Dr Penny Tok •Discuss what is language •Review the role language plays in theory of mind •Discuss empirical studies •Group discussion Today • de Villiers, J. G. (2008). The interface of language and theory of mind, 117(11), 1858-1878. • Newton, A. M., & de Villiers, J. G. (2007). Thinking While Talking, 18(7), 574-580. • San Juan, V., & Astington, J. W. (2011). Bridging the gap between implicit and explicit understanding: How language development promotes the processing and representation of false belief. The British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 30(Pt 1), 105-22. Readings for this week: IMPLICIT versus EXPLICIT Theory of Mind Explicit ToM : Able to think and reflect about what you have learned (conscious) Elicited response selection Formation of metarepresentational understanding (de Villiers, 2008) Implicit ToM : when you do not actively try to learn or even report that you have learned it (automatic) Learning through observation: About actions About objects About places About agents (Frith & Frith, 2012) What is language? Semantic, syntactic and pragmatic abilities, internal to the child and also the external socio-linguistic environment in which development occurs. (Astington & Baird, 2005) Verbal Nonverbal ENHANCES the value of social interactions HOW???? Language EFFICIENCY ACCURACY Could language be the key difference that makes social cognition in humans unique? •Merely reflection that most tasks are language loaded thus younger children fail (e.g. Bloom & German, 2000) •Causal role of language in Theory of Mind (e.g. de Villiers, 2005) Dispute about the precise role language plays (Astington & Baird, 2995) •Role of language is very limited as infants already have a fully formed internal representations as shown in eye-gaze studies (Baillargeon et al, 2010) •Structure of infants false belief representations is qualitatively different from that of older children (Perner, 2010; Perner & Ruffman, 2005) •Language plays a critical role in the development of EXPLICIT false belief understanding (Astington & Jenkins, 1999, de Villiers, 2007) IMPLICIT EXPLICIT LANGUAGE ?? CAUSAL role of language in False belief understanding??? Correlational findings: between semantic, syntactic and pragmatic aspects of language and explicit FB reasoning. CORRELATION = CAUSATION So, we know there is a CORRELATIONAL relationship between language and ToM but is there a CAUSAL one? Where can the evidence be found? Semantic: the meaning expressed through language Syntactic: rules and principles regarding sentence structure Pragmatic: the context that contributes to meaning in language •Longitudinal studies •Training studies •In what? •Semantic language •Syntactic language •Sentential complements use Sentential complement: tensed subordinate clause that is embedded under a mental or communication verb to form a complex sentence (indicates desire, intention, perception) Mary THINKS that the ball is in the basket I wonder… LONGITUDINAL STUDIES: Astington & Jenkins, 1999 De Villiers & Pyers, 2002 Slade & Ruffman, 2005 Ruffman et al 2003 TRAINING STUDIES: Lohmann & Tomasello, 2003 META-ANALYSIS: Millingan, Astington & Dack, 2007 (n= 8891) What direction is the relationship? Bi-directional Language FB Syntax not semantics predicted unique variance in FB scores Semantic NOT syntax predicted FB scores • Examined strength of relationship between language and ToM in under 7s. • Also examined potential moderators that may account for variability across studies • Findings: • Receptive vocabulary had weaker relations than measures of general language • Stronger effects for EARLIER language to FB than later language • Applicable across different languages • We have talked about language WITHIN a child but what about the language EXTERNAL to the child? = SOCIAL LINGUISTIC ENVIRONMENT MOTHER’S use of mental state terms (Ruffman, Slade & Crowe, 2002) Motherese SO DOES LANGUAGE INFLUENCE ToM? http://www.ted.com/talks/mark_pagel_how_language_transformed_humanity.html?quote=1023 Medium for representing thoughts 1. Complex language affects FB reasoning by allowing representation of false contents of others minds. The complement forms: functionality of linguistic recursions. Mental state verbs fall into a special class of verbs in that they take a kind of grammatical argument structure called a complement. Complements can be irrealis referring to states not yet achieved or hypothetical, as in: • Bill said he would come tomorrow. • Frieda wanted to see the carnival. OR realis (usually clauses with an overt present or past tense) and refer to states of affairs that are true or false. • Marge said that her chair collapsed. • Marge said that her chair giggled. Complements… “I wonder…” Ruffman, Garnham & Rideout, 2001 • 2. Language provides the child with abstract concepts: involvement in control mechanisms in EF (inhibit prepotent responses). Having verbal LABELS help keep two things in mind at once and help remember instructions. “Want” precedes learning of ‘think’ and ‘believe’ (develops in 3rd year of life) I/You/he/she/here/there = helps switch reference Look/see/touch- sensory words 3. Assists in representational redescription of knowledge (Karmiloff-Smith, 1992) Implicit knowledge is redescribed into linguistic symbols to make it available for explicit decision-making (Bloom, & Keil, 2001). Allows reflective thinking. 4. Universal medium for combining and integrating the outputs of distinct modules in the mind (Spelke, 2003). For example: “to the left of the blue wall” Engagement of language in cross-modular thinking. Kobayashi et al, 2007 Some aspects of language (e.g. grammar) may be independent of ToM but other aspects (e.g. pragmatics and reading communicative intentions) may profoundly affect ToM throughout development. Let’s revisit bilingualism: Pros: • Executive control- constant monitoring of the target language in order to minimise interference from the competing language. Strengthens executive control system • Better performance in FB tasks (precocious success- as young as 3, Goetz, 2003) Cons: • Smaller vocabulary than monolingual counterpart • Underperform in word retrieval tasks (partly due to interference from other language) • Pat Kuhl (TED Talks) from approx 5:33 http://www.ted.com/talks/patricia_kuhl_the_linguistic_genius_of_babies.html Bilingual children need to develop an early sociolinguistic sensitivity to the language knowledge of their interlocutors because they must use their language accordingly. Now how about INNER language? What is it? Do we have it? Do we use it? When do we use it? How do we test if someone is using it? Silent, verbal self-talk that goes on in our heads. Your inner chatterbox. Charles Fernyhough distinguishes between: MONOLOGIC DIALOGIC forms of inner dialogue Articulatory Suppression: how? Inner speech and language Newton & de Villiers (2007) However… During a productive discourse, speakers will automatically tend to align their posture, their speech rate, their choice of words, and their syntactic forms (Garrod & Pickering 2009). This alignment enhances communication (e.g., Adank et al. 2010). But language does not always have to be involved. Alignment has a similar advantage for any joint action, where two players need to coordinate their behavior (Sebanz et al. 2006). (From Frith & Frith, 2012, p. 295) If language is so important, what does it mean for people with hearing impairment? Hearing impaired children born to native signing parents (deaf children with deaf parents) : no language delay (matched with TD hearing children) : matched with hearing children on ToM tasks (no delays in FB acquisition) Hearing impaired children born to non-native signing parents (deaf children with hearing parents) : language delay : delayed in understanding about beliefs and knowledge states Schick et al, 2007, n = 176 Hearing loss mediated by early social / conversational experiences (Woolfe et al, 2012) • Disturbance of comprehension and formulation of language caused by dysfunctions in specific regions of the brain • Can be caused by: • Infection • Strokes • Brain tumours • Other forms of brain injury • Siegal and Varley (2006) found that grammar and competence in ToM were independent of each other WHAT ABOUT READING? Does reading add value to our development of ToM? Language components and its contributions: • verbal • non-verbal • silent, inner self-talk • reading • billingualism Language is crucial for ToM – how? What about people who can’t see or hear and those with brain damage? How does this affect their ToM?