Psy/360 - Language and Cognition

Language and Cognition

Language is an important mechanism used in most individual’s everyday life. It helps define their culture, their backgrounds, who they are and where their place in the world is. Most of us don’t put a lot of thought into what mental processes work together to allow an individual to express his thoughts and ideas through language, but it is impossible to analyze the language development process without factoring in the important role that cognition plays in that event. This essay intends to present different hypothesis that try to explain how cognition and language are related, and how deeply connected they must be in order to allow the proper functioning and interaction of individuals in society. As thinkers try to understand if people who speak different languages think differently, or if there is a certain level of cognitive development required to allow language skills acquisition, the debate concerned with the relationship between language and cognition is one that will see no end in the near future. 

Language can be defined as the human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication. This system allows individuals to express and communicate thoughts and feelings by using speech sounds and written symbols. The scientific study of language is linguistics. There are four key features of language, which are phonemes, words, sentences and text. Phonemes-phonetics can be considered the most important key feature of languages, because this aspect is what makes each language different from one another. Phonemes are sounds usually indicated by slash symbols, and these sounds cannot be broken into smaller sounds. Phonetics studies the physical properties of those speech sounds, and what they mean. Words, the second key feature in languages can be defined as a unit of language formed by one of more spoken sounds. When words are put together, sentences are formed. Sentences are grammatical units of one word or more. Text refers to conversations, or a group of sentences put together to relay a message. The four levels of language structure and processing are phonemes, words, sentences, and texts. Phonemes make up words, which make up sentences, which make up texts.

Is language fundamentally different than other cognitive abilities, or does it involve the same mental processes and characteristics? It is still unknown to scientists how exactly language and cognition interact during the thinking process, or how fundamental language is for thinking. “Language accumulates cultural wisdom; cognition develops mental representations modeling surrounding world and adapts cultural knowledge to concrete circumstances of life. Language is acquired from surrounding language “ready-made” and therefore can be acquired early in life. This early acquisition of language in childhood encompasses the entire hierarchy from sounds to words, to phrases, and to highest concepts existing in culture. Cognition is developed from experience. Yet cognition cannot be acquired from experience alone; language is a necessary intermediary, a ‘teacher.’” (Perlovsky, 2011). 

Although language development is a process that most individuals take for granted, as many other cognitive functions, it must be learned. Children, for instance, not only have to learn the names for thousands of objects, feelings, situations, colors, animals, and more, but they also have to learn how to put those words together and form cohesive sentences. Chomsky developed in the 1950s an interesting concept of how and which mind mechanisms influenced the language process. “It seemed obvious to Chomsky that surrounding language cultures do not carry enough information for a child to learn language, unless specific language learning mechanisms are inborn. These mechanisms should be specific enough for learning complex language grammars and still flexible enough so that a child of any ethnicity from any part of the world would learn whichever language is spoken around.” (Perlovsky, 2011). Chomsky’s biggest innovation was to interpret language abilities as akin to a mental organ. He believed that children were born with a “language acquisition device” and some linguistic knowledge. He also believed that children did not learn how to speak solely by imitation adults, as they will often use incorrect verbal forms that they have not learned from adults, like “goed” or speaked”. These kinds of mistakes, according to Chomsky, happen because instead of just imitating adults, children extract rules from what they constantly hear. “Because the language imput to children is mfull of mistakes, stops and restarts, Chomsky felt that children could not learn the language using general purpose problem-solving or regularity-extraction skills” (Harris, n.d.). A lexicon, on the other hand, is the vocabulary of a language, and what the sounds mean in that language. It is impossible to know a language without knowing its lexicon, or its vocabulary. 

Scientists and psychologies have been trying for decades to understand to what extent is human thinking dependent on the possession and understanding of a language. Is it possible for humans to think without language skills? Some philosophers believe that it is conceptually necessary that all thoughts are dependent on language skills. On the other hand, there are philosophers that believe that thoughts are independent of language, not only conceptually but also metaphysically and causally (Carruthers, 2012). In between these two very different ideas, there are many others that believe that some language is necessary in the thinking processes, if not always, at least at times.

