PSYC 307 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Genetic Predisposition, Individualism, Clifford Geertz
Document Summary
Interact with different environments as they grow up. Humans distinguish themselves from their proto-chimpanzee by learning and accumulating information so well. The ability to acquire knowledge has helped us be successful we are shaped by experiences. Clifford geertz we all begin with the natural equipment to live a thousand kinds of lives but end up living one. There is a sensitive period for being enculturated. Sensitive period: a time in an organism"s development that allows for relatively easy acquisition of a set of skills. Difficult to get the skills when period is over. Acquisition of new skills and emphasizing acquired skills. Evidence for a sensitive period of language acquisition-: abilities to discriminate among different sounds. Young infants can discriminate among all the phonemes that human are able to produce. We come to this world being able to recognize all kinds of different sounds. However, when we learn language, it is functional to perceive sounds categorically.