Please read chapter 11. After reading the chapter, please respond
to the following questions:
Next you will be asked what three things from the chapter that you
found interesting?
1a) What did you find interesting?
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
2a) What did you find interesting?
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
3a) What did you find interesting?
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most
useful to in understanding Cognitive Psychology?
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the
previous chapters?
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
7b) Why?
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think
about) did you have while reading the chapter?
9)
Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you
used in your post.
Thanks,
--Dr. M
1a) The first thing that I found interesting in this chapter was the section on psycholinguistics nature versus nurture.
1b) This part was interesting to me because I have never really thought of language as something psychologists would focus on as part of their study, especially in the aspect of the nature vs. nurture debate. Chomsky argued that language was innate and due to nurture where Skinner believed that it was learned and due to nurture. Behaviorists believed that language developed through reinforcement but Chomsky thought that only learning a particular word (morpheme) was being reinforced not sentence structure (syntax). He didn’t believe reinforcement could teach a child could create a perfect sentence they never heard but rather an innate propensity for language based on deep structure.
2a) The next thing I found interesting was the a la carte section: baby sign language.
2b) This concept was interesting to me because it dealt more with the developmental side of psychology which is more of what I am interested in. There was a study done that used chimpanzees to try and teach them sign language since they don’t have the ability to vocalize language. Critics argue thought that they are not using language but rather learning to associate a symbolic gesture with it’s meaning. There also have been many studies that teach babies before 12 months to use sign language: this uses areas of the brain for language comprehension, production, and several different motor skills. There is still much skepticism based off of this because its application is questionable, but in a well controlled longitudinal study it examined these babies and found that sign language at an early age doesn’t hinder verbal language development but it might give babies a head start compared to it’s control group.
3a) The last section I found interesting in this chapter was the part on Dyslexia.
3b) I found this interesting because it was a familiar term to me, I’ve heard of this disorder before and I know some on it but not much. There have been many different theories stating that dyslexia is a hearing disorder, visual disorder, or combination of the two. Researchers have found that it has it’s origins as a genetic brain defect but it also is affected based off of where one lives. There was a study done on 72 dyslexic people from three different countries. Similar abnormalities in brain function appeared in all participants, but there was a variation in the disorder and the United States had much higher rates which can be attributed in part because of the difficulty of our English language.
4a) The sections I found the most uninteresting from this chapter were on top-down processing and bottom-up processing.
4b) I found these two sections not that interesting mainly because we have already learned about them earlier in the book, so I took this opportunity to apply what I have already learned and just quickly skim over them.
5) All in all I thought this chapter was a little boring to read because it consisted of so many definitions, but in overall I think that the most important thing to remember is the definitions of these various terms dealing with linguistics and forming words.
6) This chapter builds off of previous chapters because it expands on our sense of hearing, it touches on our processing abilities, it brings up the nature vs. nurture debate, it relates eye-tracking and how it is used in language, and it ties in neuroscience and top/bottom up processing again.
7a) The topic I would like to learn more about from this chapter is dyslexia.
7b) The book didn’t really go too much into depth about what dyslexia is and what it consists of, I am interested in it because of the study that was done showing how American’s have the highest rates of it, but I would like to learn more about the characteristics and maybe a few case studies done involving it.
8) The whole time reading this chapter I kept asking myself how it relates to psychology, I was so confused, but after hitting the section on the nature nurture debate, and top/bottom up processing things started to make more sense. When I read the section on baby sign language I thought about Meet the Fockers, and when I read the portion on dyslexia I wondered how hard it would be for a dyslexic person from another country to learn English.
9) Terms: psycholinguistics, Nature vs. Nurture, Chomsky, Skinner, reinforcement, morpheme, syntax, baby sign language, dyslexia, top/bottom down processing.
Reading Activity Chapter 11
1a) I found the recent theory of transformational grammar to be interesting.
1b) Transformational grammar deals with the changes in linguistic forms, yet still retaining the same message content within the sentence. From this, Chomsky looks at surface and deep structures of sentence forms. Chomsky believes in the importance of the underlying uniformity of language within a sentence. Chomsky also values the different commonalities in languages. Chomsky’s theory is interesting as it takes in effect the different ways of saying the same thing and the different syntax that can be played with your words no matter what language you are fluent in.
2a) The eye-tracking experiments were very interesting.
2b) I found it interesting that you can study a person’s eye fixations in order to indicate their comprehension of a subject. Their eye movements are influenced by the words they read, the integration of important clauses, and their knowledge of the subject. By just watching the movements of an individual’s pupils, you can determine how well they are understanding what they are reading. The longer the eye is fixated on a particular word or phrase, the lack of comprehension that person may be having with that particular reading.
3a) Dyslexia was another subject I found interesting.
3b) I found reading about dyslexia interesting because I always thought that dyslexia dealt with only a visual disorder. However, after reading chapter 11, I determined that dyslexia is due to a hearing disorder, a visual disorder, or a disorder that comprises of both modalities. I also found it interesting that dyslexia may not just be due to what is happening in your brain, but may have to do with where you were raised. The United States has the highest incidence rate of this disorder. This may be due to the fact that the English language is very complex
4a) I found the neurological studies by Broca and Wernicke to be the least interesting.
