Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 31, 2026

Measuring Statistical Learning Across Modalities and Domains in School-Aged Children Via an Online Platform and Neuroimaging Techniques
08:05

Measuring Statistical Learning Across Modalities and Domains in School-Aged Children Via an Online Platform and Neuroimaging Techniques

Published on: June 30, 2020

Faithful contrastive features in learning.

Bruce Tesar1

  • 1Department of Linguistics, Rutgers University.

Cognitive Science
|June 28, 2011
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

This study shows how surface contrasts in language can reveal underlying phonological forms. Observing word pairs helps learn these forms, but phonological mapping is still essential for full determination.

Related Concept Videos

Purposive Learning01:22

Purposive Learning

E. C. Tolman emphasized the purposiveness of behavior — the idea that much of our behavior is goal-directed. For instance, employees who aim for a promotion work diligently to meet their targets. Tolman argued that when classical conditioning and operant conditioning occur, the organism acquires certain expectations. In classical conditioning, a child might fear a dog because they expect it to bite. In operant conditioning, a person might consistently work overtime because they expect a bonus...
Observational Learning01:12

Observational Learning

Albert Bandura's observational learning, also known as imitation or modeling, occurs when a person observes and imitates another's behavior. It is a quicker process than operant conditioning. A well-known example is the Bobo doll study, where children who saw an adult acting aggressively towards the doll were more likely to act aggressively when left alone, compared to those who observed a nonaggressive adult. Many psychologists view observational learning as a form of latent learning because...
Cognitive Learning01:21

Cognitive Learning

Cognitive learning is based on purposive behavior, incidental learning, and insight learning.
E. C. Tolman's theory of purposive behavior emphasizes that much behavior is goal-directed. He argued that to understand behavior, we must look at the entire sequence of actions leading to a goal. For instance, high school students study hard, not just due to past reinforcement but also to achieve the goal of getting into a good college.
Tolman introduced the idea that behavior is influenced by...
Associative Learning01:27

Associative Learning

Associative learning is a fundamental concept in behavioral psychology, wherein a connection is established between two stimuli or events, leading to a learned response. This process is critical in understanding how behaviors are acquired and modified. Conditioning, the mechanism through which associations are formed, can be divided into two main types: classical conditioning and operant conditioning, each elucidating different aspects of associative learning.
Classical conditioning, also known...
Language Development01:22

Language Development

Children master language quickly and with relative ease, supported by both biological predisposition and reinforcement. B. F. Skinner (1957) proposed that language is learned through reinforcement, while Noam Chomsky (1965) argued that language acquisition mechanisms are biologically determined.
The critical period for language acquisition suggests that the ability to acquire language is at its peak early in life. As people age, this proficiency decreases. Language development begins very...
Components of Language01:24

Components of Language

Language, whether spoken, signed, or written, consists of specific components: lexicon and grammar. The lexicon is the vocabulary of a language, comprising its words. Grammar is the set of rules used to convey meaning through the lexicon. For example, English grammar adds “-ed” to most verbs to indicate past tense. Words are formed by combining phonemes, which are the basic sound units of a language. Different languages have different sets of phonemes (e.g., “ah” vs. “eh”). Phonemes combine to...

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same journal

Cross-Cultural Variation in the Noun Bias in Early Vocabulary Development: A Systematic Review.

Cognitive science·2026
Same journal

Event Segmentation in Language and Cognition.

Cognitive science·2026
Same journal

A Journey Into a Traveler's Mental Map: Duration, Distance, and Speed Experienced in High-Speed Trains.

Cognitive science·2026
Same journal

Mapping Concepts Onto Linguistic Structure: The Case of Animacy.

Cognitive science·2026
Same journal

Pronoun Resolution in Turkish: The Interplay of Referential Form, Word Order, and Implicit Causality.

Cognitive science·2026
Same journal

What's in a Color?: Language, Synesthesia, and Categorical Perception.

Cognitive science·2026

Area of Science:

  • Phonology
  • Linguistics
  • Computational Linguistics

Background:

  • Understanding phonological underlying forms is crucial for linguistic analysis.
  • Optimality Theory (OT) provides a framework for analyzing phonological systems.
  • Inferring underlying forms directly from observable surface contrasts presents a challenge.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the direct inference of phonological underlying forms from surface contrasts within Optimality Theory.
  • To establish conditions under which surface contrasts guarantee faithful realization of underlying features.

Main Methods:

  • Analysis of linguistic systems within the Optimality Theory framework.
  • Development and application of a learning procedure termed 'contrast analysis'.

More Related Videos

Foreign Accent and Forensic Speaker Identification in Voice Lineups: The Influence of Acoustic Features Based on Prosody
09:09

Foreign Accent and Forensic Speaker Identification in Voice Lineups: The Influence of Acoustic Features Based on Prosody

Published on: September 27, 2024

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: May 31, 2026

Measuring Statistical Learning Across Modalities and Domains in School-Aged Children Via an Online Platform and Neuroimaging Techniques
08:05

Measuring Statistical Learning Across Modalities and Domains in School-Aged Children Via an Online Platform and Neuroimaging Techniques

Published on: June 30, 2020

Foreign Accent and Forensic Speaker Identification in Voice Lineups: The Influence of Acoustic Features Based on Prosody
09:09

Foreign Accent and Forensic Speaker Identification in Voice Lineups: The Influence of Acoustic Features Based on Prosody

Published on: September 27, 2024

  • Examination of the 'faithful contrastive feature property'.

    • Main Results:

    • Demonstrated the 'faithful contrastive feature property': distinct surface contrasts imply at least one faithful underlying feature.
    • Contrast analysis can determine some underlying feature values, even without minimal pairs.
    • The learning procedure is fundamentally limited in its capacity to set all underlying features.

    Conclusions:

    • Surface contrasts between word pairs are valuable for learning phonological underlying forms.
    • Full determination of underlying forms necessitates interaction with the phonological mapping.
    • This research bridges the gap between surface observations and abstract linguistic representations.