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Language and Cognition01:27

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Language serves as a bridge between ideas and communication, influencing how individuals perceive and interact with the world. Psychologists have long debated whether language shapes thought or vice versa. This discussion gained grip with Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf in the 1940s, who proposed that language determines thought, a concept known as linguistic determinism. They suggested that the vocabulary and structure of a language influence how its speakers think and perceive reality.
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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.
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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.
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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...
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Are Human Learners Capable of Learning Arbitrary Language Structures.

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Artificial grammar learning (AGL) can reflect phonetic constraints in language acquisition. Participants learned natural nasal harmony patterns but struggled with arbitrary ones, supporting AGL

Keywords:
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Area of Science:

  • Psycholinguistics
  • Phonology
  • Language Acquisition

Background:

  • Artificial grammar learning (AGL) is used to study universal constraints in language acquisition.
  • Concerns exist regarding AGL's ability to reflect real language acquisition, especially phonetic naturalness.
  • Nasal harmony, influenced by the sonority hierarchy, is a key phonetic constraint.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate if AGL reflects phonetic naturalness constraints, specifically nasal harmony.
  • To test the validity of AGL for inferring universal constraints in language acquisition.

Main Methods:

  • Participants (n=120) were exposed to artificial grammars.
  • One grammar incorporated a phonetically natural nasal harmony pattern.
  • Another grammar featured an arbitrary, phonetically unmotivated pattern.

Main Results:

  • Participants successfully learned the artificial grammar with the natural nasal harmony pattern.
  • Learning of the arbitrary pattern was significantly less successful.
  • Results challenge skepticism about AGL reflecting phonetic influences.

Conclusions:

  • AGL can reveal the impact of phonetic naturalness on learning biases.
  • Findings support the use of AGL experiments for testing phonological operations.
  • This study provides epistemic support for AGL in language acquisition research.