11 results
Search Results
2. On Expressive Language: Papers Presented at the Clark University Conference on Expressive Language Behavior
- Author
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Roger W. Brown and Heinz Werner
- Subjects
Cognitive science ,Linguistics and Language ,Expressive language ,Psychology ,Language and Linguistics ,Linguistics - Published
- 1955
3. The Development of Social Behavior in the Human Infant
- Author
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Harriet L. Rheingold
- Subjects
Cognitive science ,Generality ,Developmental and Educational Psychology ,Social environment ,Psychology ,Organism - Abstract
The assignment to write a paper often forces one to search for some system by which to organize what one thinks important on the given topic. Thus, in a recent paper (Rheingold, in press) I proposed four general principles of behavior under which the facts and current theories about human infancy could be organized. The principles were (1) that the infant is responsive to stimulation; (2) that the infant is an active organism; (3) that the infant's behavior is modifiable; and (4) that the infant in turn modifies the environment, particularly the social environment. The principles, it is obvious, apply to the behavior of older as well as younger organisms and to the behavior of one species as well as another. That they also apply to the behavior of the infant testifies to their generality. As a consequence, developmental psychology may be integrated with a more comprehensive science of behavior.
- Published
- 1966
4. Possible Continuity Theories of Language
- Author
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Jane H. Hill
- Subjects
Cognitive science ,Linguistics and Language ,Human evolution ,Theoretical linguistics ,Intellect ,Cognition ,Cognitive skill ,Language acquisition ,Psychology ,On Language ,Language and Linguistics ,Linguistics ,Continuity theory - Abstract
Serious difficulties with existing continuity theories of the relationship between human language and systems of communication in other animals have caused many linguists to reject the possibility of investigating this relationship. Some of the difficulties seem to be inherent in the assumption that continuity theories must be theories of comparative intellect. These difficulties can be avoided, however, by theories which place their major emphasis on the adaptive functions of communication systems in their ecological context. Recent work on the ontogeny of bird song provides a basis for such a theory, within which a new evaluation may be made of the significance of recent experiments on language abilities in chimpanzees. Theories on the origin of human language and its relationship to the communication systems of other animals have been grouped by Lenneberg 1967 into two types: continuity theories, which suggest that human language can be derived evolutionarily by well-understood processes operating on the kind of communicative display system general in the vertebrates; and discontinuity theories, which hold that human language is completely different from any known kind of communicative display system in other animals, that its evolutionary origins are not at all obvious, and that the study of animal communication probably will be of little use in increasing our understanding of human languages. To Lenneberg's dichotomy I should like to add another, between comparative-intelligence theories and ecological theories. Comparative-intelligence theories of the origins of language exist in both continuity and discontinuity guises. They emphasize that the crucial differences between human language and other communicative display systems lie in the structures of cognitive skills or 'forms of cerebration' (Lenneberg 1971:1), which are graded in phylogeny and which underlie the communicative system. Ecological theories, on the other hand, emphasize the adaptive properties of human language over other types of display systems in the particular selective contexts which were probably involved in the evolution of man. An emphasis on the role of intelligence or intellect is not necessarily central to their content. Further, they need not limit themselves to consideration only of man's close phylogenetic relatives. In the present paper, I review some properties of the comparative-intelligence kinds of theory, and show that a kind of theory based more closely in the ecological context of human evolution, and less in comparative intelligence, may make the beginnings of a continuity theory possible, in the sense that known processes of natural selection may be invoked to account for some aspects of human language. A careful investigation of the possibility of some form of continuity theory is
- Published
- 1974
5. Introduction: The Concept of Maturity
- Author
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Lawrence K. Frank
- Subjects
Cognitive science ,Process (engineering) ,Interpretation (philosophy) ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Professional development ,Child development ,Term (time) ,Maturity (psychological) ,Education ,Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health ,Developmental and Educational Psychology ,Meaning (existential) ,Psychology ,Set (psychology) ,Cognitive psychology ,media_common - Abstract