4b) The studies done by Broca and Wernicke were about the establishments of which regions of the brain were mostly involved in speech and language comprehension. This was not interesting to me as this is something I have learned about many times. Our brain cortex and other regions are a very common subject for any student studying psychology.
5) Reading about the three positions regarding language acquisition will be most useful in understanding Cognitive Psychology. The first position thought of by Chomsky holds that language is a universal tendency (everyone uses language for understanding). The second position thought of by Skinner holds that language is learned through reinforcement while the third position holds that language development is a function of maturation and interactions of our environment (nature vs. nurture). I think these three views are a broad underlying structure for what language means to the average person and how a person’s language is developed and changes over time.
6) This chapter builds on the previous chapters as it looks at how language is formed and used from the functioning of our brains. This chapter looks further at the relationship between cognitive tasks and brain functions. The previous chapters outlined the brain structure and how our neurons react and now we look further at how language plays a role in this.
7a) I would like to learn more about dyslexia.
7b) I would like to learn more about dyslexia as I learned there is much more to this disorder after reading this chapter. I would like to learn how people become dyslexic, if dyslexia is more common for some people than others, and what is happening within the brain for a dyslexic person.
8) While I was reading this chapter, I thought about the relationship between our brain functions and cognitive tasks as a person is reading or speaking. I thought about how our memory plays a role in what we say and how our memory, brain neurons, and knowledge are linked while we read and write for understanding.
9) Transformational grammar, Chomsky, surface structures, deep structures, syntax, eye-tracking experiments, dyslexia, Broca, Wernicke, Skinner, three positions of language acquisition, neurons
1a&b) One thing I found interesting was how the Broca’s and Wernicke areas came about. I enjoy learning about areas of the brain and their functions so I think it’s really interesting that these two areas were named after actual people rather than more scientific names. The Broca’s area was named after Paul Broca who worked on a patient that was paralyzed on one side and had neurological damage that had caused him to lose his speech abilities. After this patient died they looked at his brain and found a lesion in his left frontal lobe which is now known as Broca’s area. Carl Wernicke did another case study where he found a lesion in the left temporal lobe and realized that it was affecting language processing. He figured out that it was affecting language comprehension and that his patient could speak but couldn’t understand what was being said back to them.
2a&b) Another subject I found interesting were phonemes. I enjoyed this subject because it helps me to understand why learning another language is so hard. The English language uses about 45 phonemes but there are over 800 possible one’s used in all languages combined. After about our first year of life we lose many of our capabilities to learn these phonemes and we just start using what we have been exposed to.
3a&b) I also found the subject of reading and how we read really fascinating because even as I’m reading about it I can see how it works. I am also an avid reader and I often find myself skipping parts that I don’t believe hold any interesting information. However, I’ve always been curious as to how I know that when I haven’t actually read the passage. According to Emile Javal we jump from one series of words to the next and fixate momentarily on the space between them. A fixation on lasts about 250 milliseconds on average and it’s also interesting how we have very focused vision on the few words we are looking at and then a little bit to each side but everything else is blurry. Our vision becomes much more focused, called foveal vision.
4a&b) I disliked learning about the model of comprehension the most because it seemed a little more complex and it wasn’t as clear cut as I wanted it to be. It also requires the comprehension of previous subjects and I have not spent enough time on the top-down and bottom-up processing to have a good grasp of those concepts. This subject was still interesting but just not as interesting as some of the other ideas that were discussed.
5) I believe most of this chapter which spoke about how we form our language as well as comprehend it, is very important to Cognitive Psychology because it helps me to better understand how we receive so much information and are able to actually process it and use this complex system to actually communicate. Without language cognitive psychology wouldn’t even exist.
6) This language chapter builds on many other chapters because it talks about localization and also brings up the nature vs nurture argument briefly. It builds on the previous chapters in those ways but also goes further into depth about language which is a fascinating subject.
7a&b) I want to learn more about saccades and how we comprehend things when we read. I have always had a bit of a fascination with this subject and I think it would be really interesting to learn more about as well as that I will be able to actually understand and observe myself while learning about it.
8) I was thinking a lot about how I was incorporating what I was reading into actually doing the reading. I feel like I was being really self-observant because the text made me aware of some things that I hadn’t thought of before.
9) Terminology: Broca’s area, Wernicke’s area, left frontal lobe, left temporal lobe, lesion, language comprehension, phonemes, Emily Javal, fixation, foveal vision, top-down processing, bottom-up processing, model of comprehension, localization, saccades
1a) What did you find interesting?
I actually found the first section about grammar to be pretty interesting.
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I thought it was interesting to read about phonemes, morphemes, and syntax as they are things that I had never given much thought to. It was fascinating to read about the distinctions between voiced and unvoiced, and fricative and plosive phonemes. I also thought it was interesting that it said there were 869 possible phonemes and that English only uses 52 of those.
2a) What did you find interesting?
I liked the section labeled ‘reading’.
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
It was interesting because it talked a lot about saccades, which are interesting to read about. I enjoyed this because I was reading about the jumps and fixations that my eyes were making as I was reading. It was like inception, or something. I also liked how the section included information about the perceptual span, and I enjoyed the figure presented. I thought it was cool to see a diagram identifying degrees of foveal, parafoveal, near peripheral, and peripheral vision.
