Enduring Debates on Psychology and Language in the 20th Century

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Trevor A. Harley
Keyword(s):  
Language Processing ◽  
Language Production ◽  
Imaging Techniques ◽  
Embedded Cognition ◽  
Connectionist Modeling ◽  
Language Research ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Psychological Processing ◽  
The Relationship

Research in the psychology of language has been dogged by some enduring controversies, many of which continue to divide researchers. Furthermore, language research has been riven by too many dichotomies and too many people taking too extreme a position, and progress is only likely to be made when researchers recognize that language is a complex system where simple dichotomies may not be relevant. The enduring controversies cover the width of psycholinguistics, including the work of Chomsky and the nature of language, to what extent language is innately determined and the origin of language and how it evolved. Chomsky’s work has also influenced our conceptions of the modularity of the structure of the mind and the nature of psychological processing. Advances in the sophistication of brain imaging techniques have led to debate about exactly what these techniques can tell us about the psychological processing of language. There has also been much debate about whether psychological processing occurs through explicit rules or statistical mapping, a debate driven by connectionist modeling, deep learning, and techniques for the analysis of “big data.” Another debate concerns the role of prediction in language and cognition and the related issues of the relationship between language comprehension and language production. To what extent is language processing embodied, and how does it relate to controversies about “embedded cognition”? Finally, there has been debate about the purpose and use of language.

Understanding How We Produce Written Words

2019 ◽  
pp. 424-448
Author(s):  
Brenda Rapp ◽  
Jeremy Purcell
Keyword(s):  
Language Processing ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Language Production ◽  
Written Language ◽  
Current Understanding ◽  
Written Word ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Cognitive Neuropsychological

Most of the current understanding of how we produce written language comes from psycholinguistic and cognitive neuropsychological investigations. More recently, both neuroimaging and lesion-based investigations have provided valuable information not only regarding the neural bases of the cognitive processes of written language production, but also regarding key cognitive processes and representations. This chapter focuses on contributions to current understanding of written word production that come from the study of the brain. Four fundamental issues of cognitive representation and processing in spelling are reviewed: the distinction between orthographic long-term and working-memory; the distinction between lexical and sublexical spelling processes; the relationship between reading and spelling; and the role of abstract letter representations in spelling. It specifically highlights the neural findings that have contributed significantly to current understanding of these issues. In some cases, the neural data provide convergence with behavioral findings; in others, they constitute unique contributions. The work reviewed here exemplifies the role of neurolinguistics evidence in furthering understanding of language processing and representation.

scholarly journals Reconsidering a role for attachment in eating disorder management in the context of paediatric diabetes

2021 ◽  
pp. 135910452098621
Author(s):  
Rosie Oldham-Cooper ◽  
Claire Semple ◽  
Laura L. Wilkinson
Keyword(s):  
Disordered Eating ◽  
Holistic Care ◽  
Stable Set ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
Paediatric Diabetes ◽  
Attachment Orientation ◽  
Mind And Body ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Relationship

We suggest a reconsideration of the role of ‘attachment orientation’ in the context of eating disorders and paediatric diabetes. Attachment orientation is a psychological construct that describes a relatively stable set of expectations and behaviours an individual relies upon in managing relationships. There is considerable evidence of an association between attachment orientation and the development and maintenance of disordered eating in individuals without diabetes, though evidence is more scant in populations with diabetes. We discuss the underpinning theory and critically examine the existing literature for the relationship between attachment orientation and disordered eating in paediatric diabetes. Finally, we draw on adjacent literatures to highlight potential future directions for research should this area be revisited. Overall, we contextualise our discussion in terms of patient-centred, holistic care that addresses the mind and body (i.e., our discussion of attachment orientation assumes a psycho-biological approach).

The visual number world: A dynamic approach to study the mathematical mind

2018 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias Hartmann ◽  
Jochen Laubrock ◽  
Martin H Fischer
Keyword(s):  
Numerical Cognition ◽  
Mental Arithmetic ◽  
Simultaneous Presentation ◽  
Language Research ◽  
On Line ◽  
Arithmetic Performance ◽  
Mathematical Mind ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Visual Number

