Cognitive Science Is the of Human Intelligence in All its Forms - Case Study Example

Cognitive Science LANGUAGE ACQUISITION Introduction The exercise of intelligence is termed as cognition, and cognitive processes form an important requirement for all activities. “Cognitive science is the study of human intelligence in all its forms, from perception and action to language and reasoning” (Osherson, 1996: xi). One of the important aspects of cognitive science is language acquisition. With the renewal of cognitive science in the late 1950s, interest in the scientific study of language acquisition also took root. Language is the main vehicle for communication of one’s thoughts. Through speech, exposure to language and its structure is readily available. “Children learn languages that are governed by highly subtle and abstract principles, and they do so without explicit instructions or any other environmental clues to the nature of such principles” (Pinker, 1995: 135). In spite of the complexity of language systems, every child successfully learns his/ her first language in a few years, without conscious effort or formal lessons. Hence, language acquisition is distinct from general intelligence, is based on an intrinsic cognitive programming, and is the core issue unique to the minds of the specie homo sapiens. The Research Statement This paper proposes to review language acquisition as an essential area of cognitive science, identify the various aspects of this process, and evaluate the research evidence available. Discussion The contemporary concepts of language acquisition were once considered revolutionary because they were radically different from earlier assumptions based on the sensori-motor abilities of the mind combining with a few simple laws of learning, producing gradual changes in an individual’s range of behavior. Chomsky (1996: 413), the renowned intellectual and author, is credited for contradicting the earlier assumptions by citing the process of language acquisition by children. Contemporary approach to language acquisition is still considered controversial and research is being undertaken to test the ideas. Language acquisition has created some controversy also in the area of motivation in both second language and foreign language acquisition: especially in relation to the techniques used in the teaching of form (Ortega & Norris: 417). Cognitive and Neural Aspects of Language Acquisition: The extent to which the ability to learn a language is dependent on innate mechanisms or predispositions is an important and basic factor in language acquisition (LePore & Pylyshyn: 356). Innate abilities are usually present in all normal individuals, their acquisition is seen to be uniform and automatic for all, with progress in the same sequence and speed at the same ages, and without any particular guidance or instructions being required. A critical period may be there for successful acquisition of the innate ability. It may be functionally and anatomically independent of other abilities, and heredity may also play a part in acquisition of the ability. This infers that if children’s brains innately have the potential for language acquisition, then with adequate exposure to language, all children with normal brain anatomically, should learn language without instruction, in a uniform manner. Formal teaching of first language would be required only if the ability to learn language is not innate, and the speed and sequence which determine the course of language acquisition, may be very different among various children; moreover, there may not be a critical period for acquisition. If language acquisition is based on innate mechanisms and predispositions, it is important to determine whether these mechanisms are responsible for non-linguistic processes also, state LePore & Pylyshyn (p.357). Language Development: According to the principles and parameters theory (P & P) all languages share a common set of grammatical principles that are universal. Different parametric values for those principles determine the differences among languages. Children have to learn the vocabulary and parametric settings alone, to learn a particular language since they are born knowing the principles that are universal to all languages. According to the optimality theory (OT) children are born with knowing the universal constraints in learning a particular language. Hence the vocabulary and ranking of constraints of that particular language are required to be learned by children, for language acquisition (Chomsky, 1991: 417). Experience-dependent as well as experience-independent mechanisms are involved in language acquisition, though the latter are considered to be more significant by most theorists. From a study conducted by Saffran et al (p.1926), it was found that “a fundamental task of language acquisition, segmentation of words from fluent speech, can be accomplished by 8-month-old infants based solely on the statistical relationships between neighboring speech sounds”. Only two minutes of exposure were found to be sufficient for the occurrence of this word segmentation. These findings suggest that infants have an innate and powerful mechanism by which the statistical properties of the language input is computed by their cognitive system. Infants use the knowledge to identify structure in language, including sound patterns, words and the basic elements of grammar. “These abilities appear to be both powerful and constrained, such that some statistical patterns are more readily detected and used than others” (Saffran: 110). This evidence is supported by further research by the author on the implications of statistical properties of language input on the structure of human languages. They find that though human language has immense complexity, by using statistical cues, learners may be able to identify some of the patterns which are hidden in language input. A combination of inherent constraints on the types of patterns acquired by learners, and using output from one level of learning as input to the next, may help to explain how the complex system is mastered easily by the human mind. The author concludes that the structure of human languages may be shaped mainly by human learning mechanisms. Gomez and Gerken (p.178) attributed the difficulty in determining the relative contributions of innate and acquired knowledge in infants to current lack of knowledge of the actual learning mechanisms involved during infancy. This requirement has been fulfilled by a new approach to studying this problem: by assessing infants exposed to artificial languages. It