3a) What did you find interesting?
I was interested reading all of the neuroscience sections.
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
It was interesting because they talked about PET scans and electrical stimulation involved in the process of determining semantic and auditory processes occur in different areas of the brain (which we already learned in the last chapter). It was still interesting though, to read about how basic visual word forms are processed in the occipital lobe, which is obviously known for the role it plays in vision, and semantic information required additional parts of the brain, showing it still had to be processed visually, but then also by the prefrontal cortex, which is involved in higher-order thinking and decision making.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
I thought some of the information about grammar was a little boring.
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
It was interesting seeing how the brain processes different things, but it got kind of boring treading about propositions and sentence structure.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding Cognitive Psychology?
I think the most useful thing to my understanding of cognitive psych, relative to this chapter, would be that the amount of neural activity required for a task is dependent on the computational demand.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
This chapter discussed neuroscience a good amount, which was the subject of the second chapter and has been discussed a lot since. We discussed Broca’s and Wernicke’s area again, as we did in chapter 2 as well. Talking about how information was coded in the brain related to the chapters on memory and even on the verbal/visual representations of knowledge.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
I think I would like to learn more about why the visual field is the way that it is.
7b) Why?
I would like to know why foveal vision is so restricted and how peripheral vision fails to give detailed information to the brain. I would like to understand this at the level of phototransduction.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
I thought a bit about the Whorfian hypothesis, as that intrigued me. As I only know one legitimate language, I rely on all of my information to be given to me in this language. This hypothesis states that our language influences our perception and conceptualization of reality. I just wondered if I spoke a different language, and that was the language that I read books in, if I would have a different understanding of the information presented.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post
Phonemes, morphemes, syntax, saccades, perceptual span, foveal, parafoveal, near peripheral, and peripheral vision, neuroscience, occipital lobe, PFC, propositions, Broca’s area, Wernicke’s area, Whorfian hypothesis.
1.Something I came across in the chapter that struck me as really interesting was Wernicke’s area. This was more interesting to me than the discovery of what was name Broca’s area because of the difference if it were to be damaged. If Wernicke’s area is damaged, patients could speak but couldn’t understand verbal or written words communicated back to them. I think it’s so odd how through damage our brains could end up functioning in that way. It makes more sense to imagine that you could lose both skills through damage, but not losing one and keeping the other.
2.Another topic I found interesting was that of phonemes. It’s rather amazing how the number of them differ so much from language to language. I always think it’s neat to break something complex down to it’s most simple form as well, and since that’s what a phoneme is doing for a language, I enjoy learning about it. I am curious as to which nine phonemes in English make up over half our words out of the total 45 phonemes though!
3.A third piece of information I found interesting was in the Cognition in Everyday Life box that discussed Voice prints. I had never known that the quote we so often hear from Neil Armstrong wasn’t necessarily what he intended to actually say. What he claims he intended to say does make more sense given the scenario. It’s neat how technology can help capture and answer some of these questions, such as what did he actually say. It’s also interesting how even with some technology the questions can remain completely unanswered, since there are some people who based on the voice print do argue that what he intended to say was actually what was said.
4.A part of the chapter I didn’t find as interesting was the discussion of nature vs. nurture in regards to linguistics. I’ve been lectured on and read about the nature vs. nurture debate so many times that it’s ceased to be as interesting. Essentially anything can be argued to be innate or learned and language is certainly no different.
5.The parts I read in the chapter I thought were most directly helpful in understanding Cognitive Psychology in regards to linguistics were about how our brain functions, stores, and uses some of the language information. Learning about the part’s of our brain that affect language function, such as the Wernicke and Brocas’ areas, were helpful to me to connect language and Cogntivie Psychology. Other concepts such as language and neurology or perceptual span were helpful in connecting them as well.
6.This chapter again builds on previous chapters by expanding the realms within Cognitive Psychology that we’ve learned about, processed and discussed. Previous chapters had covered how our brain works in regards to various topics and this chapter built on that by describing how our brain works in regards to language.
7.I’d be interested in learning more about saccades scientists have discovered are involved in reading. I’ve loved reading since I was very little and would find it interesting to learn more about the actual brain processes that take place during this task.
8.While I was reading the chapter I was thinking about different forms of language and how some of the different topics mentioned might apply. I spent most of spring break at a Christian school for deaf children and learned some sign language. I’m fascinated by the language and it’s similarities and differences to verbal languages.
9.Wernicke’s area, Broca’s area, phoneme, perceptual span, saccade
1) One thing that I found interesting was the section on linguistics hierarchy. Linguistics is the science of language including the structure of language and focusing on a description of speech sounds. The study of language is called psycholinguistic, because it incorporates both of the approaches. I found this interesting because language is something that we use in our daily life. This is something that we learn as kids and take with us all throughout life.
2) Second thing I found interesting was the section on Morphology. Morphology is the study of the structure of words. I thought that it was interesting that in the English language we have more than one hundred thousand words that are each formed by morpheme compensations. Morphemes may be words, part of words, such as prefixes, and suffixes. I found it interesting that there are so many words and different options to become words.