In the domain of language research, the simultaneous presentation of a visual scene and its auditory description (i.e., the visual world paradigm) has been used to reveal the timing of mental mechanisms. Here we apply this rationale to the domain of numerical cognition in order to explore the differences between fast and slow arithmetic performance, and to further study the role of spatial-numerical associations during mental arithmetic. We presented 30 healthy adults simultaneously with visual displays containing four numbers and with auditory addition and subtraction problems. Analysis of eye movements revealed that participants look spontaneously at the numbers they currently process (operands, solution). Faster performance was characterized by shorter latencies prior to fixating the relevant numbers and fewer revisits to the first operand while computing the solution. These signatures of superior task performance were more pronounced for addition and visual numbers arranged in ascending order, and for subtraction and numbers arranged in descending order (compared to the opposite pairings). Our results show that the “visual number world”-paradigm provides on-line access to the mind during mental arithmetic, is able to capture variability in arithmetic performance, and is sensitive to visual layout manipulations that are otherwise not reflected in response time measurements.

scholarly journals Bound in Hatred: The role of group-based morality in acts of hate

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Hoover ◽  
Mohammad Atari ◽  
Aida Mostafazadeh Davani ◽  
Brendan Kennedy ◽  
Gwenyth Portillo-Wightman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Language Processing ◽  
Spatial Modeling ◽  
Hate Speech ◽  
Moral Values ◽  
Unified Framework ◽  
Hate Groups ◽  
Marginalized Groups ◽  
Motivated Behaviors ◽  
The Relationship

Acts of hate have been used to silence, terrorize, and erase marginalized social groups throughout history. The rising rates of these behaviors in recent years underscores the importance of developing a better understanding of when, why, and where they occur. In this work, we present a program of research that suggests that acts of hate may often be best understood not just as responses to threat, but also as morally motivated behaviors grounded in people’s moral values and perceptions of moral violations. As evidence for this claim, we present findings from five studies that rely on a combination of natural language processing, spatial modeling, and experimental methods to investigate the relationship between moral values and acts of hate toward marginalized groups. Across these studies, we find consistent evidence that moral values oriented around ingroup preservation are disproportionately evoked in hate speech, predictive of the county-level prevalence of hate groups, and associated with the belief that acts of hate against marginalized groups are justified. Additional analyses suggest that the association between group-oriented moral values and hate acts against marginalized groups can be partly explained by the belief that these groups have done something morally wrong. By accounting for the role of moralization in acts of hate, this work provides a unified framework for understanding hateful behaviors and the events or dynamics that trigger them.

scholarly journals Theories of Working Memory: Differences in Definition, Degree of Modularity, Role of Attention, and Purpose

2018 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 340-355 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eryn J. Adams ◽  
Anh T. Nguyen ◽  
Nelson Cowan
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Individual Differences ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Group Norms ◽  
Language Research

Purpose The purpose of this article is to review and discuss theories of working memory with special attention to their relevance to language processing. Method We begin with an overview of the concept of working memory itself and review some of the major theories. Then, we show how theories of working memory can be organized according to their stances on 3 major issues that distinguish them: modularity (on a continuum from domain-general to very modular), attention (on a continuum from automatic to completely attention demanding), and purpose (on a continuum from idiographic, or concerned with individual differences, to nomothetic, or concerned with group norms). We examine recent research that has a bearing on these distinctions. Results Our review shows important differences between working memory theories that can be described according to positions on the 3 continua just noted. Conclusion Once properly understood, working memory theories, methods, and data can serve as quite useful tools for language research.

Language processing and language acquisition through the lens of Relational Morphology

2019 ◽  
pp. 201-232
Author(s):  
Ray Jackendoff ◽  
Jenny Audring
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Language Production ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Spreading Activation ◽  
Linguistic Representations ◽  
Memory Network ◽  
Complex Words

This chapter asks what is happening to linguistic representations during language use, and how representations are formed in the course of language acquisition. It is shown how Relational Morphology’s theory of representations can be directly embedded into models of processing and acquisition. Central is that the lexicon, complete with schemas and relational links, constitutes the long-term memory network that supports language production and comprehension. The chapter first discusses processing: the nature of working memory; promiscuous (opportunistic) processing; spreading activation; priming; probabilistic parsing; the balance between storage and computation in recognizing morphologically complex words; and the role of relational links and schemas in word retrieval. It then turns to acquisition, which is to be thought of as adding nodes and relational links to the lexical network. The general approach is based on the Propose but Verify procedure of Trueswell et al. (2013), plus conservative generalization, as in usage-based approaches.