For many years students in this field have been speaking of child growth, development and maturation to indicate an over-all conception of the ongoing processes revealed by the child, or to designate one or more phases of this process. Some are inclined to think that these three terms are redundant. Thus it has been urged that we use the term growth to cover all phases and aspects. Others prefer to say growth and development to indicate that the child not only increases in size, shape, weight and other dimensions but also develops various capacities, coordinations and learns various activities such as language. It has been asked, why add another term such as maturity or maturation unless to indicate the terminal point of growth and development? There seems to be some justification, however, for speaking of maturation as another aspect of these ongoing processes that may be distinguished from both growth and development. The need to explore the meaning and implications of the concept of maturity provided the occasion for this symposium, in order to show what the concept of maturity means as interpreted by different students of child development. By way of introduction to the several papers, the following considerations may be offered as indicating how the concept of maturity, or preferably maturation, might be found useful in this field. Obviously the human organism is not static; it is changing from the moment of conception all through life. The nature and interrelationships of these changes present the problem to which this Society is dedicated (i). Each one, in accordance with his or her professional training and experience and, may I add, temperament, sees in the changing child a different set of problems to be investigated. Each one brings to the study of that problem his or her preferred methods and techniques and, as we are increasingly realizing, comes with certain assumptions or preconceptions which may not be explicitly expressed but are implied in the statement of the problem, the choice of methods and techniques and the interpretation of the findings. Thus we may select out various structural, functional and behavioral aspects of the organism-personality for observation and measurement, treating structure as a more or less rigid entity because we measure it at a single moment of time or in dead organisms. We find it difficult to remember that structure, while measured in spatial terms, is not and cannot be
- Published
- 1950
6. Recording Action Currents
- Author
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S. H. Bartley and E. B. Newman
- Subjects
Cognitive science ,Brain functioning ,medicine.anatomical_structure ,Action (philosophy) ,Clinical evidence ,Brain activity and meditation ,Cortex (anatomy) ,Reflex ,medicine ,Brain lesions ,Equipotentiality ,Psychology - Abstract
Speculation as to the manner of the functioning of the brain and its accompanying complex structures has a long and controversial history. In recent years the reflex are concept, as used to explain all human behavior has been shown to be contrary to the facts of such sciences as embryology, neurology and psychology. For instance, Coghill has shown the first movements of embryoes to be total movements rather than reflexes; Lashley, unable to apply reflex concepts to brain functioning, postulates equipotentiality and mass action in the cortex, and many others have shown the inadequacy of the chained-reflex explanations of learning and the consequent stereotyped character of behavior. Clinical evidence in cases of brain lesions is ambiguous. Believing that the time has come for the study of cerebro-dynamics in the laboratory, we propose to see what can be gained by an electrical study of the brain of an intact animal. This paper reports our first results with dogs. We have attempted to test recent speculations such as those of Koehler of electrostatic fields in the cortex and of others closer to actual studies of brain activity.
- Published
- 1930
7. On Representational Music
- Author
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V. A. Howard
- Subjects
Cognitive science ,Philosophy ,Symbol ,Auditory event ,Nothing ,Music and emotion ,Music psychology ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Representation (arts) ,Musical ,Psychology ,Sketch ,media_common - Abstract
Often the question whether music can be representational is broached as implying that music as an auditory event could become visual by synesthesis or substitute for a visual symbol. If, as Goodman argues, "Nothing is intrinsically a representation"; but rather, "status as a representation is relative to a symbol system." ([2], p. 226), then it is misleading to ask whether music can usurp the function of pictures or even whether it is "by nature" nonrepresentational. The appropriate question is whether music can belong to a representational system as pictures more typically do. However, being a picture is neither necessary nor sufficient to being a representation as amply attested by non-representational styles of painting. "Objects and events, visual and nonvisual, can be represented by either visual or nonvisual symbols." ([2], p. 231) So it seems there is more to representation than meets the eye and may include what meets the ear in some musical contexts. It is the primary purpose of this paper to sketch the special conditions
- Published
- 1972
8. Cognition in Ethnolinguistics
- Author
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Eric H. Lenneberg
- Subjects
Cognitive science ,Structure (mathematical logic) ,Linguistics and Language ,Perception ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Metalinguistics ,Cognition ,Ethnolinguistics ,Affect (linguistics) ,Psychology ,Language and Linguistics ,media_common - Abstract
The republication of Benjamin L. Whorf's articles on what Trager calls metalinguistics has aroused a new interest in this country in the problem of the relationship that a particular language may have to its speakers' cognitive processes. Does the structure of a given language affect the thoughts (or thought potential), the memory, the perception, the learning ability of those who speak that language? These questions have often been asked and many attempts have been made to answer them.' The present paper is an attempt to lay bare the logical structure of this type of investigation.