3) Third part I found interesting was the section on nature versus nature. I found the interesting because there is always the debate on whether or not we learn things like language or we are born with it. Behaviorist believe that language is learned through reinforcement. But Chomsky argued the only morphological aspects of language development is subject to reinforcement. Language is based on deep structure is the only thing that can explain that a child develops grammatically correct sentences.
4) The chapter was one that I found interesting throughout the whole thing. It was just very long and felt as if I was reading for a long time. If I had to pick one part it would be the section on grammar and its structure. This is something that I don’t really ever enjoy reading about.
5) The thing that I think that I will use most in cognitive psychology is probably the section on nature versus nurture and the section on linguistics. I think that these two sections will be the most important because they are the development of language. You have to know the language to understand what is going on in the starting process of the learning of language before you can understand what is going on.
6) This chapter builds on from the previous chapters from the sense of hearing and it brings up the ongoing debate of nature versus nurture. It also builds on the sense of abilities and the other functions of the brain. This chapter looks further in to the functions of the brain, previous chapter touched on brain structure and how our brains neurons plays apart on language.
7) The thing that I would like to learn more on saccades and how we comprehend the things we read. I would like to know more about this because it is something that we do on a daily basis. By knowing more about how the brain works and starts the comprehensive process I think that it will make it more understandable to be able to comprehend more information in one time.
8) During this chapter I was thinking a lot about reading and comprehending. I was also taking time to think a lot about how our brain functions and how the neurons effect just about everything that goes into the functioning of the brain. It really made me stop and think about what would happen if I were to lose some neurons then I would really lose all the functions of my daily life.
9) Language, Cognitive Psychology, Nature Versus Nurture, Linguistics, neurons, saccades, morphology, Morphemes, Psycholinguistics.
1. Something that I always find so interesting is the idea that with so little (only 26 letters) we are able to talk about anything and communicate with others if they speak the same language as us about anything. This concept is called linguistic hierarchy, or if you’re talking about the study of linguistics it would be psycholinguistics. I’ve always found this interesting because language is inherently interesting I think. The fact that you can speak at all because your brain is wired to listen to everything and replicate it is amazing. I imagine that mirror neurons are heavily involved in this process.
2. Morphemes are also interesting, mostly because I enjoy prefixes and suffixes. However, it is really interesting to know that these are the smallest unit of language that have some kind of concrete meaning to us. Morphemes are essentially any one syllable words, or any prefixes, suffixes, or combinations of these.
3. Another really interesting topic in this week’s chapter was the discussion on reading, particularly Cattell’s study. It’s really interesting that when he discovered these fixation points, people do not just skim words on a page, they make small jumps called saccades as they move through the reading. What is extremely fascinating is that the more you knew about the topic you were reading about, the shorter the period of fixation was, and the more easily and quickly you moved through the reading.
4. One of the least interesting things I read about in this chapter was top-down and bottom up processing. It’s not that these topics are boring necessarily, but I have now read and reread and relearned about them three times just this year, as well as having learned all about both throughout my psychology career.
5. I think the information about comprehension is the most relevant to cognitive psychology in this chapter. Most of the chapter focuses on the parts of language and how we learned about language and our language capabilities, however once you get to comprehension, that’s where you’re really involving the brain actively in the language process. I think language is one of the most important functions of the brain, and it’s probably the most common and repeated higher function that we perform because we live in such a social world where we are constantly interacting and communicating with others.
6. This chapter builds specifically on the last chapter because written language is possibly our most obvious form of visual knowledge. Beyond that it explains more of where specific functions are carried out and processed in the brain. It gives us insight as to how our brain performs the most essential task to our survival in today’s world.
7. Something I would like to learn more about is comprehension and how the brain does it. I think we take the fact that we are able to read for granted sometimes. The fact that we have the ability to use and manipulate language is absolutely incredible.
8. One of the things that doesn’t make sense to me that I’ve always wondered about in language is body language, and how we can so effectively communicate without words.
9. linguistic hierarchy, linguistics, psycholinguistics, mirror neurons, Morphemes, fixation points, saccades, top-down and bottom up processing, comprehension
1a. One thing I found to be interesting are the areas in the brain that were first found to be associated language production. In 1861 Paul Broca discovered that a lesion in the brain of a patient who suffered from speech loss (among other things) was tied to the loss of speech functioning. The lesion was located on the left frontal lobe and is now deemed “Broca’s area”. Another structure discovered a few years later in 1875 is called Wernicke’s area and was discovered by a man of the same name. Wernicke discovered a lesion in the frontal temporal lobe of a patient who could not comprehend language. Although he could speak just fine, the patient could hardly comprehend what was being said to him.
1b. I found this interesting because these structures were discovered long before the use of brain imaging techniques. These men had to surgically look in the brain and find these areas that affected these patient’s ailments, which is fascinating.
2a. Another section in the book that I found interesting was the bit on transformational grammar in regards to Noam Chomsky’s work. Transformational grammar is the way we change a sentence and the sentence still holds the same meaning. For example, “the boy hit the ball” vs. “the ball was hit by the boy”. Chomsky says that while both of these are correct they differ in surface structure, but not in deep structure. Chomsky believes that those two features needed to be separated. The surface features include parts of a sentence that can be segmented and labeled by conventional parsing. Deep structure is the underlying meaning of the sentence. He believes that behind the differing surface structures of our language there are similar systematic rules for the deep structure.
