98
Q

Outline syntatic rules.

A

Syntactic rules are abstract - based on grammatical categories.

E.g., Verb + Object, Subject + Verb - these allow for more language to be produced (see PowerPoint if this isn’t clear).

Rules are not restricted, therefore allowing all utterances possible in the adult language

99
Q

What is the constructivist approach?

A

Suggests that language is learnt gradually from the environment rather than having it innately (bottom-up)

Suggests grammar is used for communication and infants are motivated to learn to communicate.

100
Q

How can grammar be learned using general cognitive learning mechanisms? (3)

A

Communicative intention reading
Drawing analogies
Distributional learning

101
Q

What are the role of routines in learning?

A

They allow children to predict what happens next and therefore what the language they hear refers to.

Repetitive chunks of language can be learned in context where relation between linguistic form and meaning is more transparent.

102
Q

What evidence supports a constructivist approach?

Not a study

A
  • high frequency items learned early
  • only gradual generalization of knowledge across words to create more abstract syntactic categories and rules
103
Q

What is the verb island hypothesis?

A

Knowledge of grammar tied to individual verbs until 2.5-3 yrs
Child initially unable to generalise between verbs with similar meanings or used in similar sentence types.
(Tomasello, 1992) (can do later in life)

104
Q

What is the experimental evidence for a constructivist approach?

(Familiar and unfamiliar verbs)

A

With familiar verbs (e.g., chasing) 2 year olds able to describe actions correctly to explain who is chasing, and whom is being chased.

But with unfamiliar/novel verbs (e.g., weefing) 3 year old children struggle to explain who’s doing action and who’s receiving
(Akhtar & Tomasello)

105
Q

What is the limited (lexical) construction evidence for the constructivist approach?

(Hint - what are utterances based on?)

A

Any high frequency word/group of words can form the basis for organization of child’s linguistic system.

The constructions children learn reflect the frequency of particular patterns in the input
(Lieven et al., 1997; Pine et al., 1998)

106
Q

How do children link up their lexically based constructions to form a more adult-like grammar? (3)

(Constructivist approach)

A
  1. Structure combining
  2. Semantic analogy
  3. Distributional learning
107
Q

What is structure combining?

A

Children’s utterances build on what they have previously said. They learn mini-utterances, then build bigger ones from there.

108
Q

Outline the study into structure combining (Lieven, et al, 2003).

Diary of …

A

Dense diary of a single child for 6 weeks at 2 years old.
Record for 5 hours/week and noted all new utterances (by mother)

RESULTS: (go to PowerPoint for more depth)
295 multiword utterances:
186 repetitions (63%) - of mothers utterances
109 novel utterances (37%) - generated

Conclusions:
Many of the child’s complex utterances were based around repetitions or small changes to what mother had said before.

MOST changes involve simple substitutions within a lexically-based frame, or the addition or subtraction of a single word.

Suggests child is operating with extensive inventory of specific utterances and fairly limited mechanisms for altering these utterances to match the demands of the discourse.

109
Q

What is Semantic analogy?

A

Children need to learn a number of verbs before they can recognise similarities between them and begin to build more general schemas.

Commonalities reinforced, differences forgotten

110
Q

What is the evidence for semantic analogy? (Matthews & Barnard, 2010)

(Hint- Frame Slot)

A

2 & 3 yr olds asked to repeat 4 word sequences and manipulated 3 word frame by similarity of meaning of items in 4th slot.

Example/explanation:
[FRAME] [SLOT}
Back in the ‘box/case/town’ - higher similarity
It’s time for ‘lunch/soup/drums’ - lower similarity

CONCLUSIONS:
Children made fewer errors when items that normally occur in the slot are more similar
Meaning helps build flexible constructions

111
Q

What is distributional learning?

learning language

A

The ability to learn the co-occurrence of characteristics of the input (words that occur together or have similar contexts).

E.g., Verbs = end in ‘ing/ed/s’, Nouns end in ‘s/’s’

so the lexical iterations of walking and jumping can be learnt because the characteristics between them are very similar (kids can learn they are both verbs conjugated the same way!!!)

