Language and thought Flashcards
Phonemes are
the smallest speech units in a a language that can be distinguished. (sounds)
Morphemes are
the smallest units of meaning in a language
Semantics is
the meaning of words & word combinations/ how they’re interpreted
Language development at 6 months
babbling resembles surrounding language
Language development at 1 year
1st word
Children acquire receptive language before
expressive language (understand what you say before they can speak)
Language development at 18-24 months
Vocabulary spurt- fast mapping: children can learn word after 1 exposure
Over extension
applying a word broadly to a concept
Language has a ____ structure
hierarchical
Example of semantics
(“do the dishes” interpreted as do them later when mother means “do dishes now”)
Example of over extension
When a child refers to all animals as “doggie”
Syntax
a system of rules for arranging words into sentences
Under extension
child incorrectly uses word to describe narrower set of objects (thinking the word “dog” only refers to family pet dog)
At what year do children combine words into sentence + ex. of telegraphic speech:
At 3 years + “I hungry”
At end of child’s 3rd yr overregularizations occur- when grammatical rules are incorrectly generalized. Give example:
“I hitted the ball”
“he goed to school”
What is metalinguistic awareness?
Ability to distance from content of speech to reflect and change structure of language (ex: self-reflection on written paper)
What is this an example of? “he goed to school”
Overregularization
Are bilingual/monolingual children similar in course & rate of language development?
Yes
Behaviourist theory:
-who theorized it?
-what is it?
-Skinner
-children learn language the same way as everything else: imitation
Nativist theory:
-who theorized it?
-what is it?
-chomsky
- humans have inborn or “native” propensity
Humans have a “language acquisition device”
Interactionist theory:
___ & ___ contribute to development of language/ ____ exchanges with parents & others
Biology & experience
Social exchanges with parents
What is linguistic relativity
our language determines our thought
What are probelems of inducing structure?
Require people to discover relationships among numbers, symbols, ideas
Problems of arrangement require:
people to arrange the parts of a problem in a certain way
The sudden discovery of the correct solution following incorrect attempts
Insight!
Example of problem of transformation:
Moving things from one riverbank to another with set of constraints
The tendency to percieve an item only in terms of common use
Functional fixedness
When people persist in using problem-solving strategies that have worked in the past
Mental set
What heuristic is this?
Trying possible solutions and discarding those that don’t work
Trial and error
What is a heuristic?
Guiding principle used in solving problems or making decisions (shortcuts)
Forming subgoals
Intermediate steps to a solution
Changing the representation of the problem would be changing it to ___, ____, ____
numbers, verbal, flow chart
What’s an incubation effect?
It occurs when new solutions surface for a previously unsolved problem
What’s the additive strategy
Listing attributes and variables influencing decision
What is this an example of? Eliminating alternatives by evaluating them on each attribute
Eliminination by aspects
Natural shortcuts people use in probabilities are:
Heuristics
Basing estimated probability of event on ease with relevent instances in mind (based on available info) is:
Availability heuristic
Basing the estimated probability of event on how similar it’s to typical prototype
Representativeness heuristic (stereotype)
Example of people ignoring base rates:
Not considering what most people can do (inflating driving ability when it’s probably average and deflating unicycle riding when it’s also probably average)
Belief that odds of chance event increase if event hasn’t occured recently
Gambler’s fallacy
