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Related Concept Videos

Language and Cognition01:27

Language and Cognition

453
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.
453
Components of Language01:24

Components of Language

410
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.
410
Encoding01:19

Encoding

258
Information enters the brain through encoding, which is the input of information into the memory system. Once sensory information is received from the environment, the brain labels or codes it. The information is then organized with similar information and connected to existing concepts. Encoding occurs through automatic processing and effortful processing.
Automatic processing involves the encoding of details like time, space, frequency, and the meaning of words, usually done without conscious...
258
Language Development01:22

Language Development

456
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...
456
Purposive Learning01:22

Purposive Learning

208
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...
208
Higher Mental Functions of the Brain: Language01:10

Higher Mental Functions of the Brain: Language

1.0K
Language is a system of communication that allows the expression of thoughts, ideas, and feelings. The brain processes language in both hemispheres.
Language formation and comprehension take place in the dominant hemisphere. The dominant hemisphere is responsible for understanding the meaning of spoken, written, or sign language, as well as the ability to communicate. For most people, the left hemisphere is the dominant one. The right hemisphere, then, gives tone and emotional context to the...
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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Sep 17, 2025

Defining the Role Of Language in Infants' Object Categorization with Eye-tracking Paradigms
07:31

Defining the Role Of Language in Infants' Object Categorization with Eye-tracking Paradigms

Published on: February 8, 2019

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Word learning as category formation.

Spencer Caplan1

  • 1Linguistics Program, CUNY Graduate Center, New York, New York, United States of America.

Plos One
|July 3, 2025
PubMed
Summary

Children learn word meanings by forming categories. New research shows that both the number of examples and how they are presented influence word generalization, suggesting learning arises from simple, local processes.

Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Science
  • Developmental Psychology
  • Computational Linguistics

Background:

  • Understanding how children generalize word meanings from limited examples is a core challenge in word learning.
  • The
  • suspicious coincidence effect
  • (SCE) suggests more training data leads to narrower word meanings, often explained by statistical inference models.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the independent effects of training object number and presentation timing on word generalization.
  • To develop a unified computational model explaining word learning phenomena.
  • To test the proposed model against human behavioral data.

Main Methods:

  • Reanalysis of existing experimental data on word learning.

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Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation tDCS of Wernicke's and Broca's Areas in Studies of Language Learning and Word Acquisition
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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
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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

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Last Updated: Sep 17, 2025

Defining the Role Of Language in Infants' Object Categorization with Eye-tracking Paradigms
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Defining the Role Of Language in Infants' Object Categorization with Eye-tracking Paradigms

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Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation tDCS of Wernicke's and Broca's Areas in Studies of Language Learning and Word Acquisition
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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
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  • Development of the Naïve Generalization Model (NGM), a computational model based on local, incremental category formation.
  • Testing the NGM against human behavior across seven experimental conditions varying presentation timing, object number, and item hierarchy.

    • Main Results:

    • Both the number of training objects and their presentation timing independently influence word generalization, contrary to prior assumptions of interaction.
    • The Naïve Generalization Model (NGM) successfully accounts for these independent effects within a unified framework.
    • Model performance aligns with human behavior across various experimental conditions, both qualitatively and quantitatively.

    Conclusions:

    • Word generalization is influenced by independent factors of training set size and presentation timing.
    • The Naïve Generalization Model provides a parsimonious explanation for word learning, grounded in local category formation.
    • Rational word learning behavior may emerge from simple, mechanistic processes rather than complex global statistical inference.