is stated that this approach allows a minute detailing of infant learning mechanisms, and permits a better understanding of the mutual relationships between and the comparative roles played by innate and learned factors in language acquisition. Uniformity in Language Acquisition: The progress of language acquisition is observed to be quite uniform. At around 9 to 15 months of age, most children say their first referential words. In the next 6 to 8 months, language development progresses slowly, with children acquiring single words up to 50 in number. After this stage, children’s vocabularies increase rapidly at the rate of 22 to 37 new words per month. From 18 to 24 months of age, children combine two words to form two word utterances. “Children acquiring morphologically impoverished languages such as English gradually begin to use sentences longer than two words” (LePore & Pylyshyn: 358), but for several months their speech is similar to the way adults speak when words are at a premium, as in telegraphic messages. Gradually children stop omitting words, and by the age of 3 to 4 years, English-speaking children’s utterances are completely grammatical. In a similar manner, children acquire mastery over the grammar and syntax in their language (Saffran et al: 1). Figure 1. Brain growth and first language (L1) acquisition. Human brain weight is presented as a function of age. Approximate times of milestones in normal speech development are indicated. (Sakai: 816) Figure 1 illustrates the normal development of first language, L1 faculties. This development takes place along with an enormous increase in brain volume in the first years. As outlined earlier (LePore & Pylyshyn: 358), speech in infants develops according to a timetable, from babbling at 6 to 8 months, through the one-word and two-words stages to sentence formation and normal speech. Irrespective of language spoken, all children make certain types of mistakes in speech, but not other particular errors. Children may make some lexical or synctactic errors or over-regularize inflectional endings. These errors serve to confirm that “children use language productively, and do not merely repeat what their parents say, because parents do not use these unacceptable forms” (Stromswold: 13). Further, these errors may result from the peculiarities that are present in languages. Unless there is exposure to language during childhood, normal language development cannot take place, even though learning languages is the outcome of innate processes. “The critical period hypothesis” states that for language to be acquired normally, exposure to language must occur by a certain age. The period of maximum neural elasticity is considered to be until the onset of puberty, and the critical period of language acquisition generally coincides with it (LePore & Pylyshyn: 366). Social Cognition, Theory of the Mind and Language Acquisition: Theory of the mind (ToM) denotes cognitive progress by which an individual is able to “report his propositional attitudes, to attribute such attitudes to others, and to use the observed mental states in the prediction and explanation of behavior” Garfield et al (p.494). Between the ages of 3 and 5 years, most normally developing children acquire ToM. In the cases of children with autism and with severe sensory impairments, there are extensive delays beyond this chronological and mental age, as observed by the authors from their research study. Key factors concerning the origins, nature and representation of knowledge by the mind are attributed to the Theory of Mind which is jointly dependent upon language and social experience. Children’s increasing social understanding acquired through conversation and interaction with others, impacts the Theory of Mind. The authors viewpoint is that adequate language and adequate social skills are jointly causally sufficient and necessary for producing ToM. The creation of human cognition is attributed to a social development theory. This is because human beings have evolved as social organisms, whose existence and development is supported by a rich social environment, in which extensive knowledge is made available. Hence, the medium of a shared natural language is vital, and forms one of the most distinctive characteristics in human cognition (Garfield et al: 535). The Development of Language Regions of the Brain: Stromswold (p.16) states that from the prenatal stage, the language areas of the human brain appear to be both anatomically and functionally asymmetrical. Fetal brains are observed to have larger temporal planes in the left hemisphere than in the right hemisphere. In the left hemisphere, development of the cortical regions that subserve language are seen to be less advanced as compared to the development of the homologous regions in the right hemisphere. During infancy, dendritic development around Broca’s area on the left is not as advanced as that found in the homologous region on the right. Experiments such as those for event related potential (ERP) and dichotic listening experiments indicate that the left hemisphere of the brain is innately sensitive for speech from the time of birth. Simple linguistic stimuli such as lexical words induce similar types of electrical activity in young children’s brains as those recorded in adult brains. For other linguistic stimuli, children’s ERPs may become indistinguishable from adult ERPs only around puberty (Stromswold: 17). The term “specific language impairment” (SLI) is used for developmental disorders that are “characterized by severe deficits in the production and comprehension of language, that cannot be explained by hearing loss, mental retardation, motor deficits, neurological or psychiatric disorders, or lack of exposure to language”. The basic reason for SLI remains uncertain, though certain clinical and cognitive impairments are suggested by researchers. From the neural aspect also, the cause of SLI is not clearly identified. Computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging scans have revealed that the brains of SLI children often “do not have the normal pattern of the left temporal plane being larger than the right temporal plane” (Stromswold: 19). Williams Syndrome (WS) is a rare genetic disorder which manifests distinctive cognitive, neuroanatomical and electrophysiological features. The main identifying features of WS include microcephaly with a “pixie-like” facial appearance, general mental retardation with I.Q.s of a lower level, delayed onset of expressive language, and in some cases, advanced and formal use of language. Magnetic