COGNITION AND LANGUAGE Getting Inside Our Talking Heads

Thinking  Cognitive Psychology focuses on the study of higher mental processes that include……???  Thinking, language, memory, problem solving, knowing, reasoning, judging, and decision making  Thinking is any brain activity in which we purposefully manipulate mental representations of information  What is a mental representation?  Thinking transforms representations into new forms  We draw inferences often but our brains are cognitive misers  Economize mentally in a variety of ways that reduce our mental effort

Mental Images  Representations in the mind of an object or event  Not just a visual representation  Ex) green beans  Adjustments can be made and representations take on the characteristics of the real stimulus  Ex) scanning large objects vs. small objects  Can actually help to improve various skills  Performance and brain regions

Concepts  Mental groupings of similar objects, events, or people  Help classify newly encountered objects using past experience  Ex) iphone vs. ipad  However, most of the objects we encounter are difficult to define or ambiguous  Prototypes—typical, highly representative examples of a concept Ex) octopus or ostrich  Enable us to think about and understand the world around us Ex) Doctor and chest pains

Heuristics  Shortcuts to increase our thinking efficiency  Availability heuristic—judging the probability of an event on the basis of how easily the event can be recalled  Representativeness heuristic—a rule we apply when we judge people by the degree to which they represent a certain category or group of people  Familiarity heuristic—familiar items are seen as superior to those that are unfamiliar  Simplifies what we attend to, keeping down the information we need for decision making  Cognitive economy can serve us well, but can also lead to faulty conclusions

Top-Down Processing  Streamlines cognitive functioning by utilizing preexisting knowledge  Includes use of concepts and schemas  We exert less cognitive effort over basic info, frees us up to engage in more complex reasoning

Problem Solving  Generating a cognitive strategy to accomplish a specific goal  We often rely on algorithms to solve problems  Replacing the starter on a car, making a peanut-butter- and jelly sandwich

Problem Solving and Reasoning  Involves reliable planning, judgment, and decision- making  Requires monitoring of external world, attention to information, retrieval from long-term memory, manipulation/integration of information, and output of appropriate information.  Also, suppression of unnecessary information and inappropriate actions.  Altogether, this is called executive function.

Problem Solving  If algorithms don’t’ work, try breaking a problem down in to easier subproblems  Ex) building a doghouse  Well-defined problem vs. ill-defined problem

Types of Problems  Arrangement problems—need to rearrange or recombine elements in a way that will satisfy a certain criterion  Ex) jigsaw puzzle or remodeling house  Problems of Inducing Structure—need to identify the existing relationships among the elements presented and then construct a new relationship among them  Ex) ?  Transformation—consist of an initial state, a goal state, and a method for changing the initial state into the goal state  Ex) tower of Hanoi

Measuring out a precise amount of water by adding and subtracting using the provided pitchers.

Another Problem  The Die Hard 3 Riddle  You have a 3 gallon jug and a 5 gallon jug. How do you get exactly 4 gallons of water?

Solutions  Trial and Error  Forming Subgoals—divide the problem into intermediate steps  Not always effective….only when it approaches the ultimate goal  Insight—sudden awareness of the relationships among various elements that had previously appeared to be unrelated  Ex) Kohler and the chimpanzee with the banana

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Obstacles to Problem Solving Salience of surface similarities Ex) similar math problems Ex) multiple questions on test Mental sets—boxed in by experiences Ex) coming up with your own examples Functional fixedness Ex) using pliars as a hammer

Decision-Making  The process of selecting among a set of possible alternatives  Many of our daily decisions are made implicitly and based on cognitive economy  Emotionally laden decisions….gut feeling  Makes sense to make bigger decisions more carefully, but overanalyzing can overwhelm us  Paralysis by analysis

Decision-Making  Crucial not to follow our “gut” when evaluating scientific evidence  Framing has an impact on decisions even when the underlying information relevant to these decisions is identical  5% chance of winning vs. 95% chance of losing  15 million Americans vs. 95% of Americans

Problem Solving and Reasoning  “Executive control”– mechanism or system responsible for the coordinated operation of various systems.  Prefrontal cortex is considered the important structure for executive control  Numerous studies on damage of the prefrontal cortex  Studies indicate a sensitivity, not a specificity for executive function

Prefrontal Damage  Normal IQ  Normal long-term memory  Normal perceptual and motor skills  Deficits when intellectual operations demand creation of a program of action  Difficulties when a choice needs to be made between several equally probable alternatives  Coordination of perceptual, motor, and memory processes is deficient

3 divisions of prefrontal cortex  Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex  Anterior Cingulate Cortex  Orbitofrontal Cortex

Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex  Involved with on-line processing such as integrating different dimensions of cognition and behavior  Verbal fluency, maintain and shift set, planning, response inhibition, working memory, organizational skills, reasoning, problem solving, abstract thinking.

