Piaget’s Theory: Language Depends on Thought

Stages of Development

• In the sensorimotor stage, babies are still discovering what their bodies can do, including the ability to make sounds.

  • Babies then learn to copy the sounds they hear other people making.

• At the preoperational stage, children are egocentric and focus only on themselves.

  • They use the language they have developed to voice their internal thoughts, rather than to communicate with other people.

• During the concrete operational stage, the ability to use language has developed significantly however children use it to talk about actual concrete things.

• Once children reach the formal operational stage, they can use language to talk about abstract, theoretical ideas.

Evaluating Piaget’s Theory

• Piaget created his theory based on the observation of his own children.

• As they were his own, they were unlikely to be aware that they were being observed as part of a study making the behavior more natural.

• However, an issue with this is Piaget may have let his own personal biases affect his judgment on what he was seeing.

  • This lack of objectivity would affect the validity of his findings.

• Piaget also recorded his observations on his own.

  • The findings would be more reliable if the observations were recorded using another researcher so they could compare results.

  • If the results were similar, they would have inter-observer reliability; however if they were different it would prove that the study lacked consistency and reliability.

  • As he did not do this, there is the argument that the findings lack reliability and validity.

• The sample Piaget used was small and much of his research was based on observing his own children.

• Therefore his findings cannot be generalized and said to apply to all children.

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

• The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis was developed by Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf and is also sometimes referred to as the concept of Linguistic Relativity.

• This theory states that our thoughts and behaviors are affected and formed by the language we speak.

• This would mean that cultures with different languages and vocabulary will have very different ways of thinking and understanding things.

• As part of their theory, Sapir-Whorf suggested that language may, therefore:

  • Lead us to focus on certain ways of seeing and understanding things.

  • Make some ways of thinking easier and more likely than others.

  • Lead to a memory bias whereby the ability to recall or retrieve certain information is increased or decreased.

• The theory suggests that the language we speak influences how we focus, see and understand things.

• The Sapir-Whorf theory also suggests that through being familiar with recent meanings of words as they evolve, this will likely affect how people make connections as to their meanings.

Evaluating Sapir-Whorf Thesis

• Sapir and Whorf’s hypothesis has been criticized and some of their methods have been deemed unreliable, for example, Eskimo’s have approximately the same number of words for snow as people who speak English.

  • Whorf also never met anyone from the Hopi tribe himself.

• Books and other forms of written literature can be translated into completely different languages without them losing their meaning to readers.

• People who may grow up without a language, or those that lose the ability to speak such as stroke victims, are still able to think.

Variation in Recognition of Colors

• The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis suggests the language we speak can lead us to focus on certain ways of seeing things.

• The theory argues that this can make some ways of thinking more likely than others.

• Some languages do not distinguish between color variations.

• For example, The Tarahumara Native Americans from north-western Mexico, have one word for both blue and green.

  • Researchers found that English speakers perceived bigger differences between shades of blues and green than Tarahumara speakers.

• The Russian language also has different words for lighter and darker blues.

  • Researchers found that Russian speakers were more likely than English speakers to recognise differences between two shades of blue.

Variation in Recall of Events

• The Sapir-Whorf theory suggests our ability to recall certain information is affected by the language we speak.

• Researchers have studied how English speakers and Spanish speakers described intended and accidental actions.

  • Participants were asked about things like seeing someone accidentally bump and knock over a vase.

  • When the action was intended, all the participants were able to correctly identify the person responsible.

  • When the action was accidental, English speakers were able to identify the person correctly more often than Spanish speakers.

• English speakers also had a much better recall of who was involved in accidental actions than Spanish speakers when the participants' recall of intended action was tested.

Differences Between Human and Animal Communication

• Animals don’t use language to communicate as humans do, however, they do use a form of vocalization which is a form of communication with sound.

• Birds, for example, sing, insects chirp while animals like lions or cats may growl.

• The messages conveyed by animals through vocalization are similar to what humans may communicate such as expressing interest in a mate, showing alarm or letting others know they need to back off.

• Research into animal communication has also found similarities between non-verbal communication between humans and animals.

• For example, in primates, similarities include the use of facial expressions to convey emotion, using body posture to show dominance or submission and the use of touch for bonding and reassurance.

Limited functions of animal communication

• Survival

  • Animals use communication in a number of ways to aid in their survival.

  • For example, animals may call to their young should they wander away, use alarm calls to warn others of the presence of a predator or use threat signals such as showing their teeth, making themselves look bigger and growling, to warn others to back away.

• Reproduction

  • Animals communicate to aid in reproduction and do so not necessarily through sound but actions and displays.