During the second quarter of the twentieth century, behaviorism was the predominant school of thought in psychology. Psychologists believed that most kinds on animal behavior were associated to the response to a stimulus. At that time, Benjamin Lee Whorf, an American linguist, presented the idea that because of linguistic differences in grammar and usage, speakers of different languages conceptualize and experience the world differently. He was impressed at the variety of grammatical forms and modes of conceptualization present in the many languages throughout the world. For instance, some languages do not have specific words for what we know as “left” or “right”, but use instead geocentric coordinates like east, west, north or south. He also though it was interesting how some cultures on known colors as light or dark, instead of having a specific name for each one. Eskimos, on the other hand, have countless words just to describe the snow. Whorf proposed than that all these cultural linguistic differences impact the cognitive processes of people in each of those cultures. He also proposed that a deep relation exists between language and thought. His theory, which was known as the Whorfian hypothesis (or the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis), in its strongest formulation this hypothesis has it that the structure of one’s native language determines one’s conceptual categorization of the world. The Whorfian hypothesis generated a good deal of debate and empirical testing in the 1950s and 1960s. (Carruthers, 2012). Although Whorf’s ideas are still popular in some areas of social sciences, the cognitive revolution that occurred in psychology in the early years of his period made that some of his main ideas would fall into dispute amongst cognitive scientists, especially during the second half of the twentieth century.

The first half of the twentieth century presented an important question, as scientists, philosophers and psychologists tried to understand if the relationship between cognition and language was influenced by each language’s grammatical structures and vocabulary. With the upcoming arrival of cognitive psychology, a new question would arise: are cognition and language similar or different human abilities? This question has received many controversial answers for the past few decades. Nowadays, scientists emphasize that our species have evolved thanks to the distinction between different areas of human ability, either some natural to individuals, such as language and basic number use, and areas that require learning, like algebra or playing a musical instrument.

References

Carruthers, P. (2012). Language in cognition. Retrieved from http://faculty.philosophy.umd.edu/pcarruthers/Language%20in%20cognition.pdf

Harris, C. L. (n.d.). Language and cognition. Retrieved from http://www.bu.edu/psych/charris/papers/Encyclopedia.pdf

Leonid Perlovsky, “Language and Cognition Interaction Neural Mechanisms,” Computational Intelligence and Neuroscience, vol. 2011, Article ID 454587, 13 pages, 2011. doi:10.1155/2011/454587

Psy/360 - Memory Worksheet

Memory Worksheet 

Using the text, Cognition: The Thinking Animal, the University Library, the Internet, and/or other resources, answer the following questions.  Your response to each question should be at least 150 words in length.

1.      What is primary memory?  What are the characteristics of primary memory?

Primary memory can be considered the brain’s short term memory storage, and it is also known as working memory. This memory can be compared to a computer’s storage memory. When the brain needs to figure out complex problems, or anything that needs attention, the primary memory is responsible for that. This memory’s main purpose is to learn new information, and that is why it only holds a small quantity of information at a time. Some of the characteristics of the primary memory are the ability to hold small amounts of information at one time, as well as its short duration, due to the fact that it is supposed to only hold current and relevant information for a present task.

2.      What is the process of memory from perception to retrieval?  What happens when the process is compromised?

After the brain receives and stores information, that information must be retrieved before it can be used. Retrieval can be defined as the process of accessing memory that has been stored. For instance, when taking a test, a student must be able to access and remember the information learned in order to answer the questions. Sometimes, a cue is all that is needed for an individual to remember some information. There are four different ways in which information can be accessed. First, recall, which is the way to access memory without using a cue. Second, recollection, which is the retrieving way that involves piecing different bits of information together until the remaining information can be accessed. Third, recognition, which involces remembering information after experiencing it again. Last, relearning, which means learning information again, after it was learned before. When the process is compromised, the individual will not be able to remember all the information he needs, which is known as the “tip of the tongue” experience.