2b. I found this interesting because I am also taking a memory and language class with Professor Yates and we are currently talking about Noam Chomsky and his theories on language development. Chomsky is still viewed as the leading man in language studies and it is important to take note of his scientific perspective.
3a. A very interesting section in the text is Nature versus Nuture. Many behaviorists, and I believe the cultural view of language would say that language is a function of nurture, or specifically that we learn from others the correct way to speak. Chomsky argues otherwise. He believes that our ability to learn grammar is an innate function of being human. Morphology is the only aspect language that is learned, that is our propensity to learn new vocabulary, but grammar and the way we from sentences is something that we are born with. Chomsky attributes this to a cognitive structure deemed the language acquisition device.
3b. I found this interesting because Chomsky argues directly the opposite of what people would generally believe. In my memory and language class people are having a hard time thinking that grammar is something innate inside of us, but if you take a closer look at Chomsky’s work and his evidence for it, it makes a lot of sense!
4a. If I had to pick a least interesting section I would probably pick the Linguistics Hierarchy section. The hierarchy includes phonemes, the basic unit of language (vowel and consonant sounds), morphemes, words or parts of words (prefixes, suffixes, combinations), and syntax which is the rules that govern combination of words in phrases and sentences.
4b. I did not find it interesting because it was just basic information I have already gone over a few times in other classes.
5. Anything that had to do with Chomsky’s theory on language is probably the most important part of the chapter and will also be valuable going forward because Chomsky is regarded as a leading expert in psycholinguistics.
6. This chapter continues to build on our different cognitive functions. The chapters are starting to get more specific to different cognitive functions and this one expands on the important function of language.
7. I would like to look more into Chomsky’s work and specifically his theory on LAD.
7b. I would like to know more about this because I think his view on grammar acquisition being innate is staggeringly different than the cultural perspective and I would like to see his evidence for it.
8. I thought a lot about what I was learning in my memory and language class and I think it is pretty funny how my two cognitive classes are on the same topic on the same week. It is helping the information to sink in though!
9. Phoneme, morpheme, syntax, Broca’s area, Wernicke’s area, transformational grammar, surface structure, deep structure, language acquisition device.
1. The first thing that I found interesting in the chapter was the discussion of phonemes and morphemes. Phonemes are basic units of spoken language that have no meaning on their own. The are the vowels and consonants within our language. I found it interesting that there are about 45 different phonemes in our language but only 9 are used for most of our words. It was also interesting to think about what the languages that use 85 must be like. Morphemes are the smalled unit of meaning in a language. There are the prefixes and suffixes that make up words. It was interesting to read about free morphemes, which are a unit of meaning that stands alone. Some examples of this are words like color or drive. Then there are bounded morphemes, such as coloring or driving.
2. The second thing that I found interesting was the discussion of transformational grammar. I had read about Noam Chomsky and his work before but never really looked into it in detail. Transformational grammar deals with the changes in linguistic forms that may retain the same meaning. It has to do with sentence structure and how a sentence can be changed in form but still retain the same meaning. The book gave a good example of this in which both sentences are grammatically correct and also convey the same meaning, but are structured differently. This section also discusses surface structure and deep structure. Surface structure is the part of the actual sentence that can be segmented and labeled. Deep structure is the underlying meaning of the structure. This topic might end up being the one that I decide to research more this week, as it certainly is interesting enough and has enough information to easily write about.
3. The third thing that I found interesting was the topic of foveal vision. It is a visual angle that encompasses only about 1-2 degrees of vision. It is the focus point of vision and is surrouned by peripheral vision. Objects become more fuzzy as they grow farther away from foveal vision and in the example of reading, eventually become unrecognizable. The interesting thing is that some letters and words are identified outside of foveal vision while reading something. The eye actually makes small jumps around the page while reading, which are called saccades, and all of this information is processed in order to speed up reading time.
4. No single thing in the chapter was particularly uninteresting to me. Overall, the chapter as a whole was really interesting to read again and only some parts of it felt a little dry while reading.
5. I think that transformational grammar will be one of the most useful things from the chapter. It helps display how we understand language on a fundamental level. We don't just process the information exactly as it is presented and transformational grammar helps to show how the cogntive process of understanding language is a intricate and complicated process.
6. This chapter build on previous chapters by expanding the previous information about the verbal and visual representation of knowledge and applying it to and expanding upon it in the context of language.
7. I think that I will research more about transformational language and Chomsky's other works this week. It was really interesting to read and think about it during the chapter and I would like to know more about how Chomsky has contributed to the understanding of language processing.
8. While reading the chaper I mainly thought about how the concepts presented could be applied to everyday examples of sentences. I thought about how I could change around a sentence different from the example presented in the discussion of transformational language and also considered how phonemes and morphemes make up our language.