- Published
- 1953
9. Guilford's Structure of Intellect Model: Its Relevance for the Teacher Preparation Curriculum
- Author
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Reginald Edwards
- Subjects
Cognitive science ,Teacher preparation ,Explication ,Guard (computer science) ,Intellect ,General Medicine ,Psychology ,Curriculum ,Epistemology - Abstract
Guilford's work is an example of a model developed in a related field, which may be useful as a theoretical framework for the design and testing of curricula. Such a translation of a model from one discipline to another has certain dangers. To guard against an imprecise use of the terms, the author gives some of the background of theory from which their meaning springs. To avoid an assumption that the theory is static and final rather than changing and adaptable, the author gives some of the history of the changes through which the concepts have passed.Some portions of the original paper, particularly the explication of statistical techniques had to be omitted here. [Editor's note.]
- Published
- 1969
10. John Adams Flays a Philosophe: Annotations on Condorcet's Progress of the Human Mind
- Author
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Zoltan Haraszti
- Subjects
Cultural Studies ,Cognitive science ,History ,Friendship ,White (horse) ,Philosophy ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Face (sociological concept) ,Condorcet method ,Classics ,media_common - Abstract
A MONG the guests whom John Adams met at the Duchesse d'Enville's soon after his arrival in Paris was the Marquis de Condorcet. In the original entry of his Diary Adams mentions only the presence of "dukes, abbots, etc." Thirty years later, however, reminiscing in his study at Quincy, he recalled among the unnamed company "M. Condorcet, a philosopher, with a face as pale, or rather as white, as a sheet of paper.... Eight years Adams' junior, the Marquis de Condorcet was thirty-five in 1778. A brilliant mathematician and secretary of the Academie des Sciences, he had a great reputation, aided by his well-known connection with Voltaire and, above all, by his friendship with Turgot. When Minister of Finance, the latter made Condorcet Inspector of the Mint, a post which he kept-upon the insistence of Necker-even after Turgot's fall. At the same time, he was working on a book of commentaries on Pascal and carrying on a controversy about Negro slavery. He stood out among the new generation of radicals as the youngest and last of the philosophes.
- Published
- 1950
11. A Suggestion for the Analysis of Intellectual Ability
- Author
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Donald M. Johnson
- Subjects
Cognitive science ,Point (typography) ,Heuristic ,Computer science ,Fork (system call) ,Intellectual ability ,Set (psychology) - Abstract
In the books on psychology and in the minds of most psychologists there is a chapter on thinking and another, apparently unrelated chapter on intelligence. It is the purpose of this paper to point out the relations between these two concepts, and the heuristic implications of these relations. Let us begin with an analysis of thinking. We can identify three fundamental functions in thinking: (1) orienting to the problem, (2) producing pertinent material or responses, and (3) selecting those responses which meet the requirements of the problem. As a paradigm we may consider a man approaching a fork in a road. Previously he has been driving routinely or inattentively, thinking of other things. But now he cannot act routinely; he must deliberate. So he orients toward, or concentrates on, the problem presented by the fork in the road. Material more or less pertinent is produced by searching the situation for signs or suggestions and by searching his memory for data or inferences from previous experience. The material produced is judged acceptable or not until a final decision is reached and the set is relaxed.
- Published
- 1941
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