3.      Is it possible for memory retrieval to be unreliable?  Why or why not?  What factors may affect the reliability of one’s memory?

It is very possible for memory retrieval to be unreliable. A lot of time, trying to remember an event that happened many years ago, with all its details, is almost impossible, as memories can be distorted by the way the questions are asked or even the environmental situation the individual is in. For instance, stress or being under pressure can prevent an individual to remember facts correctly. Also, it is possible for new memories to interfere with old one, causing confusion and misinterpretation. An interesting example of unreliable retrieval is the study performed by Loftus and Palmer, when they showed college students a film with a car collision. By dividing the students into two different groups, and phrasing the same question differently, the researchers were able to get very different answers about details of the same accident, which proves how people’s memories are highly influenceable.

References

Cherry, K. (2013). Memory retrieval. Retrieved from http://psychology.about.com/od/cognitivepsychology/a/memory_retrival.htm

Willingham, D. T. (2007). Cognition: The thinking animal (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Allyn & Bacon.

Psy/360 - Attention Worksheet

Attention Worksheet 

Using the text, Cognition: The Thinking Animal, the University Library, the Internet, and/or other resources, answer the following questions.  Your response to each question should be at least 150 words in length.

1.     How do you define the concept of attention?

According to the dictionary, attention means taking notice of something, or regarding someone or something as interesting or important. However, attention as concept studied by cognitive psychology represents the way individuals process the information they receive from the environment. Attention is a cognitive process of concentrating on a specific part of the environment while ignoring others. It can also be defined as the allocation of processing resources (Anderson, 2004). Psychologist and philosopher William James has a very interesting explanation on this concept, as he tells that to actively pay attention to something, one must withdraw from everything else (Cherry, 2013). I don’t necessarily agree universally with that, as it is possible for some people to pay attention to many things ate a time, but that is not a talent that everybody has.  I, for example, have a very difficult time paying attention to more than one thing at a time, so his explanation really adapts to my own experiences.

2.     Can attention be consciously allocated to tasks?  Why or why not?

Attention can most definitely be allocated to different tasks, as it can be both a voluntary and an involuntary process. Although it may be difficult sometimes, most individuals have the power to choose what they want to pay attention to. Either a movie, a book, homework or a work project, most of us have to make a conscious decision to pay attention to a specific project sometimes. A lot of times that is a very difficult task for some people. Having to force yourself to pay attention to a book you must read in order to complete homework while your favorite movie is on is almost impossible. Because of that, it is important sometimes for individuals to distance themselves from any forms of distraction when it is imperative they concentrate all their attention to one task. Some people are capable of paying attention to multiple tasks at once, but for some that is not possible.

3.     What is the relationship between attention and cognition?

As it was explained previously, attention is a cognitive process, and for that reason alone it is safe to say that attention and cognition are interrelated. But in fact, their connection goes deeper than that, as both concepts have a significant influence on each other. It is well known that attention is the ability to focus on specific information, and cognition refers to the thought processes that allow learning to happen. Attention is also the ability of shutting down competing sources of information and focusing on a desired one. Attention problems can deeply affect one’s ability to learn, since it is necessary for an individual to be able to pay attention to something in order for that material to be absorbed by the brain, and consequently, stored and learned. An individual with a short attention span in unable to focus on something for longer periods of time, which is usually crucial in the learning process.

References:

Anderson, John R. (2004). Cognitive psychology and its implications (6th ed.). Worth Publishers. p. 519. ISBN 978-0-7167-0110-1.

