Survey of Modern Psychology Language Development

Five Properties of Language 1.Creative or novel – We do not memorize sentences, we create them as we go along 2.Highly structured or patterned 3.Meaningful – Meaning is derived from the words used and their order 4.Referential – Refers to and describes things in the real world 5.Interpersonal/communicative – Involves the thoughts of more than one person at a time

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/linguistic 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

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

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”

How Children Learn Language At 16 months old, children generally use one word utterances, but we interpret them as having a full sentence’s 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.

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

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

How Children Learn Language Sensitivity to Patterns 8 month old babies heard a two minute tape recording that sounded like “bidakupadotigolabubidaku” 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

How Children Learn Language Sensitivity 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

How Children Learn Language Sensitivity 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

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

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

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 it’s mostly gone

Selective Looking Experiments Marcus’s Research A baby sits on his or her caregiver’s 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 baby’s attention to either screen Sound plays from a speaker, and a moving image appears on the left or right screen

Selective Looking Experiments Marcus’s 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

Selective Looking Experiments Marcus’s 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

Selective Looking Experiments Marcus’s Research The difference in the baby’s 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