112
Q

What is the experimental evidence for distributional learning? (Childers & Tomasello)

(hint - transitive sentences)

A

METHOD:
Exposed 2 year olds to transitive sentences (SVO sentences) in a game like manner under two main conditions:

  • Noun only condition (e.g the cat is chasing the mouse)
  • ## Mixed condition (e.g the cat is chasing the mouse + he is chasing him).
  • They were then asked to play in the same manner as training stage (not important) then asked questions, the most important being:
  • What’s “AGENT” doing? - this was in attempts to elicit transitive sentences.

CONCLUSION:
Children’s experience of both pronouns and nouns as arguments during training helped them to form some kind of transitive schema.

The results supported the distributional approach, which predicted that the two conditions using pronouns would be most facilitative of producing transitive sentences from the infants.

(The use of the pronoun based schema He’s -ing it, in combination with nouns in other utterances within the same experimental conditions, was sufficient
to help almost all the children become productive with the novel verbs during testing).

113
Q

Why are production studies difficult for children? (2)

A

Significant memory load, planning entire sentences

114
Q

What is the problem with production studies?

A

Might be underestimating how abstract a child’s knowledge of sentence structure is

115
Q

What do nativists argue about childrens utterances?

A

Children’s utterances are creative because they have access to innate grammatical rules.

116
Q

What do constructivists argue about childrens utterances?

A

Children’s utterances are creative because creativity is based on the use of lexical frames learned from the language children hear, with new items inserted into variable ‘X’ slots.

Example/explanation:
(they fill in the blanks of sentence structure with variables that fit that category i.e. you have a child who wants to address an agent, they learn where it goes in the sentence, and they learn what words fit in the category of agent).

117
Q

What assumptions do nativists make? (3)

A
  1. Assume that grammar is a symbolic computational system which processes the relationships between abstract variables.
  2. Assume that grammatical categories and rules are already known in the child’s brain from birth (Universal Grammar).
  3. Predict that the acquisition of a particular aspect of grammar should have an all or nothing quality.
    (When you learn how nouns work, you can apply this rule across ALL nouns).
118
Q

What predictions can we make from the nativist argument? (2)

Language acquisition

A
  1. Children should innately know certain aspects of grammar
  2. Children should show consistent treatment of members of a particular grammatical category. (all or nothing quality)

(Use nouns in the same way once they learn the rules of said category)

119
Q

What is Universal grammar?

A

The idea that all the possible rules for languages are innate - grammar is universal and the rules of grammar apply in all languages.

When there are rule differences across languages, they are different in a constrained way which are coded by parameters.

Children need to work out which parameter settings apply for the language that they are learning.

120
Q

Outline the key details of Universal Grammar.

A

All the possible rules for language are known innately and the rules of grammar apply in all languages.

Where grammar rules differ, they do so in highly constrained ways encoded by parameters.

Children need to work out which parameters apply to what language they’re learning.

121
Q

Give 2 examples of parameter setting in Universal Grammar.

A

Word order:
Japan - Object -> Verb
English - Verb -> Object

Subject use:
English - subjects are required.
Italian- they are optional. (you can drop the first word because either it is assumed, or the conjugation of the words tell you the assumed subject)

122
Q

What are the theoretical advantages of Universal Grammar?

A

Avoids problem of how children acquire complex grammar rules.

Allows a unified theory of acquisition across languages whilst explaining how languages differ.

123
Q

What is the empirical evidence for principles and parameters in the nativist view? (2)

A

Proposed evidence of parameters being set:
- Children’s early utterances generally follow adult word order.

Proposed evidence of applying grammar rules.
- Children are productive from early on (all gone sticky)

124
Q

What do preferential looking and pointing studies show (example)? What do nativists draw from the results?

A

1;9 years old can identify correct picture to match subject-verb-object sentences from a choice of 2 causal actions.
(Monkey gorping frog vs frog gorping monkey)

Nativists draw evidence for setting the word order parameter.

Constructivists disagree - I think they believe it shows production as apposed to comprehension? - As nativists assume comprehension of a parameter.

125
Q

What are some theoretical problems for universal grammar? (3)

A

Parameters not clearly specified:
- Vague and not empirical: how many parameters? Which aspects of language are/aren’t coded by parameters.

Unclear how children avoid setting parameters incorrectly .

Bilingualism:
- How do bilingual children set 2 or more versions of same parameters?

