Language and ThoughtsLanguage- Definitiono Language: A system for communicating with others using signals that are combined according to rules of grammar and convey meaning Grammar: A set of rules that specify how the units of language can be combined to produce meaningful messages Language with meaning but without grammar: “me ball give” Language without meaning but with grammar: “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously”- Human language vs nonhuman communicationo Human language evolved from signaling systems used by other species, but there are three striking differences: Great complexity – human language can express an infinite number of novel sentences Intangibles – Human language can refer to thins do not physically exist, like “unicorn” or “democracy” Self talk – Humans use language to describe things to themselveso Apes and language Early attempts to teach apes to speak failed- Vocal tracts cannot accommodate human speech sounds Washoe – First ape to learn American Sign Language (1960s)- Learned approximately 160 words- Constructed simple sentences like “more fruit”, novel sentences like “water bird”, and even conceptual ideas like “dirty monkey” (after fighting with a monkey) Kanzi – Communicates using a keyboard system Kanzi and other apes can understand complex sentences, but they can typically only string 3 or 4 signs together- Human children are quicker at picking up grammar, too. Apes can learn words for objects and actions but not abstract concepts (e.g., economics, democracy)o Distinguishing speech sounds At birth, infants can distinguish among the contrasting sounds that occur in all human languages. But they lose this ability with in the first 6 months of life, and then they can only distinguish among sounds in the alnguages they hear around them. - “r” vs “l” sound in Japanese vs. English- Different kinds of “da” in Hindi vs. English (video)o Theories of Language development 1. Behaviorism: Children learn langage the way we learn any other skill (reinforcement, punishment, shaping, extinction, etc.)- Prah gets the baby nothing, Dada gets smiles and whoops- I no want milk would be corrected by parentso Problems with the behaviorist interpretation Parents typically respond to content, not grammar- “Nobody like me” followed by “I like you?”, not “repeat after me: Nobody likes me” Children generate more grammatical sentences than they ever hear- They learn the rules and often overgeneralize- -ed for the past tense: Runned or even ranned- Nativism – language development is est explained as an innate, biological capacityo Deaf babies babble speech sounds they have never heardo The pattern of language development is similar throughout the worldo Language skills can be deficient even if intelligence is unaffectedo Acquired during a restricted period during developmento Without grammar, children will naturally create one!- Language and Thoughto Can we have thoughts without having the language to express the thoughts?o Linguistic relativity hypothesis – Language shapes the nature of thought Whorf – Canadian Inuit have many words for “snow” His observations were very anecdotal, but recent empirical research suggests some language can facilitate processing- Ex. Russians have two common words for different shades of blue (goluboy vs siniy), and they can identify them faster than English speakers.Concepts and CategoriesA. Two types of categorizationa. Family Resemblance Theoryi. Members of a category may share some, but not all, featuresii. The category member with the most characteristic features is the “Prototype”b. Exemplar Theoryi. People make categorizations by comparing new instances to memories of other instances1. After all, we recall not only what prototypical birds look like but also what specific examples of birds look likeDecision Making- *The rational idealo Expeectancy-value: we make decisions by: Judging the likelihood (expectancy of an outcome Judging the value of the outcome (good vs bad) Multiplying the two quantities togethero This ideal was assumed in economic models of decision-making behavior for a long time….- The Irrational Realityo Frequencies vs. Probabilities It is MUCH easier to understand frequencies than to understand probabilities- We naturally experience the world as frequencies, not probabilitieso If you watched patients come through one at a time, this would be the information that you would know and use - Availability Biaso Items which are more readily available in memory are judged to have occurred more frequently  Also a type of “heuristic” – A fast and efficient decision making strategy that may facilitate decision making but does not guarantee that an optimal solution will be reached.- Like a rule of thumb- The conjunction Fallacyo The combined probability of an event is always less than the independent probability of each event.o With more information, you get a better and better description, but the likelihood of all those events being true at the same time is very smallo Representativeness Heuristic Making a probability judgment by comparing an object or event to a prototype of the object or event. We are very good at forming categories based on prototypes and making judgments based on similarity to prototypes.Review (6,7,8 and 9 and Psychology and lawRATIO- NUMBER OF TIMESINTERVAL- NUMBER OF TIMES HAVE ELAPSED Nativist view of