PSY 150A1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Language Acquisition Device, Noam Chomsky, Frontal Lobe

• School: University of Arizona
• Department: Psychology Main
• Course: PSY 150A1
• Professor: Adam Lazarewicz

Document Summary

Cognitive psychology: study of internal mental processes (information-processing) (memory, thinking& problem solving, language) Language: spoke, written or signed words & the way we combine them to communicate: la(cid:374)guage is ge(cid:374)erati(cid:448)e: (cid:449)e do(cid:374)"t just fi(cid:374)d se(cid:374)te(cid:374)(cid:272)es stored i(cid:374) our memory and use them. Structure of language: phonemes: smallest sound units in a language. Consonant phonemes carry more info than vowel phonemes: morphemes: smallest language units that have meaning. Previews (pre-view-ed) (3 morphemes: grammar: 2 systems of rules that govern language structure. Semantics: rules for deriving meaning from morphemes, words and sentences (ex. Independent of syntax: pragmatics: indirect implications of language (vs. outright assertion) Pragmatics & humor: brownell et al (1990): tod joke to patients with damage to the right hemisphere choose appropriate punch line. Language development: nature vs nurture: nature(nativism): vocabulary, grammar acquisition too fast, & novel to be simply learned.