EXAM 4 Flashcards
What is Behaviorism (skinner)?
Skinner said that internal representations are inaccessible to us (input → output even though there is a brain in the middle, we will not know what that is)
They are irrelevant to understanding behavior to skinner
What is skinners definition for a stimulus, response, and consequence?
Stimulus: a stimulus is an object or event in the external world that is sensed by the subject
Response: the subjects behavior due to the stimulus
Consequence: the reward/punishment due to the behavior — the presence of an object or event or qualty that always/simtes occurs if the response is emitted in context of the stimulus
Skinner example of verbal behavior
hears music “mozart”, or red chair “red” or “Wait!” is followed by someone waiting (consequence)
What would be a stimulus that Skinner might identify for that verbal behavior?
Something in the external world that may be based on very subtle properties of the stimulus (i.e sound, color, ect.)
Stimulus: the presence an object or event or quality
Response: an observable (complex) behavior
What would be a reinforcing consequence for that verbal behavior?
Someone hears his own voice, automatically reinforced, reinforced by the effect on others, or not even immediately
Presence of an object or event or quality that always/sometimes occurs if the response is emitted in the context of the stimulus
Honestly all of it is mental
Be able to explain and give examples of the problems that Chomsky identified with Skinner’s treatment for each of the following, when it comes to language:
Stimulus
If we can only figure out what the stimulus must have been AFTER we observed the response, then this isn’t an objective way to identify which stimuli and behaviors are lawfully related
Be able to explain and give examples of the problems that Chomsky identified with Skinner’s treatment for each of the following, when it comes to language:
Response
No experimenter who doles out the consequence for only and all of a particular pre-defined unite of behavioral response, there is no objective way to determine when to consider the response to be a particular sound, or a certain word, or even a phrase/sentence.
Additionally, there is no way to MEASURE response strength for verbal behavior
Be able to explain and give examples of the problems that Chomsky identified with Skinner’s treatment for each of the following, when it comes to language:
Consequence (reinforcement)
There’s no way to identify the particular consequence in any case; you just have to trust that if the behavior increases there must have been a reinforcement
As described, reinforcements can be anything: something physical/observable, something that the person can be thinking about, or even the behavior itself can be reinforcing
In contrast to the view that language behavior can be explained as learned responses to associations between stimuli and consequences, Chomsky argues that our language behavior must be explained with reference to mental representations.
(CONTRAST SKINNER V CHOMSKY)
SKINNER V CHOMSKY
-Skinner
- Internal (mental) representations are inaccessible to us
- They are irrelevant to understanding behavior
-Chomsky
- The format of whats in the black box (our brain) matters
- Mental representations and processing are key
- For language: grammar can be a way to analyze it
What does it mean for the phonemes of the world’s languages to be mental categories?
Categorical Perception
What is categorical perception?
We categorize sounds based on voice onset time
There are strict boundaries where you either hear pa or ba depending on the onset time of voicing
Be able to distinguish the three ways in which we articulate the range of consonants across the world’s languages:
place of articulation
Sound come from different places in the mouth—different languages use different parts of the mouth to make these sounds
Alters the sound: the columns
Be able to distinguish the three ways in which we articulate the range of consonants across the world’s languages:
manner of articulation
Rows that alter how the sound comes out
Be able to distinguish the three ways in which we articulate the range of consonants across the world’s languages:
Voicing
Left is voiceless
Right is voiced
Be able to distinguish the three ways in which we articulate the range of consonants across the world’s languages
NOTE: some sounds are impossible–every language does not use them all
It sounds voiceless if the consonant is really late which is why our intuitions on this are bad because the time is so small
Human languages draw sounds from a set of sound categories
What is a phonemic distinction?
What is an allophonic distinction
Phonemic: the contrast between 2 phones signals a change in meaning (i.e DARE vs TEAR) small sound change changes meaning
Allophonic: the contrast between 2 phones does not signal a change in meaning (CAT (unreleased T) vs CAT (released T)—-depends on the language
Describe the Werker and Tees study and describe the conclusions
Trained babies to the contrast of ba ba ba to pa
When it switches a glass container has a stuffed animal that claps its symbols
Baby turns its head
Classical conditioning
The baby will anticipate it when they hear pa
Present with dental to sound then change to retroflex (english learning baby with hindi words)
The baby either does not turn his head immediately it cannot hear the change and if they do then they did
The baby: the baby hears the difference between the two sounds !
In babies 6-8 months old (never exposed to hindi): basically all of them discriminated—-lose sensitivity due to a lack of exposure
In babies 10-12 months old: cannot hear it, few are reliably
Hindi babies still do the turn at 10-12 months old
Initial sensitivity could be advantageous
Need to be able to learn all of them because lots of variations and never know what language you are going to need to learn
Language experience shapes perception
IQ (intelligence quotient)—test score relative to those in your age group. What percent of ppl are higher than an IQ of 100
49.9