  • For example, some animals use color displays (such as peacocks and their colorful tails) to attract a mate and ensure reproduction.

    • Other animals may also use colors to frighten or warn off predators.

• Territory/Food

  • Research by Karl von Frisch found that bees communicated to each other on where to find food using dance-like movements.

  • Ants have also been found to communicate with one another using different chemical smells called pheromones.

  • Pheromones can be used to convey a variety of different messages including the location of food.

  • Other research has found that rhesus monkeys made unbroken eye contact and began to behave aggressively as a means to show dominance.

  • Eye contact is believed to be used as a way to display dominance by the monkeys because they perceived the researchers as threatening.

Karl Von Frisch’s Bee Study 1950

• Aim: To investigate how bees communicate the location of a food source to each other.

• Study design: A field experiment was conducted in real-world settings.

  • The participants, in this experiment, were the honeybees.

  • Von Frisch still manipulates the independent variable, but there is limited control of extraneous variables.

• Method: Food sources for a hive of bees were created by placing glass containers of sugar-water at different locations.

• A hive with glass sides was used so that the behavior of the bees could be easily monitored.

  • When the bees visited the sugar-water containers to feed, they were marked with tiny spots of different coloured paints to easily identify them when they returned back to the glass hive.

• The researchers then observed and recorded their behavior and movements upon returning to the hive after visiting the food source.

• Results: The bees were observed to be making different movements that appeared to depend on how far away the food source was from the hive.

  • For example, when the food source was no further than a 100 meters from the hive, the bees did a round dance (picture A) by turning rapidly in circles to the right and then left.

• When the food source was moved further away, the bees performed a tail-wagging dance (picture B), moving forward in a straight line while wagging their abdomens from side to side, before turning in a circle towards the left.

  • This was then followed by the bees moving straight forward again before turning in a circle towards the right.

  • This pattern of behavior was repeated a number of times.

• Karl Von Frisch found that the number of turns a bee did within fifteen seconds of “waggle dancing” actually communicated how far away the food source was.

  • He also found that bees used the straight part of the dance to communicate where the food source was in relation to the current position of the sun.

• Conclusion: Von Frisch concluded that bees use a variety of different movements to communicate to each other the distance and direction of food sources.

Properties of human communication not present in animal communication

• Human communication and animal communication may share some similar properties, but only human communication contains all properties.

  • These are known as the design features of language.

• Two properties unique to human language and communication are productivity and displacement.

  • Productivity is the ability to create an unlimited number of different messages.

    • It allows language to be used creatively and is not found in animal communication.

    • Von Frisch’s bee study could vary the messages they conveyed by their dancing but there are limits to what they can say.

    • For example, they do not appear to have movements or signals that mean up or down.

  • Displacement is the ability to communicate about things that are not present or events that have yet to happen in the future.

    • This allows language to be used to plan ahead and discuss future events.

    • Planning behavior displayed by animals, for example squirrels storing nuts for winter, are likely to be due to innate or instinctive forces rather than communicated ideas.

Non-Verbal Communication

• Non-verbal communication can be simply defined as a way of conveying messages without the use of words.

Functions of Eye Contact

• Eye contact and movements have a very important function in communication.

• Pupil dilation has also been found to express emotion.

• Dilation is when the pupils expand and look larger.

• In one research study, when young men were shown two pictures of the same girl and asked to comment on which was more attractive, the majority chose the girl whose picture had been altered to look more dilated.

  • The pupils of the participants were also found to dilate when they looked at the altered photo.

Posture

• With animals, posture is used to communicate dominance, threat and submission.

• Humans also use posture to communicate non-verbally.

• For example, crossing arms during a conversation is known as a closed posture.

• Psychologists believe this could indicate rejection, disagreement or feeling threatened. When people have their arms uncrossed in a relaxed position, this is known as an open posture.

  • This is believed to indicate acceptance.

Touch

• Touch is another form of non-verbal communication and a powerful signal that can produce unconscious emotional reactions.

• Research by psychologists has found that touch can lead to people being favored more positively.

Differences in Personal Space

• Women tend to have their personal space boundary invaded more often by men than the other way around.

• Men feel more uncomfortable when their personal space is invaded from in front of them while women tend to feel more uncomfortable when their personal space is invaded from the side.

• Other factors that affect personal space are age and personality.

  • Research suggests people tend to sit or stand next to people if they are a smaller age.

  • People with the personality types known as introverts tend to have a larger personal space boundary than those deemed extroverts.

• Status is another factor that affects personal space.