126
Q

Suggest evidence against principles and parameters in the nativist approach (3)

A

Children display limited knowledge of SVO (subject-verb-object) word order in production and act-out studies.

The idea that a child can easily determine the appropriate setting for each parameter based on linguistic input has been challenged by the complexity of linguistic structures and the diversity of languages.

Many studies show a very close relation between what children hear, how often, and what they learn. (Which doesn’t support a innate set of p&ps)

127
Q

What are Maturational Models?

A

Children’s language develops over time, so many researchers argue that this provides evidence that we don’t start out with a full innate UG.

One solution is to build in a part of UG that matures over time according to a biologically-determines timescale.

(AKA a maturing version of UG - develops over time with the child).

128
Q

Describe Radford’s (1990) maturational model

A

Two stages:

Lexical stage of development: (20 months old)
- Children’s utterances consist of content words such as nouns, verbs etc with other parts of the corresponding adult utterance omitted.

Functional stage: (24 months old)
- Child’s innate grammar ‘matures’ and the parts governing the use of more complex grammatical components switch on.

129
Q

Give examples of lexical utterances. What model do they belong to? - give brief recount of it.

A

Maturation model: Lexical stage (20 months old)
Kathryn no like celery
Hair wet
Pig say oink
Mummy doing?
Hands dirty

130
Q

Give examples of functional utterances. What model do they belong to? - give a brief recount of it.

A

Maturation model: Functional stage (24 months old)

I’m pulling this
I don’t need that
Will you help me?
She likes ice cream
I watched the ducks

131
Q

What are the theoretical advantages and evidence for Radford’s maturational model (1990)? (3)

A

Explains why EARLY utterances not fully grammatical.

Allows for development of language over time so more likely to fit the empirical data.

Some claims there is a similar trajectory of learning for both typically developing children with normal hearing and deaf or blind children, despite their experiences of the world being different.

132
Q

What are the theoretical and empirical problems for Radfords maturational model (1990)?(3)

A

Difficult to identify precise point in development when maturing aspects of the grammatical system come ‘on-line’.

Children show use of most grammatical functions from early stages (although inconsistent and it varies across languages).

At around 24 months, children use of many ‘functional’ words related to lexical frames.

133
Q

What is the linking problem?

A

How do children link their innate knowledge of grammatical categories into the words they hear?

Example/explanation:
Caregivers don’t label particular words as theirgrammatical function - yet children pick them up.

134
Q

What is Semantic bootstrapping and how does it solve the linking problem? What does this theory assume?

A

That children use semantics (meaning) to map words in the input onto these innate syntactic categories by using innate Linking Rules to map semantics onto syntax.

This theory assumes that grammatical (syntactic) categories and rules are innate.

135
Q

What is the base cause of the linking problem?
What is the solution?

A

It’s not always easy to work out grammatical categories from meaning:

  • Not all verbs are actions (believe, want, need).
  • Not all nouns are concrete objects (idea, dream, justice).
  • Not all subjects are agents (she).

SOLUTION:
1. Use a form of distributional analysis to determine word order for the language from prototypical sentences.
2. Then apply knowledge of word order to work out grammatical category of more abstract terms.

136
Q

What are the advantages of semantic bootstrapping as an explanation of language acquisition?

A

Explains how children break into innate system.

Explains why early utterances follow adult word order.

Explains how children learn verbs which are not actions, and nouns which are not objects etc.

137
Q

What are some problems for semantic bootstrapping?

A

Many of children’s early utterances are not semantically prototypical, and therefore are unlikely to be based on innate knowledge of semantic linking rules.

It doesn’t explain how children don’t miss-set parameters in response to hearing passives:

  • In passive sentences the noun phrase (NP), which is usually the object of an active transitive, becomes the subject:

ACTIVE:
The cat (agent: subject) chased the mouse (patient: object).
PASSIVE:
The mouse (patient: subject) was chased by the cat (agent: object.)

138
Q

What are the problems of passives in semantic bootstrapping as an explanation?

What do nativists suggest?

A

If child hears passive utterances early on, they may use semantic bootstrapping to conclude that their language is object-verb-subject.

Some nativists propose passive parameter doesn’t mature until 5 years old.

However, children do hear and use passive sentences from fairly early on - especially in other languages.

139
Q

What happens in infants language distinction ability in the 7-11 month range?

