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: 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? 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) ?? 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? LONGITUDINAL STUDIES: Astington & Jenkins, 1999 De Villiers & Pyers, 2002 Slade & Ruffman, 2005 TRAINING STUDIES: Lohmann & Tomasello, 2003 META-ANALYSIS: Millingan, Astington & Dack, 2007 What direction is the relationship? Bi-directional Language FB 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) SO DOES LANGUAGE INFLUENCE ToM? 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 decisionmaking (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) Bilingual children need to develop an early sociolinguistic sensitivity to the language knowledge of their interlocutors because they must use their language accordingly. • Pat Kuhl (TED Talks) from approx 5:33 http://www.ted.com/talks/patricia_kuhl_the_linguistic_genius_of_babies.html http://video.ted.com/talk/podcast/2010X/None/PatriciaKuhl_2010X.mp4 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. Charles Fernyhough distinguishes between: MONOLOGIC DIALOGIC forms of inner dialogue Articulatory Suppression: how? Inner speech and language Newton & de Villiers (2007) Activity Topic: describe your favourite food without actually naming it. Verbal Nonverbal ENHANCES the value of social interactions HOW???? Language EFFICIENCY ACCURACY 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). (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 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?