  • Studies have found that people tend to stand closer to others they deem to be of the same status as themselves compared to people of a higher status.

  • People of a higher status feel more free to choose how close they are to someone.

• Cultural norms are another factor that affects personal space.

  • When comparing the personal space of groups of white English people and Arab people during conversations, results showed the comfortable conversation distance for white English people was between 1 and 1.5 meters.

  • For Arab people, this was much less than that suggesting culture is a mitigating factor for personal space.

Darwin’s Evolutionary Theory of Non-Verbal Communication

• Darwin suggested several principles for the evolution of non-verbal communication that expresses emotions.

  • One of these principles is serviceable associated habits.

  • A serviceable behavior is one that has a purpose, for example, humans may have used biting as an early form of self-defense.

  • In a similar way to animals, early humans may also have exposed their teeth as a threat signal.

  • A serviceable associated habit happens when we have a similar experience, but the behavior now does not serve the same purpose.

  • The behavior is now therefore a habit that is associated with feeling a certain way or certain situations.

  • This could therefore explain why people expose their teeth when they have an angry facial expression.

• Another principle Darwin suggested was the principle of actions due to the constitution of the nervous system.

  • This means that some forms of non-verbal communication are actually caused by our nervous system.

  • For example, dilated pupils and an open mouth are part of a frightening facial response, but they are also the same effects of adrenaline being released into our bodies by our nervous system during the fight or flight response.

• Pupil dilation increases visual information and allows us to potentially see the best way to avoid danger.

  • An open mouth increases oxygen supply which allows us to move away from a threat much faster.

  • Pupil dilation can also happen when we are attracted to someone and also makes us more attractive.

  • A high level of looking is also interpreted as a signal of attraction.

  • These cues are examples of non-verbal communication which help with reproduction.

Evidence that Non-verbal Behavior is Innate

• Darwin's theory proposed that emotional expressions are innate and universally recognized across cultures.

  • Research supports this idea, as evidenced by an experiment involving people from Papua New Guinea whose non-verbal expressions were accurately identified by American college students.

  • This suggests a biological basis for non-verbal communication.

• Further support for innate emotional expressions comes from studies on neonates, showing that even very young babies display expressions such as pre-cry sadness, smiling, disgust, pain, and surprise.

  • This challenges the notion that these expressions are learned through observation, especially considering the limited exposure of neonates.

• Research on sensory-deprived babies, particularly those born blind, also supports the innate nature of facial expressions.

  • Blind babies exhibit similar smiling behaviors as sighted infants, and a study comparing facial expressions in sighted and blind athletes found similarities in emotional expressions during significant moments.

• Overall, these findings provide evidence for the biological determination of facial expressions, supporting Darwin's theory that emotions are expressed in universally recognizable ways across different cultures and age groups.

Evidence that non-verbal behavior is learned:

• There is also a body of evidence to suggest non-verbal behavior is a learned response.

• Yuki’s study of emoticons suggests the way we interpret facial expressions is in part due to culture and nurture (learning).

• For example, non-verbal communication and speech are closely linked.

  • This is seen in the way eye contact is used to help the flow of a conversation.

  • This form of non-verbal communication is learned at the same time we learn to use language with both learned through social interactions.

  • This is supported by the historical and generational changes in how non-verbal communication has been used.

Masaki Yuki’s Emoticons Study 2007

• Aim: To investigate if culture affects how facial cues are used when understanding other people's emotions.

• Study design: A questionnaire with standard questions for all participants and a rating scale from 1 to 9. Participants consisted of American and Japanese students.

• Method: Yuki showed participants emoticons with six different combinations of eyes and mouths.

  • The eyes and mouths were happy, neutral and sad.

  • Participants were then asked to rate how happy they thought each face was.

• Results: The Japanese students were found to give the highest ratings for the faces with happy eyes and the lowest ratings for the faces with sad eyes.

  • American students tended to give the highest ratings to the faces with happy mouths and the lowest ratings to the faces with sad mouths.

• The results showed that Japanese and American people may give more weight to different parts of the face when interpreting another person’s emotions.

  • The Japanese students focused more on the eyes while the American students focused more on the mouths.

  • This would suggest a difference in their understanding of facial expressions.

• Conclusion: Yuki concluded that this happened because people learn their own cultural norms on expression and interpretation of emotions.

  • Yuki suggested the results may be related to how openly a culture expresses emotion.

  • For example, the eye muscles are not as easy to control as those around the mouth and therefore the eyes may be seen as the most truthful facial cue in cultures that limit their emotional expressions (such as Japan).

