Survey of Modern Psychology

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Survey of Modern Psychology

• Language Development

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Five Properties of Language

• Creative or novel
• We do not memorize sentences, we create them as
  we go along
• Highly structured or patterned
• Meaningful
• Meaning is derived from the words used and their
  order
• Referential
• Refers to and describes things in the real world
• Interpersonal/communicative
• Involves the thoughts of more than one person at
  a time

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How Children Learn Language

• It had been theorized that children learn by
  imitation and correction with reinforcement
• However
• Children produce new sentences that they have not
  heard before, often incorrectly
• Parents do not always correct grammatical/linguist
  ic mistakes
• A child who creates grammatically incorrect new
  sentences may still be told very good if he or
  she has just started talking or is using new words

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How Children Learn Language

• Motherese
• Adults tend to use motherese when speaking to
  babies
• Higher pitched, slower rate, exaggerated
  intonations
• Pauses between sentences and words are better
  defined
• Babies prefer motherese to adult conversational
  tones

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How Children Learn Language Errors

• Children may over or under generalize the meaning
  of a word
• Undergeneralization Not realizing that house
  refers to large houses as well as doll houses
• Overgeneralization Thinking that all men are
  called Daddy

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How Children Learn Language

• At 16 months old, children generally use one word
  utterances, but we interpret them as having a
  full sentences worth of intended meaning
• For example, we would assume that a child is
  asking for a cookie, not merely announcing the
  presence of a cookie.

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How Children Learn Language

• In studies, if a 16 month old hears, Oh look!
  Big Bird is tickling Cookie Monster they look to
  the appropriate picture indicating that they do
  understand prepositions

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How Children Learn Language Sensitivity to
Patterns

• Children learn that syntax provides clues as to
  what type of word is being used
• In a study using 3 4 year olds
• If asked, In this picture, can you see sebbing?
  children made the same movement with their hands
• If asked, In this picture, can you see a seb?
  children pointed to the container
• If asked, In this picture, can you see any seb?
  children pointed to the contents of the container

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How Children Learn LanguageSensitivity to
Patterns

• 8 month old babies heard a two minute tape
  recording that sounded like bidakupadotigolabubid
  aku
• There were no differences in how syllables were
  stressed, and no pauses
• The experimenters had decided that bidaku would
  be a word
• bida would always be followed by ku
• daku could be followed by anything

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How Children Learn LanguageSensitivity to
Patterns

• In subsequent recordings, the babies showed no
  evidence of surprise if they heard
  bidakubidakubidaku
• They did show surprise if they heard
  dakupadakupadakupa
• They had heard the same syllables before, but
  that combination was new and therefore a new word

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How Children Learn LanguageSensitivity to
Patterns

• The sensitivity to patterns may cause
  difficulties in a language like English
• The suffix ed usually means past tense
• Generalizing the pattern would yield I goed I
  eated and I drinked
• Usually s means plural, yielding foots and
  mouses
• This is called overregularization

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How Children Learn Language

• Every language has a limited number of phonemes
  (the smallest significant unit of sound in a
  language)
• The phonemes vary across languages

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How Children Learn Language

• Ex. in English, the difference in pronunciation
  between L and R is important
• Lob and Rob sound similar, but have different
  meanings
• In Japanese, there is no linguistic difference
  between L and R, and therefore Japanese people
  often have trouble hearing a difference between
  the sounds or producing it

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How Children Learn Language

• At birth, we have the ability to perceive all of
  the phonemes across different languages but we
  lose that ability if it is not used
• By 6 months the ability has started to diminish
• By 12 months its mostly gone

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Selective Looking ExperimentsMarcuss Research

• A baby sits on his or her caregivers lap in
  front of two video screens, one on the left, one
  on the right
• The caregiver is blindfolded so he or she cannot
  direct the babys attention to either screen
• Sound plays from a speaker, and a moving image
  appears on the left or right screen

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Selective Looking ExperimentsMarcuss Research

• In the first part of the experiment, the baby is
  introduced to a series of nonsense syllables
  following an ABB pattern
• i.e., la ti ti do fe fe
• As the sound plays from the left or right
  speaker, an image appears on the corresponding
  screen
• At first, the baby finds this interesting and
  turns to look at the appropriate screen
• When the baby gets used to the setup (habituated)
  he or she looks at the screens less often and for
  shorter periods of time

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Selective Looking ExperimentsMarcuss Research

• In the second part of the experiment, phonemes
  from another language are used
• The phonemes follow the same ABB pattern or an
  ABA pattern
• i.e., la ti la do fe do
• When the phonemes follow the familiar pattern, it
  is uninteresting and the baby does not attend to
  the monitor
• When the phonemes follow the ABA pattern, it is
  novel and the baby does attend to the monitor

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Selective Looking ExperimentsMarcuss Research

• The difference in the babys interest in the ABB
  vs. ABA patterns with foreign language phonemes
  show that the baby can hear the sounds as being
  different from each other