Speech and Language Production at Age 2

1991 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 879-892 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lauren K. Nelson ◽  
Harold R. Bauer
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Language Production ◽  
Complexity Analysis ◽  
Spontaneous Speech ◽  
Limited Capacity ◽  
Speech And Language ◽  
Lexical Items ◽  
Propositional Complexity ◽  
The Relationship

The purpose of this study was to explore how 2-year-old children manage the relationship between phonetic production and production of word combinations in their spontaneous speech. The subjects were 5 normally developing 2-year-olds who were participants in an ongoing longitudinal study of speech and language acquisition. Three measures were used to estimate phonetic production skills in the children’s spontaneous speech samples. These included a measure of the accuracy of consonant production (Percentage of Consonants Correct), and two estimators of phonetic complexity (phonetic products for utterance and word length units). Regression analyses were used to determine the relationship between complexity of word combinations, as measured by length of utterance in morphemes and a propositional complexity analysis, and utilization of phonetic production skills. The results revealed modest tradeoffs between complexity of word combinations and accuracy of consonant production for 2 of the 5 children. The results also showed tradeoffs between complexity of word combinations and phonetic complexity of individual lexical items (phonetic product for words) for 4 of the 5 children. As the complexity of these 4 children’s multiword combinations increased, the phonetic complexity of individual lexical items decreased. These results are consistent with synergistic theories of language acquisition and language processing that emphasize dynamic tradeoffs in interactions among language processing levels in a limited capacity production system.

The Oxford Handbook of Psycholinguistics

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Language Processing ◽  
Language Comprehension ◽  
Language Production ◽  
Text Comprehension ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
First Language ◽  
Grammatical Encoding ◽  
Current State

This handbook reviews the current state of the art in the field of psycholinguistics. Part I deals with language comprehension at the sublexical, lexical, and sentence and discourse levels. It explores concepts of speech representation and the search for universal speech segmentation mechanisms against a background of linguistic diversity and compares first language with second language segmentation. It also discusses visual word recognition, lexico-semantics, the different forms of lexical ambiguity, sentence comprehension, text comprehension, and language in deaf populations. Part II focuses on language production, with chapters covering topics such as word production and related processes based on evidence from aphasia, the major debates surrounding grammatical encoding. Part III considers various aspects of interaction and communication, including the role of gesture in language processing, approaches to the study of perspective-taking, and the interrelationships between language comprehension, emotion, and sociality. Part IV is concerned with language development and evolution, focusing on topics ranging from the development of prosodic phonology, the neurobiology of artificial grammar learning, and developmental dyslexia. The book concludes with Part V, which looks at methodological advances in psycholinguistic research, such as the use of intracranial electrophysiology in the area of language processing.

scholarly journals El lenguaje y los lugares construidos / The Language and the Built Places

2013 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Francisco Javier Fuentes Farias
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Genetic Basis ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Language And Cognition ◽  
Human Capacity ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Self Organizing

ABSTRACTIf we don't explain the role of language in the construction of places to live, their study will be incomplete; therefore the built space poses the challenge of defining a method of analysis that takes into account the emergence of cognitive processes in human being, of which perception and categorization of objects in space seems to be the most difficult to explain. And here is where the focus on language, from the point of view of the studies of complexity, admits to interpret and explain the evolution of the human capacity of build. In this sense, it is necessary to review the problem of in witch sense it can be said that language is innate or learned, and if the mind is a blank paper at birth, or has a genetic basis and how would be like. We observed the acquisition of language and cognition, and the construction of places to live, as the product of a cultural-genetic legacy. It is necessary to offer a point of view about the relationship between culture-nature, taking built places as a superior order and self-organizing subsystem: the built spaceRESUMENMientras no se exponga el papel del lenguaje en la construcción de lugares para vivir, su estudio estará incompleto; por ello, el espacio construido plantea el reto de definir un método de análisis que tome en cuenta el surgimiento de procesos cognitivos en la especie humana, de los cuales la percepción y categorización de los objetos en el espacio parece ser el más difícil de explicar. Y es aquí donde el enfoque en el lenguaje, desde el punto de vista de los estudios de la complejidad, permite interpretar y explicar la evolución de la capacidad constructiva del ser humano. En tal sentido, es necesario revisar el problema de en qué medida puede afirmarse que el lenguaje es innato o aprendido, y si la mente es un papel en blanco al nacer, o tiene una base genética y cómo sería ello. Se examina la adquisición del lenguaje y la cognición, y la construcción de lugares para vivir, como producto de una herencia genético-cultual. Se ofrece un punto de vista necesario acerca de la relación cultura-naturaleza, considerando los lugares construidos como subsistemas de un orden superior y auto-organizado: el espacio construido.

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