Anterior Cingulate  Involved in emotional drives, experience, and integration  Responsible for inhibition of inappropriate responses, decision making, and motivated behavior.  Lesions related to low drive states

Orbitofrontal Cortex  Involved in impulse control, maintenance of set, monitoring ongoing behavior and socially appropriate behavior  Role in representing the value of rewards based on sensory stimuli and evaluating subjective emotional experiences  Lesions lead to impulsivity, aggressive outbursts, sexual promiscuity, antisocial behavior.

The role of working memory  Involved with temporary storage of information  Also a mechanism for manipulating and processing stored information  This is an indication that working memory can be considered a “workspace” for information processing

3 Features of Prefrontal Mechanism 1. Represent and process any kind of new information 2. Access any kind of necessary information 3. Provide information to various neuronal systems to direct information processing **The prefrontal mechanism must have flexible and dynamic input-output relationships with various brain systems

Thinking vs. Language  Is there a difference between thinking and language? In other words, do you “think” language and thinking should be studied separately or together?  Access knowledge, draw conclusions, make decisions, and interpret new phrases  Unconscious and context (do not have fixed meanings)

Language  Arbitrary system of communication that combines symbols, such as words or gestural signs, in rule- based ways to create meaning  Allows for communication of information, as well as social and emotional functions  Ex) the party starts at nine  Ex) that guy/girl was hilarious

Features of Language  Highly practiced and automatic process  Can perform other tasks  Not just a cognitive task  Four levels of analysis that must coordinate  Phonemes—the sounds of language  Morphemes—smallest units of meaningful speech  Syntax—grammatical rules  Extralinguistic information—elements of language that are not part of language

Phonemes  Categories of sounds our vocal apparatus produces  Influenced by physical characteristics  Probably around 100 total, each language only uses a subset of them  in English, range from worldwide  Differences across languages make it difficult

Morphemes  The smallest units of meaning in a language  String phonemes together  Convey information about semantics–meaning derived from words and sentences  Can be full words (“dog”) or modifiers (“re-”)

Syntax  The set of rules of a language by which we construct sentences  I ate pizza for dinner vs. Pizza ate I for dinner  Includes word order, morphological markers and sentence structure  Ex) “s”; “ed”; “ing”  Real-world language rarely follows this completely  Ex) if you wrote down everything I said word for word

Extralinguistic Information  Elements of communication that aren’t part of the content of language but are critical to interpreting its meaning  Language is sometimes not self-explanatory  Facial expressions, tone of voice, previous statements by others  Phone conversation, , or text  Used to help interpret ambiguous information  Ex) “it’s awful in here”

Language Dialects  Variations of the same language used by groups of people from specific geographic areas, social groups, or ethnic backgrounds.  Variability in the elements of language  Not distinct language….can still understand one another  Ex) “I pahked my cah”  Ex) what kind of drink is a coca cola?

Where and Why?  Language requires large learning period, hefty brain power, and other disadvantages  Vocal tract  So, it’s advantages must be particularly useful  Communication of complex ideas  Coordinates social interactions  Assists in complex activities

Learning Language  Children are more efficient learners than adults  Children begin learning to recognize their native language before they are born  Sucking procedure  Babbling during first year allows babies to develop control over vocal tracts  Not nonsense…it is practice  Also developing phoneme recognition during this time

Learning Words  Comprehension precedes production  Recognize words long before being able to say them  Ex) “elephant”  Only have a limited ability to coordinate sounds to produce words

Learning Words  Recognize own name by 6 months, comprehend other words by months  Begin to produce words around 1 year of age, with an exponential rate of increase  variability  Tend to over- and underextend word meanings early on  Ex) “mommy” and “cat”

Syntactic Development  Refers to combining words into phrase  Start off speaking in the one word stage, move to combining two words by two years  Ex) “doggie”  Can comprehend basic syntax rules before they can display them  Ex) Big Bird and Cookie Monster experiment

Sign Language  Type of language used by deaf communities that relies on visual communication  Not just gestures or charades, exhibits all features of spoken language  Same brain areas are involved in spoken and sign  Visual and spatial processing  Same developmental stages passed through in spoken and sign  Babbling and syntactic development

Bilingualism  The earlier the better when acquiring new languages  Location and motivation will also play a big role  Usually have one dominant language, but proficient in both  What happens when the child is around both languages equally?  Pass through same stages as monolinguists, although syntax is slowed  Vocabulary is unimpaired but syntax is affected

Bilingualism  Have heightened metalinguistic insight and tend to perform better on language tasks  Same brain areas used if second language is learned early, but different areas used if learned later in development

 Cases like “Genie” and homesigners show the influence of nature and nurture on language  There is not a strict critical period for language development in humans, but a sensitive period  Language proficiency differences according to exposure age  Syntax and pronunciation more than vocabulary  The younger you are the better you will learn a new language (“less is more” theory)  Learn language naturalistically and do not try to impose more organization Language Deprivation

 The imitation account suggests babies hear language used in systematic ways and learn to use language as adults use it  Behaviorist spin on this theory—reinforcement  Doesn’t account for generative nature of language Theories of Language Acquisition

 Nativist account suggests that children are born with some basic knowledge about how language works  Chomsky’s language acquisition device—language “organ” in the brain  Ex) overregularization errors--“foots” and “goed” Theories of Language Acquisition

