Week 9 Flashcards
Describe the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
The structure of ones language influences the manner in which one perceives and understand the world = speakers of different languages will perceive the world differently
What do studies based on the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis find?
Specific languages do not determine, but influence, how people think
Why should we think language may influence thought in preverbal infants?
- Language learning begins in utero
- Infants recognise their mother tongue at birth
- Infants learn the sound structure of their mother tongue during first year of life and pick up on grammatical patterns
- Begin to link signal to meaning: can recognise a handful of words before they are able to speak
What is categorisation?
Ability to group distinct objects into classes based on shared features and functions
Is categorisation possible without language?
Yes
But language provides a tool to express categories, communicate them and teach them to others
How do links between language and categorisation develop?
On the threshold of producing language = 12 months
Looking back in developmental time = 3-4 months
What effect does familiarisation have on infants?
Infants have a novelty preference at test = means infant must have grouped the familiarised objects into one category and recognise the new exemplar as a member of the category
How do links between language and categorisation develop?
There is a principled link which is sufficiently contrasted to pick out linguistic signals sufficiently powerful to promote abstraction
how do infants develop their categorisation abilities?
Infants differentiate the novel from the familiar category > to do this they group the familiar objects into one category and recognise the new exemplar as a member of this category
How does listening to language boost cognition?
When we hear novel words, infants begin to look for commonalities between objects
What is the link between language and space?
Language helps young children to integrate different spatial reference frames
What is the difference between adults and 8 year olds during the spatial reconstruction task?
Adults: people memorise spatial arrays using an orientation coding system prevalent in the language they speak
8 year olds: specific languages have a strong influence on how children remember spatial orientation
What are spatial semantic categories?
Where language influences how we conceptualise space
Does language shape space categorization in infants?
The way children encode spatial representation and categorise space seems to be modified by their native language
Does numerical cognition depend on language?
Some aspect are dully independent and some aspects are fully dependant
What aspect of numerical cognition is independent from language? How do we know this?
The operation of two non-symbolic number systems
Through evidence from animals, preverbal babies and uneducated adults
What aspects of numerical cognition depend on language?
- Symbolic numerical representation is possible thanks to language
- Symbolic number systems support precise number representations and recording number