resonance imaging reveals cortical thickening and complexity in the cerebral cortex of the brain, of individuals with WS (Bellugi & St. George: 16). The Genetic Basis of Language Acquisition: Pinker (p.181) states that a genetic predisposition for language in humans may be the result of natural selection. The neurobiological specialization for language in humans is similar to specialized factors of other animals such as the elephant’s trunk and the bat’s ability for echo location. Each manifestation is unique, but is the result of known evolutionary processes. Significantly, there are several genetic pathways by which language acquisition can occur, and identification of a particular genetic component is based on both: “other gene products in the brain, and environmental input” (Petitto: 56-58). The neural substrates that support the brain’s capacity for language can be made functional in many ways, under different environmental pressures. Underlying language acquisition is believed to be a strong amodal genetic component, “which is at the level of abstract features of language patterning”. The acquisition of language is most probably achieved through the interaction of many genes, and hence it can be accomplished in many different forms. The neurobiological circuitry of the brain matures according to a particular sequence and time duration as in a timetable. This is manifest as a child’s babbling, first words, first two-word combinations, and so on. The capacity for language acquisition is seen to be under both genetic control as well as capable of morphological change; thus exhibiting genetic flexibility in the face of environmental changes. Second Language Acquisition: From infancy onwards, a child is able to acquire its natural language without any requirement for formally learning the language from another individual. Linguistic factors related to the first language (L1) and a second language (L2) are completely different from one another. There are large individual variations in L2 abilities, and there are no pre-ordained steps of development in acquiring the second language. Further, an L2 can be learnt at any point in life, though the acquired skill may not be as efficient as L1, if learnt after the “sensitive period” which is from early infancy until puberty, around twelve years of age. During the sensitive period for language acquisition, there is greater flexibility for cerebral reorganization, which is absent after puberty due to acquired aphasia (Sakai: 816). Beginning in early adulthood and continuing throughout the life span, there is decline in the ability to learn a second language since the associative memory, the working memory, attention and speed components of language processing and production steadily deteriorate with age. This is seen to correlate with volumetric declines in the frontal lobe of the brain, and the prefrontal cortex, which is more susceptible to the effects of aging. The use of a second language, among non-L2-dominants, is “less automatic and less efficient than L1 use” (Birdsong: 34). Conclusion This paper has highlighted language acquisition as a crucial area of cognitive science. The various components related to first language learning have been discussed. Research evidence in this field indicate that there are innate mechanisms which predispose children to learn the first language naturally. Without the help of instruction, children acquire language at a great speed, whereby their language skills are very efficient, with few errors. This is especially true in the sensitive period until the age of twelve, when their faculties are highly receptive to learning a new language. Second language learning is different from the natural acquisition of the first language, and SL2 learning ability also declines with age. The cognitive and neural aspects of language acquisition has been discussed, and the process of language development and the uniformity of first language acquisition among all infants and children is outlined. Social cognition and theory of the mind have been found to be significant as factors influencing language learning. The development of language regions in the brain and the genetic basis of language acquisition also impact language learning. Further research in second language learning, focusing on how SL2 can be developed to be as natural and efficient as SL1, is required. Human cognition is a vast science, and further research would be beneficial for best outcomes in language learning throughout the life span. --------------------------------------- Works Cited Bellugi, Ursula & St.George, Marie. Journey from cognition to brain to gene: perspectives from Williams Syndrome. The United States of America: MIT Press, 2001. Birdsong, David. Age and second language acquisition and processing: a selective overview. Department of French and Italian, University of Texas at Austin. Available at: http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/toc/lang/56/s1 Chomsky, Noam. A review of B.F. Skinner’s Verbal Behavior. In Readings in language and mind by Heimir Geirsson & Michael Losonsky (eds.). 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Petitto, Laura A. In the beginning: on the genetic and environmental factors that make early language acquisition possible. In The inheritance and innateness of grammars. Myrna Gopnik (ed.). New York: Oxford University Press, 45-69, 1997. Pinker, Steven. Language acquisition. In An invitation to cognitive science by Lila R. Gleitman (ed.), The United States of America: The MIT Press, Chapter 6: 135-182, 1995. Pinker, Steven. Evolutionary biology and the evolution of language. In The inheritance and innateness of grammars. Myrna Gopnik (ed.). New York: Oxford University Press, 181-208. 1997. Saffran, Jenny R. Statistical language learning: mechanisms and constraints. American Psychological Society, 12.4 (2003): 110-114. Saffran, Jenny R., Senghas, Ann & Trueswell, John C. The acquisition of language by children. The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 98.23 (2001): 1-2. Saffran, Jenny R., Aslin, Richard N. & Newport, Elissa L. Statistical learning by 8-month-old infants. Science, 274. 5294 (1996): 1926-1928. Sakai, Kuniyoshi L. Language acquisition and brain development. Science, 310, 4th November, 2005: 815-820. Stromswold, Karin. Cognitive and neural aspects of language acquisition. In Cognitive neuroscience: the biology of the mind. M.S. Gazzaniga (ed.). Massachusetts: MIT Press. 2006. Available at: http://ruccs.rutgers.edu/forums/Intro_to_Cognitive_Science/Stromswold_Cognitive_and_Neural_Aspects.pdf Read More