PSYC 2650 Final: Cognitive Psychology Final Review
12 Dec 2012
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Document Summary
Psycholinguistics study language behaviour; everyday use of language does not always correspond to linguistic theory. Empiricism/nurture: our language abilities are learned (not innate) Mental: our language abilities are nothing but stimulus-response associations. Evidence for subvocal speech includes recordings of subvocal speech activity while subjects are engaged in thought. Evidence against subvocal speech includes people still being about to think when completely paralyzed, memory for meaning rather than exactly what was said and non-human animals seem to think. Linguistic determinism is the way language determines how a person thinks or perceives the world. Inuit/snow example: rich terminology causes change in perception. Evidence against linguistic determinism is shown through people seeming to think the same way about things despite linguistic differences (english has many colour words but dani does not but there are no differences in colour perception. Language arose as a tool whose function was to communicate thought and language has been shaped to fit the thoughts it must communicate.
