Developmental psychology.pdf

Cognition and Language 223
AN ENDURING QUESTION
In closing this chapter we turn once again to the black box and the problem of language
learning, doing so with the benefit of discussions in this and the preceding chapter. Our
purpose here is to suggest that the two competing views, conditioning and cognition,
may be used together to shed further light on this problem, certainly an enduring question
in psychology. We consider it first in the context of human beings and then with
respect to animals learning a human language.
Theories of Language Learning
How does any child learn language? When asked, the casual observer generally will
say that imitation is the crucial factor. The child copies what he or she hears, and in
psychology this process is called modeling.
One child hears Portuguese and learns this language; another child learns
English in the same way. Within English, an Australian acquires one accent and a
Texan another. To indicate half past ten, the Irish child uses the expression half ten
and the American uses ten thirty. Examples in support of imitation are endless, but
there is more involved.
If children learn only by mimicking, how do we account for their predictable
errors, not found in adult language? Further, how do we explain the fact that deaf
children learn to speak? Helen Keller lost her capacity for vision and hearing when
she was 18 months old, yet she mastered English not as a series of mechanical signals
but as an instrument of thought.
Conditioning Viewpoint Adult speakers are certainly important, for they help
children sort out which of the many possible human sounds are relevant in their own
language. According to the conditioning viewpoint, they serve to shape the
understanding and use of morphemes.
The most important aspect of learning in this view is the reinforcement that
the child receives for making words. The infant's first vocalizations are reinforced by
parents who cuddle and smile when the baby begins cooing and babbling. The parents
also imitate the sounds made by the infant, and gradually the infant becomes aware
of his or her own capacity for self-stimulation. As attention, food, and other attractive
outlets are gained through these vocalizations, they become closer and closer approximations
to adult speech. This aspect, the acquisition of verbal behavior, illustrates
operant conditioning.
Classical conditioning is also involved. Someone uses the word Daddy, and
after the father appears on several such occasions, the word comes to signify this person.
Eventually the child says Daddy and receives reinforcement. In the same way the
child masters Mamma, milk, and thousands of other words. Stimulus generalization,
extinction, secondary reinforcement, and the method of approximations are among the
chief conditioning principles by which words are acquired (Garcia & De Haven, 1974).
Two-word combinations, three-word combinations, and eventually whole sentences
develop in these ways. As reinforcement continues, together with chaining at
higher levels of integration, the child's expressions appear in successively more complex
units. And as intermittent reinforcement plays an increasing role, saying a whole
sentence is reinforced merely by hearing a response from someone else. Largely through
these extensions of conditioning principles, the child becomes increasingly more capable
in language.
Answer to Figure 8.18
As the physician, one way you might
treat the tumor is by using mild rays
coming from many different
directions, all focused only at the
malignant tumor site.