2 May
2012
2 May
'12
12:46 p.m.
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*
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