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Updated: Jun 22, 2025
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Experience is Instrumental in Tuning a Link Between Language and Cognition: Evidence from 6- to 7- Month-Old Infants' Object Categorization
Published on: April 19, 2017
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How important is it to learn language rather than create it?
1Department of Psychology, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USAhttp://goldin-meadow-lab.uchicago.edu/.
The Behavioral and Brain Sciences
|June 27, 2024
Summary
The development of understanding others' mental states may not solely rely on learning language. Homesigners, who create their own language, could challenge this theory.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Science
- Developmental Psychology
- Linguistics
Background:
- Core knowledge concepts are innate, but understanding others' mental states (theory of mind) develops later.
- This development is often linked to language acquisition and social interaction.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the role of language learning versus language creation in the development of social-agent concepts.
- To examine homesigners as a potential counterexample to the hypothesis that language learning is essential for developing shared mental state concepts.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of existing hypotheses regarding language acquisition and theory of mind.
- Consideration of homesigners' linguistic and social-cognitive development.
Main Results:
- Homesigners create novel languages, indicating a capacity for symbolic communication independent of external linguistic input.
- Their development of social-agent concepts provides a unique case study for understanding the interplay between language and cognition.
Conclusions:
- Language creation, not just learning, may contribute to the development of understanding others as social agents.
- The findings suggest a more complex relationship between language and the emergence of theory of mind than previously proposed.
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