Here’s a knowledge organizer I’ve created of the most essential concepts for language & cognition in an introductory psychology course. These knowledge organizers are designed to help you identify the most important factual knowledge you need to have in order … Read More
The Interactionist Approach to Language Acquisition
In this video I describe the interactionist approach to language acquisition. This approach recognizes our genetic predisposition for language and considers how the social environment plays a role in that development. Children are learning more than just vocabulary and syntactical … Read More
Introduction to Linguistics
In this video I introduce some terminology from linguistics for describing how languages use sounds to represent meaning. Phonemes refers to the individual sounds used in a language, while morphemes refer to units of meaning. Phonological rules dictate how sounds … Read More
Language Acquisition: Skinner vs. Chomsky
In this video I introduce language acquisition as a type of learning that isn’t explained well by the behaviorist principles we saw in the unit on learning theory. In the next few videos we’ll be looking at linguistics and language … Read More
Language, Thought, & Cognition Resources
On this page you’ll find a number of resources for understanding the key concepts of linguistics, cognition, and thought, including language acquisition, problem-solving, and decision-making. If I’ve missed a good resource, please share it in the comments section! General Resources … Read More
Birth of a Language in Nicaragua
This clip from the documentary “Evolution” shows the development of a new sign language in Nicaragua in the 1980s. This supports an interactionist approach to language acquisition, suggesting that our innate capacity for language must be combined with a social … Read More