Special topics in Cognitive Science: 

Language  AND  THOUGHT

 

Cognitive Science 190

Spring 2009

 

Description:  This seminar explores the relation of language and thought. Is language uniquely human, and if so, what does this reveal about the human mind? Does the particular language you speak affect the way you think, or do human languages reflect a universal conceptual repertoire?  The goal of this class is to familiarize you with a set of classic arguments on these themes, together with current research that evaluates these arguments, through weekly reading and discussion.  You will propose a research project that builds on the work covered in class.

Prerequisites:  Cognitive Science 1 or equivalent.

Instructor:  Terry Regier (email: regier@uchicago.edu ; phone: 773.972.5782 ; office hours by appointment).

Time & location: Thursdays 10-12, in 2129 Tolman.

Format and grading:  The class is discussion-based.  Each week, the readings for that week will be presented by students, and discussed.  There will also be short weekly written responses to the readings, and a final paper that proposes a research project.  Grades will be determined as follows:

  1. Presentations of readings (15%),
  2. In-class discussion (20%),
  3. Weekly responses (25%),
  4. Final paper (40%).

Presentations.  Each student will be responsible for presenting one or more of the readings in class.  The presentation will take place at the beginning of class, and should consist of: (1) a brief summary of the content of the reading, covering: background, specific hypotheses and predictions, methods used, results obtained, and theoretical contribution; and (2) a brief set of comments and/or critiques that engage and go beyond the reading.  Please email me a writeup (max. 400 words) of your summary and comments by noon Tuesday before the class in which you are to present.  At the beginning of the semester, students will be expected to sign up to present particular readings later in the semester.  I will do this presentation myself the first week, to give a concrete sense of what is expected.

In-class discussion.  All students are expected to engage in discussion in each class. 

Weekly responses.  Every week, each student other than those presenting that week should email me, by noon Tuesday, a short (100-200 words) response to the readings for that week.  Ideally, such a response should (1) draw general conclusions that integrate across that week’s readings, and (2) identify an interesting question that is relevant to these general conclusions but is left unaddressed by the readings themselves.  This is a chance to demonstrate that you “get” the broad point of the readings, and know how to think about the readings in relation to each other and in relation to the topic of the class more generally.

Final paper.  Your final paper gives you the opportunity to follow up in detail on some topic that interests you.  In this paper, you should (1) summarize existing knowledge on an issue related to language and thought, (2) identify an interesting question left open by the literature on that issue, and (3) present a design for a research project to answer that open question.  You may either build on your weekly responses and in-class presentations, or explore other questions.  Collaboration is encouraged.

Preparation and due date. I will guide you in class through the steps of formulating and writing your paper. Your final papers are due in class the week of Monday May 4.  You will also be expected to verbally present your paper in class during our final meeting.

Format and structure of final paper.  Your final paper should be submitted in hardcopy, single-spaced, with one-inch margins, and font at least 11 points in size. It should not exceed 8 pages in length, excluding references. Your paper should contain the following sections. Start each section with the section title provided below.

  1. The General Question.  In this section, state the general overall question that you have chosen to pursue, and explain briefly why this question is important.
  2. Literature Review.  What existing theories attempt to answer the question raised in Section 1? Briefly describe the major theoretical positions in the literature, the specific hypotheses that follow from them, and existing evidence that supports or challenges them.
  3. Open Specific Question.  In what sense is the debate over the general question from Section 1 not yet resolved – i.e. what important specific question is left open by the literature you have just reviewed in Section 2?
  4. Proposed Research.  Propose a research plan for answering the open specific question from Section 3.  Please be concrete about your proposed methods, including descriptions of stimuli, procedures, and participants – or computational methods, if applicable.  Describe also what specific pattern of possible results would answer the open question from Section 3, and how.  You do not need to actually conduct the research, but you should plan it in enough detail that it could be straightforwardly conducted.
  5. Discussion and Conclusions.  First, specify what one may conclude, given different possible outcomes from your research.  Make sure you explain the broader meaning of the possible results and exactly how they would support or challenge existing theories.
  6. References.  References are not included in the page limit.
  7. Abstracts.  Include the title and abstract of each journal article that you list in your reference section. If some of the reading materials that you cited don't have an abstract (e.g., a book or a book chapter), then include a copy of the title page and another page or two from the text that summarizes its contents or gives a representative sense of them.

Plagiarism: To plagiarize is to present the words and ideas of someone else without attribution, as if they were one’s own.  This is a form of intellectual dishonesty. Anyone who plagiarizes in the course will receive a failing grade.

Final recommendations:  Write for an intelligent non-specialist reader. Make sure you edit your paper carefully and revise it several times; this will be reflected in the grade. The best way to do this is to ask another student for critical comments. Plan ahead so that you have enough lead time for revising drafts.

 

 

Readings and schedule.

 

Thu Jan 22: Organization and orientation

 

Part 1: Is language uniquely human, and if so, why?

 

Thu Jan 29: Language and animal communication

Hockett, Charles F. (1959).  Animal “languages” and human language. Human Biology 31, 32-39.

Johnson, G. (1995). Chimp talk debate: Is it really language?  New York Times, June 6, 1995, C1.

Savage-Rumbaugh, S. et al. (1986).  Spontaneous symbol acquisition and communicative use by pygmy chimpanzees (Pan paniscus).  Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 115, 211-235.

 

Thu Feb 5: The faculty of language

Hauser, M. D. et al. (2002). The faculty of language: What is it, who has it, and how did it evolve? Science 298, 1569-1579.

