Deck 9: Section 1: Language and Thought

Question 1

Give the approximate locations of Broca's area and Wernicke's area in the brain. Compare and contrast the language deficits of people who suffer from Broca's aphasia and Wernicke's aphasia.

Answer 1

The answer should include the following information: (1) Broca's area is located in the left frontal cortex; (2) Wernicke's area is located in the left temporal cortex; (3) People with Broca's aphasia have great difficulties in speech production. Typically, they speak in short phrases consisting mostly of content morphemes. Function morphemes are largely absent. These people can understand language relatively well, although there are some deficits in comprehending grammatically complex sentences; (4) People with Wernicke's aphasia differ from people with Broca's aphasia in two major ways. First, they can produce grammatically correct speech; however, this speech tends to be meaningless. Second, they have tremendous difficulty comprehending even relatively simple sentences.

Question 2

Compare behaviorist and nativist explanations for language development. What are the basic arguments of each position? What evidence is there supporting each position?

Answer 2

The answer should include the following information: (1) Behaviorist explanations of language development focus on the role of operant conditioning in shaping and maintaining language. The main argument is that language use, similar to any other behavior, gets shaped and reinforced in the environment. As such, eventually a vocabulary of words and a repertoire of sentences and phrases develop; (2) The nativist position argues that language development is an innate, biological capacity. According to this view, human brains are equipped with a language acquisition device, which facilitates language learning, especially within critical periods of development: (3) Although the behaviorist account offers a simple, intuitive explanation for language development, there is very little research evidence to support it. In fact, there are at least three forms of evidence that argue very strongly against a behaviorist interpretation. First, parents don't spend much time teaching their children to speak grammatically, suggesting that direct reinforcement of phrases and sentences doesn't occur very often. Second, children can generate many more grammatical sentences than they ever hear. This suggests that a small set of rules (perhaps innate) is responsible for language production, instead of the piecemeal reinforcement of individual sentences. Third, children's speech errors tend to be nonetheless grammatical, suggesting that they are overgeneralizations of a small set of grammatical rules; (4) Some evidence in favor of the nativist position is that first, people with genetic dysphasia show the types of difficulties in language development that would be predicted from the existence of a biological capacity, and second, newborn infants can contrast the phonemes that are heard in all human languages. Both of these lines of evidence point to an innate, biological mechanism.

Question 3

Discuss differences in brain activity associated with solving a problem by insight and solving a problem through step-by-step analysis.

Answer 3

The answer should include the following information: (1) A spike of electrical activity occurs in the front part of the right temporal lobe about one-third of a second before an insightful solution is reached. This pattern of electrical activity does not occur when problems are solved through analytic strategies; (2) Although this spike in right temporal lobe electrical activity occurs most closely with the insightful solution, experiments in cognitive psychology suggest that insight probably is the result of more incremental unconscious processes. Brain-imaging studies support this view. In the moments before an insightful solution is reached, there is enhanced activity in the anterior cingulate. Researchers believe that this area of the brain allows individuals to detect weakly activated associations that could aid in problem solving at the subconscious level. When the strength of these associations passes a threshold level, the spike in right temporal lobe electrical activity is triggered, and people report an insightful solution "popping" into their mind; (3) Some people tend to experience insight more than others. Insight problem solvers tend to have higher resting levels of right cerebral hemisphere electrical activity than more analytic problem solvers.

Question 4

Describe the successes and limitations of attempts to teach nonhuman animals, particularly apes, human language. Note similarities and differences between language acquisition in apes and humans.

Question 5

Describe how prototypes and exemplars are processed differently in the brain. Then, give several examples of how damage to specific brain regions can result in category-specific deficits.

Question 6

Using an example, describe how the framing effect influences decision making. Why is the sunk-cost fallacy considered an example of the framing effect? All of us are occasionally guilty of committing the sunk-cost fallacy. Give an example from your own life.

Question 7

Describe the major language milestones between birth and 60 months of age.

Question 8

Compare and contrast the following psychological theories of concepts and categories: family resemblance theory, prototype theory, and exemplar theory.

Question 9

Using an example, distinguish between logic and reasoning. Then, provide a unique example of practical and theoretical reasoning.

Question 10

There are many mindbugs associated with the decision-making process. These include cognitive heuristics, such as availability and representativeness, and fallacies such as the conjunction fallacy. Discuss each of these three mindbugs in turn, describing how they operate and how they sometimes lead us astray. Are there any cognitive advantages associated with these decision-making strategies?

Question 11

Human language results from the complex interplay of several characteristics. These characteristics include phonemes, phonological rules, morphemes, grammar, morphological rules, and syntactical rules. Discuss each of these aspects of human language, providing an example of each and noting how all these elements work together.

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