Cherry, K. (2013) What is attention? Retrieved from psychology.about.com/od/cognitivepsychology/f/attention.htm

Psy/360 - Cognitive Brain Functions

Cognitive Brain Functions

The human brain is divided in many different areas that perform vital activities crucial for the functioning of the human body.  According to Dr. J. A. Stevens Williams, “at the most general level, human cognitive processing occurs in the cortex, the outer layer of the brain composed of folds (gyri) and crevices (sulci) of tissue” (2010). Understanding the detailed cortical map has been extremely important for the development of the study of cognitive functions, because it allowed scientists to learn that specific regions of tissue are responsible for different cognitive processes. For instance, there are regions in charge of decision making, language skills, visual processing and so on. Great advances in cognitive neuroscience over the past couple of decades, paired with technological innovations for brain imagining, have allowed scientists to identify affected areas of the brain and how the human behavior can change if a specific part of the brain is affected.

Human cognitive functions originate in a part of the brain called cerebrum, also known as the cerebral cortex. This area is composed by four different lobes: the frontal lobe, the temporal lobe, the occipital lobe, and the parietal lobe. Each one of these areas is responsible for specific cognitive tasks, and some of these tasks such as reading, speaking, or leaning require multiple areas of the cerebrum to work together (Jeanty, 2013). For cognitive functions to happen, it is necessary for neurotransmitter processes to coordinate signals between different parts of the brain. These neurotransmitters, which are chemicals produced by nerve cells and released when a nerve cell is stimulated, travel between the right and the left side of the brain, creating a communication and a transmission of information (Jeanty, 2013). 

Brain injuries can have a great impact on the lives of those who suffered an accident or went through a degenerative disease. Having specific parts of the brain affected can prevent it from performing vital functions and consequently impacting the way the victim behaves in different situations. A very well know example of a brain injured that had an irreversible impact on the victim is the case of Phineas Gage. Phineas P. Gage was an American railroad construction man, and is often referred to as one of the most notorious neuroscience patients. On September 13, 1848, Gage, who was twenty five years old at the time, was working in a railroad near Cavendish, Vermont. While attempting to pack explosive powder into a hole, the powder detonated and sent the rod, that was 43 inches long and had 1.25 inches in diameter, flying upward, penetrating Gage’s left cheek, going through his brain, exiting his skull and landing eighty feet away. Not only Phineas Gage was still alive after the accident, he was able to talk to the doctors and tell them what had happened. His recovery was surprisingly fast, and one month after the accident he was already leaving his house and walking on the street. Dr. John Marty Harlow, who was in charge of the case, noted that his patient knew very clearly how much time had passed since the accident and remembered details about that day very vividly, but he had a lot of difficulty with numbers, distances and amounts (Cherry, 2013).

In the months that followed the accident, Gage recovered fairly well. He was in good shape and had overall a good physical health. However, reports show that his personality changed drastically. Before the accident, he was known as a pleasant, hard-working man. Apparently after the accident he became aggressive and irresponsible. Although there are not a lot of evidence to support the changes in his personality, most of his friends attested that if nothing else, he lost all social inhibition, which led to inappropriate behaviors. Because of his curious story, Phineas Gage had a great influence on neurology. “The specific changes observed in his behavior pointed to emerging theories about the localization of brain function, or the idea that certain functions are associated with specific areas of the brain. Today, scientists better understand the role that the frontal cortex has to play in important higher order functions such as reasoning, language, and social cognition. In those years, while neurology was in its infancy, Gage's extraordinary story served as one of the first sources of evidence that the frontal lobe was involved in personality” (Cherry, 2013).

References

Cherry, K. (2013). Phineas Gage. Retrieved from http://psychology.about.com/od/historyofpsychology/a/phineas-gage.htm

Jeanty, J. (2013). Cognitive brain functions. Retrieved from http://www.ehow.com/about_5312779_cognitive-brain-functions.html

Williams, J. A. S. (2013). Brain cognitive functions . Retrieved from http://www.livestrong.com/article/94082-brain-cognitive-functions/