Fitch, W. T., & Hauser, M. D. (2004). Computational constraints on syntactic processing in a nonhuman primate. Science 303: 377-380.

Gentner, T. et al. (2006). Recursive syntactic pattern learning by songbirds. Nature 440: 1204-1207.

Pinker, S. & Jackendoff, R. (2005). The faculty of language: What’s special about it?  Cognition 95, 201-236.

 

Thu Feb 12: Universal grammar and the poverty of the stimulus

Chomsky, N. (1986). Preface & Knowledge of language as a focus of inquiry. In Knowledge of language: Its nature, origin, and use (pp. xxv-14). Westport, CT: Praeger.

Orwell, G. (1946). Politics and the English language.

Reali, F. & Christiansen, M. (2005). Uncovering the richness of the stimulus: Structure dependence and indirect statistical evidence. Cognitive Science, 29, 1007-1028.

Perfors, A. et al. (draft, submitted, do not cite). The learnability of abstract syntactic principles.

 

Thu Feb 19:  Words, symbols, and social cognition

Tomasello, M. (2007).  If they’re so good at grammar, then why don’t they talk?  Hints from apes’ and humans’ use of gestures.  Language Learning and Development, 3, 133-156.

Hare, B., et al. (2002). The domestication of social cognition in dogs.  Science 298: 1634 – 1636.

Kaminski, J., et al. (2004). Word learning in a domestic dog: Evidence for “fast mapping”.  Science 304: 1682-1683.

 

Thu Feb 26: Cultural transmission and evolution

Kirby, S. (2002).  Learning, bottlenecks, and the evolution of recursive syntax.  In Ted Briscoe (Ed.), Linguistic Evolution through Language Acquisition: Formal and Computational Models. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kalish, M., et al. (2007).  Iterated learning: Intergenerational knowledge transmission reveals inductive biases.  Psychonomic Bulletin and Review 14: 288-294.

Tomasello, M. (1999).  The cultural origins of human cognition. Chapter 1: A puzzle and a hypothesis.  Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

 

 

Part 2: Does the language you speak affect the way you see the world?

 

Thu Mar 5:  The Whorf hypothesis

Sapir, E. (1929).  The status of linguistics as a science.  Language 5, 207-214 (excerpt: p. 209).

Whorf, Benjamin (1956). Science and linguistics.  In J. B. Carroll (Ed.) Language, Thought, and Reality: Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf (pp. 207-219). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Kay, P. & Kempton, W. (1984).  What is the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis?  American Anthropologist, 86, 65-79.

[optional but fun] Pullum, G. (1991). The great Eskimo vocabulary hoax. University of Chicago Press.   pp. 159-171.

 

Thu Mar 12: Color

Davidoff J. et al. (1999).  Colour categories in a stone-age tribe.  Nature, 398, 203-204.

Kay, P. & Regier, T. (2006). Language, thought, and color: recent developments.  Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 10, 51-54.

Regier, T. et al. (2007). Color naming reflects optimal partitions of color space. PNAS, 104, 1436-1441.

 

Thu Mar 19:  The lateralized Whorf hypothesis

Gilbert, A. et al. (2006). Whorf hypothesis is supported in the right visual field but not the left. PNAS, 103, 489-494.

Gilbert, A. et al. (2008). Support for lateralization of the Whorf effect beyond the realm of color discrimination.  Brain and Language, 105, 91-98.

Franklin, A. et al. (2008). Lateralization of categorical perception of color changes with color term acquisition.  PNAS, 105, 18221-18225.

 

Thu Mar 26: Spring break

 

Thu Apr 2: Space

Majid, A. et al. (2004). Can language restructure cognition?  The case for space. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 8: 108-114.

Hespos, S. & Spelke, E. (2004). Conceptual precursors to language.  Nature, 430, 453-456.

Crawford, L. E. et al. (2000).  Linguistic and non-linguistic spatial categorization.  Cognition 75, 209-235.

 

Thu Apr 9: Number

Gordon, P. (2004). Numerical cognition without words: Evidence from Amazonia. Science 306, 496-499.

Pica, P. et al. (2004).  Exact and approximate arithmetic in an Amazonian indigene group.  Science, 306, 499-503.

Butterworth, B. et al. (2008).  Numerical thought with and without words: Evidence from indigenous Australian children.  PNAS, 105, 13179-13184.

 

Thu Apr 16: Gender

Boroditsky, L., et al. (2003). Sex, syntax, and semantics.  In Gentner, D. & Goldin-Meadow, S. (Eds.) Language in mind: Advances in the study of language and thought (pp. 61-79). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Dilkina, K. et al. (2007). How language affects thought in a connectionist model.  In Proceedings of the 29th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society.

 

Thu Apr 23: Theory of mind

de Villiers, J. & de Villiers, P. (2003).  Language for thought: Coming to understand false beliefs.  In Gentner, D. & Goldin-Meadow, S. (Eds.) Language in mind: Advances in the study of language and thought (pp. 335-384). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

 

Thu Apr 30: Pirahă

Everett, D. (2005).  Cultural constraints on grammar and cognition in Pirahă: Another look at the design features of human language.  Current Anthropology 46: 621-646.  [Commentaries optional]

Recursion and human thought: Why the Pirahă don’t have numbers.  A talk with Daniel L. Everett.  Edge.org, 2007.  (Be sure to continue to the following page of commentary.)

 

Thu May 7: Paper presentations