language, thought, and communication

Question 1

communication

Answer 1

passing information from one person (or animal) to another

Question 2

language

Answer 2

a system of communication used by a specific group of people

Question 3

thought

Answer 3

the mental activity of thinking, which involves reasoning and considering, and that produces ideas and opinions

Question 4

piaget’s theory: language depends on thought

Answer 4

• believed that cognitive development leads to the growth of language

this means that we can only use language at a level that matches our cognitive development

• sensorimotor stage: babies learn to copy sounds
• preoperational stage: voice their internal thoughts
• concrete operational stage: ability to use language has developed a lot but only used to talk about concrete things
• formal operational stage: language can be used to talk about abstract theoretical ideas

Question 5

piaget’s theory evaluation

Answer 5

+ the sample was his children so they didn’t realize they were being observed and therefore their behaviour was natural

• the sample was mainly his children so it cannot be generalised to all children
• no interobserver reliability
• sapir-whorf hypothesis had more evidence to support it

Question 6

sapir-whorf hypothesis

Answer 6

language affects our thoughts and behaviour

the language that we speak:
- impacts the way we understanding certain things
- makes some ways of thinking easier
- makes it easier to recall certain things

evidenced by their research through the Hopi tribe (who had different types of words for time) and the eskimos who had a large number of words for snow.

Question 7

sapir-whorf evaluation

Answer 7

• unreliable as eskimos have the same number of words for snow as English speakers + Whorf never met anyone from the Hopi tribe
• People who grow up without a language, or who lose the ability to speak are still able to think

Question 8

variation in recognition of colours

Answer 8

sapir-whorf hypothesis suggests that the language we speak leads us to focusing on certain ways of seeing things

• the tarahumara have one word for blue and green, researchers found that english speakers perceive bigger differences between shades of blues and greens than them
• russian has different words for lighter and darker blues, researchers found that they were quicker to recognise the difference between two shades of blue than english speakers

Question 9

variation in recall of events

Answer 9

the sapir-whorf hypothesis suggests that our ability to recall certain info is affected by the language that we speak.

researchers studied how english and spanish speakers described intended + accidental actions.

vase being knocked over.
- intended: both groups identified the person doing it
- accidental: both groups recalled the people involved, but english speakers had a much better memory of who was involved in the accident.

Question 10

4 main reasons animals communication

Answer 10

• survival: use alarm calls to warn others of the presence of predators
• reproduction: displays involving colour to attract a mate
• territory: monkeys use eye contact to show dominance
• food: bees use dance-like movements to tell each other where to find food

Question 11

territory

Answer 11

an area defended by an animal or group of animals against others

Question 12

posture

Answer 12

the positioning of the body, often regarded as a non-verbal communication signal

Question 13

touch

Answer 13

a form of non-verbal communication in which info is conveyed by physical contact between people

Question 14

von frisch’s bee study aim

Answer 14

to investigate how bees communicate the location of a food source to each other

Question 15

von frisch’s bee study design

Answer 15

field experiment carried out in real-life environment of the bees, researcher still manipulates the IV, but there is limited control of EV

Question 16

Von frisch’s bee study method

Answer 16

food sources (container of sugar-water) for a hive of bees was placed at different locations

a hive with glass sides was used to observe the bees behaviour.

when the bees visited the food sources they were marked with different colours of paints.

the researcher recorded the movements of the bees when they returned to the hive

Question 17

von frisch’s bee study results

Answer 17

bees were observed to make different movements depending on how far away the food source was

• if it was less than 100m they did a round dance to the right and left
• if it was more than 100m they did a waggle dance: the number of turns correlates to the distance, the straight part of the dance is the position of the food in relation to the current position of the sun

Question 18

von frisch’s bee study conclusion

Answer 18

concluded that bees use a variety of different movements to communicate to each other the distance and direction of food sources

Question 19

von frisch’s bee study evaluation

Answer 19

+ other researchers have repeated the study they found the same results, consistency + reliability

+ some of the earliest research into animal communication, encouraged other to carry out research

• gathering sugar-water out of containers is not natural behaviour for bees, therefore low ecological validity. + however, when places on flowers instead of containers the bees acted in the same way

Question 20

properties that are only part of human communication

Answer 20

• productivity: the ability to communicate an unlimited number of different messages
• displacement: the ability to communicate about events that will happen in the future