A

There is a systematic decline in ability to distinguish sounds from non-target language. (Universal listener)

And an increase for target language.

140
Q

Outline the study by Saffran et al. (1996) into infants language ability, what did they find?

(Hint: made up words and part words)

A

Used a highly controlled made up language made up of words and part-words (words made of a combination of words in the first list)
They found:
infants listened longer to the part words , suggesting they had managed to segment the words in the stream and recognised the part words were new combinations

141
Q

In English, where do function words tend to go?

A

English is a frequent-first language
Before articles, pronouns and preposition:

An apple
The dog
You ran
They swam
On the table
Under the chair

(Function words = auxillary verbs, preposstions, articles ,conjunctions & pronouns)

(Function words are the first words in these examples)

142
Q

What are the three main steps for infants to learn their language?

A
  1. Identify the sounds that make up their language.
  2. Segment speech into smaller units (words)
  3. Figure out how those smaller units are organised to convey specific meanings (syntax).
143
Q

What is meant by dyadic interactions?

A

of or consisting of two - being part of a group.

Usually in relation to early stages of development, it is when the baby only interacts with one thing (mother or toy - NOT BOTH).

144
Q

What is meant by triadic interactions? When do they start to occur? What are they key for?

A

When infants coordinate attention between a social partner and an object of mutual interest.

This occurs around 9 months.

Key for advanced communication development.

145
Q

How are the beginnings of intentional communication by infants signified? (4 examples)

A

Use of eye contact/pointing to direct another’s attention.

Consistent use of vocalisation to indicate specific goal.

Evidence of child waiting for response.

Persistence if not understood.

146
Q

What are proto-conversations?

A

The practising of conversations with words, sounds and gestures in attempts to convey meaning before the onset of language in that child.

147
Q

What is the “Gavagai” problem?

A

Given a novel word and a novel event in the world, why does the infant infer that the word refers to the whole object (e.g., a rabbit) and not some property of the event (e.g., hopping, white, furry, disembodied rabbit parts)?

148
Q

How do 14mo children extend novel adjectives (Waxman and Booth, 2001)?

A

With adjectives, children do not extend to the category OR the property.

Example/explanation:
Children see objects (e.g., purple elephant, purple dog,
purple bear, purple lion).
Children are told “Look! These are blickish! This one is blickish
and this one is blickish.”
When shown a purple horse and a purple plate and asked to give the blickish one, they give randomly
When shown a purple horse and a blue horse and asked to give the blickish one, they give randomly

Children DON’T extend it to the category, but also don’t extend it to the property. They seem to understand that it is not a noun, but don’t quite get what it actually does.

149
Q

What are some issues of the social-pragmatic approach? (3)

A

It assumes A LOT from children, are they truly that able?

Is it skills that we aren’t noticing?

Can this process of learning account for the acquisition of complex syntax?

150
Q

What is another term for nativist?

A

Generativist

151
Q

What basic assumption do nativists make about children’s approach to language learning?

A

That they approach the task with an innate machinery that is SPECIFIC to language - sometime described as Universal Grammar (UG) or Language Acquisition Device.

152
Q

What is the difference in nativists and constructivists argument into why children observe adult word order?

A

Nativists:
- Children observe adult word order because they have an abstract rule.

Constructivists:
- Children observe adult word order because they pick up high frequency lexical frames from their input (which follow adult word order).

153
Q

How do nativists and constructivists use ‘generalisations’ in children’s language as proof for their theory?

A

Nativists:
- Generalisations provide evidence of abstract (innate) rules that they apply across terms.

Constructivists:
- Generalisations demonstrate that children learn these patterns gradually from distributional analysis of the language they hear.

154
Q

Explain how semantic bootstrapping works.

A

Using linking rules between meaning and syntax, children can start to ‘link’ individual words to innate grammatical categories.

They can also link semantic roles to syntactic roles:

Semantic roles:
- Agent: person carrying out the action
- Patient: person or thing affected by the action

Syntactic roles:
- Agent: Subject of sentence
- Patient: Object of sentence.

This overall allows children to start making links between which pieces of the language puzzle go together, as they create bigger areas of connected pieces, they can connect this to other areas until they have the picture of how language works.

Manchester Cogneuro Year 2 Semester 1 (5 decks)

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