Terms: phonemes, morphemes, language, vowel, consonant, prefix, suffix, free morphemes, bounded morphemes, tranformational grammar, surface structure, deep structure, foveal vision, peripheral vision, saccades
Chapter 10 Blog
The first thing I found interesting about chapter ten is the little blue box labeled “’Seeing’ Without Sensing”. This box talks about how we use visual imagery. Visual imagery is when we can “see” something that we are not even viewing. The example that the book gives asks us to recall how many windows are in our living place. Before I even kept reading, I caught myself picturing my little apartment. I saw myself walking into the front door, through the living room, and then peering into the bedrooms. This is a prime example of visual imagery. I was able to picture my apartment and how many windows it had without actually being there. It also talks about how some people are better at visual imagery than others. I didn’t realize that that was the case. And now that I know it is, I think that I am very good at visual imagery. This whole concept is pretty interesting to me because I use it so much. There are many times when I am trying to recall or remember something and I automatically start picturing things in my head. I think it is a really spectacular phenomenon that we can “see” things without them being in front of us. We can see things in our mind’s eye even if these things were never sensed.
The second thing that I found interesting in chapter ten was the experiment that Kosslyn did on small objects vs. large objects and how clearly they are seen. It was shown that the bigger animal was seen in much more detail and much more vividly. The first example was a small rabbit next to a large elephant. The large elephant was seen more clearly than the rabbit. But when the rabbit was next to a fly (which is smaller than a rabbit) – there was more attention paid to the rabbit. The rabbit then had more detail, and the fly had less. Kosslyn thought that maybe this was because the person had a bias towards rabbits, elephants, or flies. In order to get rid of the possible bias, she faced the participants with gigantic flies and tiny elephants. The larger of the animals was still seen with much more detail, and it was still paid the most attention to. I think that this is a very interesting experiment. It makes sense that the larger animal would get paid more attention to. But it is really interesting that when the smaller animal is made the largest, that becomes the animal that gets paid the most attention to. This is really interesting to me because it shows that our mind shapes what we see without us even knowing. We automatically pay attention to certain stimuli. There are things that our minds are always doing that we don’t know about.
The third thing that I found interesting in chapter ten was the concept of synesthesia. Synesthesia is where someone perceives in one modality and experiences what they perceive in another modality. The examples that the book gives are people tasting shapes, feeling sounds, or seeing numbers and letters in color. I remember when I was in middle school and I read a book about a little boy who had the ability to see colors with words. He would go around and tell people what colors their names were. I figured that this novel was based on true events, but I have never really heard of it until now. I think that this is really interesting because I have never experienced anything like this – or not that I remember. I think if I have ever done this, in the slightest, I have been able to taste certain smells. This is something I feel that a lot of people can do though because your sense of smell is directly related to your sense of taste. I think it would be pretty cool if I could put certain colors to certain words. I’m sure that I have experienced some of these examples a little bit. I think that I have felt sounds before. That would be similar to when you are watching a scary movie and they start to play the suspenseful music. I always start to feel really anxious and wonder what is going to happen next.
The concept that I found the least interesting was mental rotation. Mental rotation is when someone has the ability to tell if two objects are the same (except for orientation). If I have an object that is a certain shape and then I rotate it 90 degrees, would the person be able to tell that it was the same object? Or would they think that it was a different object? I think that this is an interesting concept, but I couldn’t do it! I looked at the images in the book over and over again and my brain just wouldn’t recognize the objects that were different. I tried so hard to rotate them in my mind, and I kept seeing them as the same object. I thought that they all looked the same. I didn’t think that any of the objects were different; I just thought that they were all rotated. So it’s not that I found this topic uninteresting, I just couldn’t do it myself, so I started to become confused as I read on.
I think that this information will help me in learning about cognitive psychology because it is all about how we interpret things visually. This chapter is all about the visual representation of knowledge. It’s about how we can visualize what we know. I think that this information will help me in my learning about cognitive psychology because now I know more about how, why, and to what extent we visualize information. Sometimes we purposely visualize things and sometimes visualization happens on a more subconscious, unplanned level. I think that this shows how unique the mind is. There are some things about it that we just can’t control. I think that that has a lot to say for cognitive psychology. Usually when a person thinks about cognitive processes, they probably envision someone thinking. But I am starting to learn that some of the information that we use and store cognitively is not planned.
The main way I think this chapter builds on other chapters is because of all of the sections on memory. Whenever I think about visualizing things, I think about myself trying to recall or remember information. Whenever I need to remember things, I use visual imagery. I use visual imagery to store information and I also use it to recall information. I think that the way our knowledge is visually represented has a big part to do with memory and recalling information. If it isn’t that way for everyone, I know that this is the case for me.
I would like to learn more about visual imagery. I would like to know why certain people are better at it. And I would like to know why some people use visual imagery more often. I think the main reason I find visual imagery so interesting is because I use it so often. I am constantly picturing things in my mind. I use visual imagery as a study technique and I use it as a remembering technique. There are a lot of things about visual imagery that I don’t know. I would like to know what people use if they are not using visual imagery. I can’t imagine living a life without visual imagery. What about people who are blind? Do they have any sort of visual imagery? That would be interesting to find out. I will have to do more research on visual imagery and people who have no sight.
When I first started reading this chapter I was very scared that it was going to be similar to the last chapter. As I said in last week’s blog, I did not enjoy going over the last chapter about the verbal representation of knowledge. None of that information was appealing to me. And since this chapter is all about the visual representation of knowledge, I figured I would not enjoy it equally as much. I was surprised to find that I thought this chapter was very interesting indeed. I think that this chapter was interesting to me because I am such a visual learner. That would also explain why I didn’t enjoy the last chapter because I don’t think that I learn very well by listening. It is hard for me to store information if it is simply auditory.