 Social pragmatics account suggests that specific aspects of the social environment structure language learning  Context of the conversation is used  Ex) dog example  Requires assuming that infants have insight into others’ thoughts Theories of Language Acquisition

 General cognitive processing account says that ability to learn language results from general skills children apply across a variety of activities  Ex) perceive, learn, and recognize patterns Theories of Language Acquisition

 Animal species differ in the complexity and type of communication  Scent markings and visual displays  Fixed vs. generative—example of “Stay” with dog  Most communication is geared towards mating and aggression  Honeybees and vervet monkeys  d d  ed ed Nonhuman Animal Communication

 Many attempts to teach non-humans our language, with mixed results—not physiologically advanced  Chimpanzees—sign language and lexigram boards; thousands of trials; pleasure was required  Bonobos—learn better when young; observation; social interactions; syntax issues (2.5 year old)  African gray parrot—master syntax but learn like chimpanzee  Humans appear unique in our ability to use language is a sophisticated way Teaching Human Language

 The view that we represent all thinking linguistically  Can thought exist without language?  Studies paralyzing vocal cords, children cognitive tasks, and using neuroimaging  Reading vs. spatial tasks Linguistic Determinism

 A less radical view, where characteristics of language shape our thought processes  Studies suggest language shapes some aspects of perception, memory, and thought  Russian vs. English recall  Difficulty in separating language from cultural differences  Different cultures have different priorities Linguistic Relativity

Reading  Like language, it becomes an automatic process  We often can’t turn it off, even if we want to  Say aloud the color of the ink in these examples  Children lack the interference

 We must learn four things prior to learning 1. Writing is meaningful 2. Writing moves in a specific direction 3. Recognizing letters of the alphabet 4. Printed letters correspond to specific sounds Learning to Read

 Once those are learned, we must master two more skills to become experts 1. How words look on the page (whole word recognition) 2. How to sound out unfamiliar words (phonetic decomposition) Learning to Read

 The average student reads WPM  The faster you read above 400 WPM, the more your level of comprehension drops  Speed reading courses “work” by making you go faster, but you don’t understand as much Speed Reading

Aphasias Paved the Way  What is an aphasia?  Not related to deafness or paralysis  Need to be aware of issue  2 important discoveries from aphasias  Left hemisphere is dominant in language  Two key cortical areas have different roles in language Broca’s Area Wernicke’s Area **arcuate fasciculus is bidirectional

Speech Production and Comprehension: Brain Mechanisms Lateralization Verbal behavior is lateralized function Most language disturbances occur after damage to left side of brain, whether people are left-handed or right-handed Right-hemisphere speech dominance is seen in only 4 percent of right-handed people, in 15 percent of ambidextrous people, and in 27 percent of left-handed people Left hemisphere is dominant for speech in 90 percent of population

Speech Production and Comprehension: Brain Mechanisms Speech Production Talk about perceptions or memories Conversion of this info into speech Damage to a region of inferior left frontal lobe (Broca's area) disrupts ability to speak and causes Broca's aphasia Damage must extend into surrounding areas Disorder is characterized by slow, laborious, and nonfluent speech Can sometimes produce comprehensible sentences, but are just missing some syntax Content words vs. function words Rarely use grammatical markers (agrammatism) Word finding difficulties (anomia) Articulation difficulties (lipstick vs. likstip)

Speech Production and Comprehension: Brain Mechanisms Speech Production People with Broca's aphasia can comprehend speech much better than they can produce it Some observers have said that their comprehension is unimpaired, but as we will see, this is not quite true Basal ganglia damage can produce Broca-like aphasia May contain motor memories Directly connected to primary motor cortex

Wernicke's Aphasia Primary characteristics of Wernicke's aphasia are poor speech comprehension and production of meaningless speech Unlike Broca's aphasia, Wernicke's aphasia is fluent and unlabored Person does not strain to articulate words and does not appear to be searching for them Content vs. function Because superior temporal gyrus is a region of auditory association cortex and because a comprehension deficit is so prominent in Wernicke's aphasia, this disorder has been characterized as a receptive aphasia Memories of the sequences of sounds that make up words

Wernicke's Aphasia Abilities that are disrupted Recognition of spoken words Comprehension of the meaning of words Ability to convert thoughts into words

Wernicke's Aphasia  Human brains contain circuits of mirror neurons  Feedback from these neurons may help us to understand the intent of the actions of others  Several investigators have suggested that feedback from subvocal articulation facilitate speech recognition

Modern Framework  3 large systems interact closely in language perception and production  Language implementation system Broca and Wernicke Analyzes incoming signals and ensures articulatory control  Mediational system Temporal, parietal, occipital, and frontal association cortices  Conceptual system Remainder of higher-order association cortices

Stuttering Neumann et al. (2005) Provide further evidence that apparently abnormal auditory feedback in stutterers is reflected in decreased activation of temporal cortex fMRI used to measure regional brain activation of stutterers reading sentences aloud during two sessions, one before and one after a successful twelve-week course of fluency shaping therapy Brown et al. (2005) found decreased activation in region