Psychology 1000 Chapter Notes - Chapter 9: Acculturation, Mental Image, Mental Model

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 1000
• Professor: Laura Fazakas- Dehoog

Document Summary

Language development: language: symbols and rules for combining them that can generate an infinite number of possible messages and meanings; can turn thoughts into words, psycholinguistics: the scientific study of the psychological aspects of language, properties of language. Symbolic to represent ideas etc: arbitrary (nothing in words would indicate what it represents dog does(cid:374)(cid:859)t look like a dog) Semantic meaning of words and sentences what they refer to. Generative limited number of symbols combined to generate infinite messages with novel meanings. Structured rules: grammar set of rules that dictate how symbols can be combined to create meaningful units of communication, syntax rules that govern the order of words e(cid:454). Displacement can communicate about ideas and objects not actually present. It is also adaptive, it facilitates learning: language has been spoken for at least 1000 years. Hierarchal structure of language: phonemes= smallest speech units. Kids will adapt to ones they are exposed to and lose others: morphemes= smallest unit of meaning.