AP Psych Barrons

memory, is stored elsewhere in the brain (studies on animals indicate procedural memories are stored
in the cerebellum).
At the neurological level, researchers focus on a process called long-term potentiation. Studies
show that neurons can strengthen connections between each other. Through repeated firings, the
connection is strengthened and the receiving neuron becomes more sensitive to the messages from the
sending neuron. This strengthened connection might be related to the connections we make in our
long-term memory.
LANGUAGE
For us to conceive of thought without language is impossible. Your brain is processing the language
you are reading right now. If you stop to think about the previous sentence, you think about it using
language. Language is intimately connected to cognition. Some psychologists investigate how
language works and how we acquire it in an attempt to understand better how we think and behave.
Elements of Language
All languages can be described with phonemes and morphemes. Phonemes are the smallest units of
sound used in a language. English speakers use approximately 44 phonemes. If you have studied
another language or if your primary language is not English, you have experience with other
phonemes. Native Spanish speakers find the rolled R phoneme natural, but many English speakers
have difficulty learning how to produce it since it is not used in English. Speakers of other languages
have difficulty learning some English phonemes.
A morpheme is the smallest unit of meaningful sound. Morphemes can be words, such as a and but,
or they can be parts of words, such as the prefixes an- and pre-. So language consists of phonemes put
together to become morphemes, which make up words. These words are then spoken or written in a
particular order, called syntax. Each language has its own syntax, such as where the verb is usually
placed in the sentence. By examining phonemes, morphemes, and syntax (the grammar of a language),
psychologists can describe different languages in detail.
Language Acquisition
Many psychologists are particularly interested in how we learn language. Often, developmental
psychologists are curious about how our language learning reflects or predicts our cognitive
development. These studies show that while babies are learning very different languages, they
progress through the same basic stages in order to master the language. First, if you have ever been
around babies, you know that babies babble. This is often cute, and it is the first stage of language
acquisition that occurs about 4 months of age. The babbling stage appears to be innate; even babies
born completely deaf go through the babbling stage. A baby’s babble represents experimentation with