PLEASE NOTE: Our seminar room has a limited capacity. Please arrive
early to ensure you get a seat. The talk will begin promptly at 5.
The next talk in the CDC seminar series will be given by:
Katharina J. Rohlfing, Bielefeld University
Date: Wednesday, May 9, 2012, 5 PM
Location: Cognitive Development Center, Hattyú u. 14, 3rd floor
From action to language and back
Abstract: In current approaches to understanding the mechanisms of
language, factors that embody language in cognition are in focus of
investigation. I complement this research perspective by pointing out
the other direction of the link between action and language, according
to which it is not the sole purpose of language to function in the role
as a symbol; it also plays a role as a social signal influencing
attention and the memory performance that can be observed in
developmental processes. I propose that the relationship between action
and language should be viewed as a symbiosis rather than a link.
The reverse impact of language onto action can be seen in the
phenomenon that has been termed Acoustic Packaging (Hirsh-Pasek &
Golinkoff, 1996): Imagine that you see a dancer performing a dance. You
watch it and it seems to you like a whole. If you would like to learn
it, you need to break the whole down into its elements. In dancing
classes, the single elements are provided with synchronous speech when a
tutor performs them. This way, learners’ attention is drawn to the
single elements. Similar to this experience, for a child learning
actions, it is difficult to break down the whole to its elements. In
this process, it is helpful when a tutor provide verbal input that takes
the role of a social signal and marks the single elements. Information
that is provided in such a redundant manner will be picked up more
easily by child’s senses (Bahrick et al., 2004). Once the single
elements are picked up, they can be memorized. The way, language
“packages” events can be characterized as education of attention
(Zukow-Goldring, 2006; Call & Carpenter, 2002) that drives our
understanding of actions. Once such a package is discovered and stored
as meaningful (in form of a top-down knowledge), the perception becomes
more flexible and independent of a direct link between action and
language as social signal. The top-down knowledge is culture specific
and seems to be motivated by cultural activities and needs (Majid et
al., 2008). This specific role of language as a social signal has been
acknowledged for the development of cognitive capabilities such as
lexical concepts learning: Infants expect different kinds of naming
episodes to have distinct conceptual consequences depending on whether a
common noun is provided for a set of distinct objects – which promotes
object categorization – or whether a unique noun for each object is
provided – which promotes object individuation (Waxman & Gelman,
2009, p. 260). Thus, categorical representation (meanings) emerges not
only „as a results of a sensorimotor task that the agents perform to
survive in the environment or to imitate a teacher“ (Cangelosi, 2010).
Instead, there seems to be a reciprocal education of the cognitive
capabilities (Smith, 2005).
Cognitive Science events at CEU: http://cognitivescience.ceu.hu/events