PSYCH 1X03 Study Guide - Final Guide: Universal Grammar, Morpheme, Language Production
11 Jan 2019
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Document Summary
Most psychologists only consider human communication to be language. Researchers came up with criteria that outlines true language. Arbitrary: specific sound assigned to concept is random and not related to the object itself. Productive: limitless ways to describe objects, situations, and actions. Whorf-sapir hypothesis: language influences our thoughts and the way we perceive and experience the world. Has three counting words: one , two , many . Whorf-sapir hypothesis suggests they would have trouble understanding numerical concepts greater than two. Peter gordon (columbia university) asked tribe members to match groups of objects according to how many items there were in each group. Tribe members performed well with groups of one and two but struggled with groups of greater numbers. There is also evidence that goes against the hypothesis: Wyoming arapaho use same word to describe an older male relative but they still clearly understand the differences between and older brother and a grandfather, for example.