Terms: Visual Imagery, Kosslyn, Synesthesia, Mental Rotation, Cognitive Psychology
OOPS! This was last week's blog. Please ignore.
Chapter 11 Blog
The first thing that I found interesting in chapter 11 was the information on morphology. I have never heard of the term morphemes or morphology. Morphemes are words or parts of words (prefixes, suffixes, etc.). Morphology is the study of the structure of those words. The part that I found most interesting was the information of linguistic constraints. I know that there are rules to language, and there are obviously rules to certain words and letters. One of the rules the book talks about is that in English, no more than three consonants may start a syllable. It is usually less than two. This is interesting to me because it is something that I have never consciously realized before. When I sit and really think about it – this concept makes a lot of sense. I can’t think of a single word that has more than three consonants in a row. There always has to be vowels in order for the word to make sense. Another linguistic constraint is that certain letters are never seen together. The example that the book gives are “q” and “d” or “j” and “z”. There are no words in the English language that have these letters right next to each other. I thought this was interesting because I have never known this before. I didn’t realize that there were certain letters that are never placed together in English. That is very odd to me. There are constraints in our language – the language that we have been speaking since toddlers – that we don’t have any idea about.
The second thing I found interesting in chapter 11 was the concept of nature vs. nurture. Chomsky’s theorized that components of language were innate. This means that he thought we were born with language – which would be the nature view. Skinner took the opposite view and thought that language is all learned. This would be the nurture view. Chomsky said that we would not be able to form sentences that we have never heard if language wasn’t innate. This makes sense, but there are rules in the English language that we learn when we learn to speak. There might be some things that are innate, but there are also things that are learned. This is interesting to me because I have always been intrigued by the nature vs. nurture debate. I can see why, back then, it was an issue that was discussed often. Now we know that almost nothing is strictly nature or strictly nurture. You always have to have a little of both.
The third thing I found interesting in chapter 11 was the linguistic-relativity hypothesis. This is the idea that our language influences our perception and conceptualization of reality. The man who came up with this hypothesis was Benjamin Whorf. Whorf concluded that since words are perceived differently in different languages, this means that people who speak different languages perceive reality differently. I thought that this was very interesting because I didn’t realize it before. I have never thought that since people speak different languages, they will perceive the world differently. I really enjoy learning about how people perceive things. And I especially enjoy learning about why people perceive things differently. There is an example that the book gives that talks about how we perceive colors. If someone has normal vision, they will perceive colors (visually) just like everyone else who can literally see colors. But since there are differences in how people mentally process colors, we must assume that this is due to differences in languages.
I think the thing that interested me the least about this chapter was the section of the neurological basis of language. There are two reasons that I found this uninteresting. The first is that I don’t really enjoy learning about neurology. I have never been very good at sciences like biology, chemistry, or neurology. In my biopsychology class, the section that I did the worst in was the physiology of the brain. That is the first reason I didn’t like this section of the chapter. The second reason is that I have learned about it in so many other courses that I have taken. I am majoring in psychology – which is the study of the mind. So obviously, I have learned a lot about the brain along the way. The Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area are very familiar to me. This was a section that I felt I just needed to skim over. The information is vital to this course – I realize that. But I have learned it multiple times before, and I don’t like learning about it.
I think the main thing I will take from this chapter that will help me in the learning of cognitive psychology is also the main thing from this chapter that builds on previous chapters. The information on perception and how we perceive things is going to be the most detrimental to my learning about cognitive psychology. There is information of perception in the section that talks about the linguistic-relativity hypothesis. This hypothesis talks about how we perceive things based on our language. There is also a section about perceptual span. This was a pretty interesting section. Perceptual span is how much a person can perceive during a brief presentation. If someone is shown a picture very quickly, it would be interesting to know how much they can take from that picture.
I would like to learn more about the eye-tracking studies. Eye-tracking studies have to do with a person’s perceptual span. These studies are done by recording a person’s eye movements while they read or look at a picture. I have heard of these studies before and I think they are really interesting. I would like to learn what, specifically, we would use these studies for. I know that they have been done with young toddlers. They show pictures of people of different races and see which ones the toddlers are attracted to first. I would like to look up more studies like this and see what they have found using eye-tracking studies.
While reading this chapter I was thinking about another course I am in. I am in a course this semester called memory and language. While we were learning about memory in that course, we were learning about memory in this course. And now we have moved on to the language portion in my other course, along with this course. I have different text books for either class. And I have noticed that they have a lot of the same information. I think that the textbook for this course has more information though. There are more details and more concepts to learn about. I think that this text book have more interesting information and more interesting examples than in my other class. While reading this chapter (as I did with the chapters on memory) – I was thinking a lot about my other class. I was comparing and contrasting the chapters and the information that I am gaining from both classes.
Terms: Morphemes, Morphology, Linguistic Constraints, Nature vs. Nurture, Chomsky, Skinner, Linguistic-Relativity Hypothesis, Perception, Conceptualization, Whorf, Neurological Basis of Language, Broca’s Area, Wernicke’s Area, Cognitive Psychology, Perceptual Span, Eye-Tracking Studies
1.A. Down the garden path experiments.