Language Disorders

Dyslexia:

• Dyslexia is a specific learning disability that primarily affects reading and spelling.

• Individuals with dyslexia may have difficulty recognizing and decoding words, which can impact their reading comprehension.

• Impact on Communication: Dyslexia can affect spoken language as well.

  • Individuals might struggle with verbal communication, including pronunciation, vocabulary usage, and sentence structure.

  • However, it's important to note that dyslexia does not affect intelligence.

Specific Language Impairment (SLI):

• SLI is a developmental language disorder where individuals experience difficulties with language acquisition despite having no obvious cognitive or sensory impairments.

• Impact on Communication: SLI can affect various aspects of language, including grammar, vocabulary, and comprehension.

  • Individuals may struggle to express themselves clearly and may have challenges understanding spoken or written language.

Speech Sound Disorders:

• Speech sound disorders involve difficulties in producing speech sounds correctly.

  • This can include problems with articulation (pronouncing sounds) or phonological processes (organizing sounds within a language).

• Impact on Communication: These disorders can lead to unclear speech, making it challenging for individuals to be understood.

  • It may affect their ability to communicate effectively in both verbal and written forms.

Disorders Affecting Thought Processes:

Schizophrenia

• Schizophrenia is a severe mental disorder characterized by a range of symptoms, including hallucinations, delusions, disorganized thinking, and impaired emotional regulation.

  • It is a chronic condition that often emerges in late adolescence or early adulthood.

• Impact on Communication:

  • Disrupted Thought Processes: Individuals with schizophrenia may experience disorganized thinking, leading to challenges in organizing and expressing their thoughts coherently.

  • Hallucinations and Delusions: Auditory hallucinations (hearing voices) and delusions (false beliefs) can further complicate communication, as individuals may respond to internal stimuli that others cannot perceive.

  • Emotional Disturbances: Fluctuations in emotional expression can impact the emotional tone of communication, making it difficult for others to interpret the intended meaning of verbal and non-verbal cues.

  • Social Withdrawal: Some individuals with schizophrenia may withdraw from social interactions, reducing opportunities for effective communication.

Nature of Language

Phonology

• Phonology refers to the study of the sounds used in a language, including the organization and rules governing these sounds.

• Role: Phonology helps distinguish meaningful sounds (phonemes) from non-meaningful sounds, contributing to language comprehension and production.

Syntax

• Syntax involves the structure and arrangement of words to form grammatically correct sentences in a language.

• Role: Syntax allows for the creation of meaningful and understandable sentences by organizing words according to grammatical rules.

Semantics

• Semantics is the study of meaning in language, focusing on how words and sentences convey meaning.

• Role: Semantics enables individuals to understand the meanings of words, interpret sentences, and convey nuanced ideas and concepts.

Pragmatics

• Pragmatics deals with the use of language in social contexts, considering factors such as tone, context, and the intentions of the speaker.

• Role: Pragmatics ensures effective communication by taking into account the social and cultural nuances that influence language use.

Communication Function

• Expressing Thoughts, Emotions, and Ideas: Language serves as a powerful tool for individuals to express their thoughts, convey emotions, and articulate complex ideas.

• It allows for the sharing of experiences and information.

Symbolic System

• Symbolic Representation: Language allows for the representation of abstract concepts through symbols (words).

• This symbolic nature enables the communication of thoughts and ideas beyond immediate, concrete experiences.

Cognitive Processes in Language Production and Comprehension

Language Production (Speaking or Writing)

• Encoding: The process of selecting the appropriate words, organizing them according to syntactic rules, and preparing to articulate or write a message.

• Retrieval: Accessing relevant words, phrases, and grammatical structures from memory for use in communication.

• Articulation or Writing: Physically producing spoken words or written symbols to convey the intended message.

Language Comprehension (Listening or Reading)

• Perception: Involves the reception of auditory or visual stimuli (spoken words or written text).

• Decoding: The process of interpreting the meaning of words, sentences, and discourse based on phonological, syntactic, and semantic cues.

• Integration: Bringing together individual elements to form a cohesive understanding of the communicated message.

Understanding Meaning

• Lexical Semantics: Understanding the meanings of individual words.

• Syntactic Semantics: Grasping the meanings that arise from the arrangement of words in a sentence.

• Pragmatic Semantics: Considering the social and contextual aspects that contribute to the meaning of a communication act.

Cognitive Processes Involved

• Working Memory: Temporary storage and manipulation of linguistic information during language processing.

• Executive Functions: Higher-order cognitive processes that regulate and control language production and comprehension.

• Attention: Focusing cognitive resources on relevant linguistic information while filtering out distractions.