Question 21

evaluation of properties of communication

Answer 21

• difficult to know which properties of language are exclusively used by humans
• research (koko the gorilla) suggests that animals can use properties that are ‘only’ used by humans, this is not a natural behaviour. they may be simply imitating humans
• ethical issues with holding animals in captivity and training them

Question 22

verbal communication

Answer 22

conveying messages using words e.g talking to someone

Question 23

non-verbal communication

Answer 23

conveying messages without the use of words: including aspects if speech e.g tone, pitch, volume and visual cues such as eye contact and body language

Question 24

functions of eye contact

Answer 24

• regulating the smooth flow of conversation: research with pairs of participants conversating, some were wearing dark glasses, more pauses and interruptions
• pupil dilation expresses emotion: young men shown almost identical pictures of the same girl, they picked the one where her pupils were more dilated, their pupils dilated as well
• signal of attraction: people prefer those who look at them more frequently

Question 25

how we use body language

Answer 25

- posture - touch

Question 26

posture

Answer 26

humans use posture to communicate non-verbally - closed posture e.g crossing arms, indicates rejection, disagreement or feeling threatened, unfriendly and less attractive - open posture e.g arms uncrossed, indicates approval and acceptance, more friendly and attractive

Question 27

postural echo

Answer 27

mirroring another person's body position. people who are getting on well tend to adopt each other's posture in conversation, gives unconscious message of friendliness

Question 28

touch

Answer 28

very powerful signal that can produce unconscious emotional reactions huge cultural differences in the amount of touch that is considered appropriate. research: when librarian touched the hands of students returning books they had a more positive attitude towards the library and librarian research: when you briefly touch other people, they are more likely to agree to your request. man touched womens hands while asking them to dance increased his success rate by 50%

Question 29

personal space

Answer 29

the physical distance we prefer to keep between ourselves and other people in order to feel comfortable

Question 30

differences in personal space

Answer 30

- gender differences: men have bigger personal space than women. both genders prefer to have greater space between themselves and members of the opposite sex. women prefer to sit beside their friends, men prefer to sit opposite. - age: people stand nearer to each other if they are a similar age - personality: introverts have a larger personal space than extroverts - status: people of lower status stand closer to people of equal status than of higher status - cultural norms: people of different cultures have different sizes of personal space e.g english vs arab

Question 31

darwin’s evolutionary theory of non-verbal communication

Answer 31

non-verbal communication expresses emotions - serviceable associated habits: similar experience but different purpose (animals vs humans exposing teeth) - principle of actions due to the constitution of the nervous system, some forms of non-verbal communication are caused by our nervous system

Question 32

evaluation of darwin’s theory

Answer 32

+ research to support his claims, medical evidence supports idea that our nervous system causes certain actions e.g pupil dilation - other research suggests that at least some non-verbal behaviours are innate - some non-verbal behaviours are learned by watching others (social learning theory)

Question 33

is non-verbal behaviour innate

Answer 33

- neonates (newborn infants), express their emotions, pre-cry expression suggesting sadness - papua new guinea, non-verbal communication film shown to americans who identified all the emotions

Question 34

is non-verbal behaviour learned

Answer 34

- yuki’s study shows that the way we understand facial expressions is affected by culture - non-verbal communication is learned through social interactions - historical and generational changes support this argument

Question 35

yuki’s emoticons study aim

Answer 35

to investigate if culture affects how facial cues are used when understanding other people’s emotions

Question 36

yuki’s emoticons study design

Answer 36

questionnaire with standard questions for all participants and a scale rating of 1 to 9. participants were american and japanese students

Question 37

yuki’s emoticons study method

Answer 37

participants were shown emoticons with six different combinations of eyes and mouths which were either happy, neutral or sad. they were asked to rate how happy each face was

Question 38

yuki’s emoticons study results

Answer 38

japanese gave highest ratings to the faces with happy eyes (rated these faces the happiest) and the lowest ratings to the sad eyes (rated these faces the saddest) americans gave the highest ratings to the faces with the happy mouths and the lowest ratings to the faces with the sad mouths different understanding of facial expressions, japanese focus more on the eyes, americans more on the mouth

Question 39

yuki’s emoticons study conclusion

Answer 39

people learn their own culture’s norms for the expression and interpretation of emotions

Question 40

yuki’s emoticons study evaluation

Answer 40

+ provides evidence for the theory that non-verbal behaviour is learned + carried out second study using photographs and the results were the same - used emoticons instead of real faces, low ecological validity (however see above advantage) - participants were aware that they were being studied so their results may not have been truthful