1.B. Down the garden path experiments is a research method concerned with studying the act of reading by way of examining eye movements. The text provides an example of a story that would be used in this kind of experiment. The sentences include a description of a concert, then speaks about fishing, then talks about bass guitarist. This led participants into a situation where they may be more likely to be confused by the word bass since it could have two different pronunciations and meanings. People tended to focus on the word guitarist as and sometimes backtrack to the word bass. I think this is interesting because the fact that the researchers found significant results means that suggest that there are very common patterns to how people attempt to read/comprehend text.
2.A.Foveal Vision
2.B. Foveal vision can be described as the 1-2 degree viewing angle through which we can see with the highest resolution. The next clearest area of our vision is parafoveal. When reading some words/characters may be somewhat recognizable but also a bit blurry. The next area is called near peripheral. This is the area of our vision that is least able to see fine detail. I think it is interesting that we have such a small area of vision that can detect such fine detail. One may think that it would be evolutionarily advantageous to be able to see large areas with a very high amount of detail.
3.A. Dyslexia.
3.B. Our text describes dyslexia as being a learning disorder where an individual has difficulties in vision and hearing. It also includes the caveat that there are varying theories where one area is deficient or both are. Our text shows some of the visual differences by showing the results of an eye tracking study that gives a glimpse into the differences in how a dyslexic person reads. It also shares brain imaging studies results that suggest dyslexia may have genetic roots. I think all of this is interesting because it seems to provide much evidence that dyslexia is real yet many people still believe that dyslexia is in some way not real.
4.A. Linguistics Hierarchy.
4.B. This was a description of the various units of language. In this section of the chapter phoneme’s, morpheme’s, syntax…etc were discussed. What I enjoy reading most in the chapters of this book are overviews of research and more detailed results of specific studies. Though topics such as morphology are very relevant to the topic covered in this chapter, I found these topics to be less interesting than the ‘meat and potatoes’ of the chapter that discussed how we read.
5. Eye tracking experiments.
Given that we only have a 1-2 degree field of foveal vision that can allow us to see in high levels of detail, it seems that analyzes where/how an individual chooses to focus that foveal vision could be very insightful. In the text studies that mad us of the technology to study reading were discussed. This kind of technology appears as if it would be useful for helping us understand in what order or patterns people attempt to analyze and ingest visual stimuli/information. According to the text the technology has already proven useful in learning about the perceptual span of humans. It may be interesting to see how eye tracking studies could be paired with neurological imaging experiments to learn more about cognitive functioning.
6.In past chapters we have largely discussed the nature of our senses. We have discussed how it is that our senses such as hearing or seeing get encoded, how those memories are retrieved, the strengths/weaknesses of a sense or cognitive ability. This chapter is focused on sight, but it does not merely replicate past chapters but builds on them by discussing in much more detail how our senses are related to a very specific task such as reading.
7.A. Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis.
Linguistic relativity hypothesis is a theory that language influences perception and ways of thinking about reality. I want to learn more about this because I think the notion that our language has an influence on how we perceive things is interesting. Understanding how language influences influences perception and cognition is not only important for the field of cognitive psychology but also cultural psychology.
8. I wondered about what imaging studies would reveal if they investigated brain functioning of dyslexic people while reading, listening or problem solving. I wondered about how many different patterns of saccades we have for different situations. For example I wondered how eye movements might differ when watching a sports games on television versus in person. I thought about our visual fields and wondered why they were so small. I thought maybe it isn’t possible to have a very wide field of view and see in high detail in the entire field of view and that maybe as a result our eyesight is a sort of compromise between quantity of the visual field and quality of the eyesight in the foveal field.
9. fovea, near peripheral, parafoveal, linguistic relativity hypothesis, neurological imaging, eye tracking, saccade, dyslexia, down the garden path, linguistics hierarchy, morphology, syntax, morpheme, phenom, encode
1)The section about dyslexia i found to be interesting. its interesting to me because i guess i don't understand it that much and want to know more. is it a visual or hearing thing or is it something deeper. the book said that Paulesu studied 72 people from different countries that have dyslexia and the brain functioning all seemed to be normal so the question is why does it happen. does it come from when the learned to read at a young age?
2)the section that talked about Broca and Wernickes areas i thought were pretty neat. to me it is odd how Wernickes area can be damaged and you can still talk and be understood but if someone talks to you you cant understand a thing that is said. it is hard for me to imagine how life would be like that. Broca's area is the area that speech is developed but you still can understand what is going on. if that part of the brain is damaged can you still write things down and it be understood?
3)i also thought that the top down processing was interesting. its neat the things that you recall or put in to memory just by implying what you are doing. like the book said that a description of a house and depending on what you were told you were is what you remembered the most. even though you weren't ask to remember things that were related to what you were you still focused on that stuff.
4)i liked it all
5)i think the most useful stuff will be how the brain processes words and meanings and how we read things, how it all ties together.
6)just how we process and remember information
7)Dyslexia i think i would want to learn more about it and why it happens the way it does.
8)as i was reading i started to think about how i am processing this and the schema, what i was remembering and why. also i was thinking about are my eyes really jumping back and forth that much.