PSY 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Language Acquisition Device, Oneword, Noam Chomsky
Document Summary
Cognition refers to all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating. Mental structures, based on experience, that people us to organize their knowledge about the social world. Helps us process lots of information quickly. Improve memory for schema relevant information (example?) Organize and aid memory we tend to pay attention to & remember things consistent with our schemas (exception-if something is very unusual and inconsistent with schema, we will usually remember it) Scripts - schemas about what happens, and in what order, during common social situations. Ex. ordering at a fast food restaurant. Stereotypes - schemas about the qualities associated with social groups. Language refers to our spoken, written, or signed words and the ways we combine them as we think and communicate the jewel in the crown of cognition. Language is arbitrary: sounds produced to resemble a word do not reflect the meaning of the word. What we would need to create a human language.
