User:Hdgallant

I'm a third year Psychology student at Dalhousie University.

Week Twelve: April 4-8, 2011

Wow time flies! I’m not sure who invented that saying but they were right! This is my last blog post, which means the term is almost done (yah!). For this post we were instructed to talk about the course in general. I’ll be honest; I was a little hesitant, given that I didn’t receive my final grade yet! Haha. But here it goes… Let’s start with the positive. I loved the material and how we covered multiple topics within psycholinguistics. I especially liked the lectures on brain damage (aphasia), bilingualism, and developmental language acquisition. Other aspects of the course that I liked were the debate and the concept of the wikiversity page. Some aspects I would modify include: having the debates done earlier in the course. I found it extremely stressful to have the debates posted and worked on in the last couple of weeks. I’m not a last minute person nor do I work well under pressure, so it was really difficult! In regards to the wikiversity chapter, I found too much of our mark relied on the project. I also didn’t like how it was made public to others (and fellow students) before it was graded. I would have liked to keep it confidential then release all of them at the same time at the end of the semester. Perhaps we could have made it into a mini event. Say a mass release of PSYO 3910’s Wikiversity Chapter? We could have planned an event in the psychology lab where each computer could display a different page. Fellow students and staff could walk around and check out all the pages. Overall I really enjoyed the course. I liked that it wasn’t your traditional lecture/exam course. I appreciate that technology was incorporated into something that is strongly based on history and science.

Thank you for a wonderful semester, Heather

Week Ten: March 21-25, 2011

Bilingualism has always been an area of interest for me; perhaps because I'm slightly jealous that I'm not bilingual myself. Throughout elementary school I attended French classes, despite my will. I learned how to count to 100, the colours of the rainbow and the animals on a farm. But lets face it, unless you have an interest in actually learning a language, and practice what you learn, you won't retain much, or at least I didn't. At the age of 24, I look back to grade 10. That is when I finally had the choice if I wanted to continue with my French course. Of course being the stubborn Taurus I am, I choose geography over French. Now that I'm older I regret not sticking with it. I plan to master the French language one day.. unfortunately that day isn't today. In this weeks lecture we talked about L1 versus L2. We discussed the consequences (or lack there of) of learning two languages at once. Originally I worried about language and cognitive development delays caused by confusion. I'm pleased to know what there is no harm to having a child learn two languages from a young age. I plan to enroll my children in French immersion school at a young age and hopefully by then I'll understand the language myself! They may resist when they're young, but they'll thank me one day :)

Until next time, Heather

Week Nine: March 14-18, 2011

Have you ever thought about something and wondered, where did I learn that? You know you do it... but you don't remember anyone specifically teaching you? For me it's riding a bike. I know how to ride a bike, yet I have no recallable memory of someone explicitly teaching me. I'm sure we all have these situations. Another one for me is the use of motherese. As soon as I'm around an infant, without a doubt I begin to use infant directed speech. Motherese is essentially infant directed speech. It involves slower, shorter and simpler speech. It usually involves more exaggerations in intonation, and the use of grammatically well-formed words. The important question remains why do we do it? Well..I don't know. If I had to guess I would relate it back to learning theory. We've been exposed to other adults using motherese so we imitate. Also, I always find that I can hold an infants attention longer when I talk with a higher pitch and more intonation. This weekend I began to wonder, are we helping infants with language acquisition by using infant directed speech, or do we just look silly to other adults? According to Matychuk (2005) infant directed speech is seen a lot more by mothers than fathers. Matychuk argues that it is the "interactive negotiation", that is critical of language development, rather and infant directed speech directly. Therefore, it is safe to say that although you may hold the attention of an infant longer with the use of motherese, children will develop language at the same rate as those whose parents do not use motherese. I would love to say that I won't do it any longer... but it seems to come so naturally when you're round infants who are so happy and innocent!

Until next time, Heather

Reference: Matychuk, P. (2005). The role of child-directed speech in language acquisition: A case study. Language Sciences, 27(3), 301-379. doi:10.1016/j.langsci.2004.04.004

Week Eight: March 7-11, 2011

It's not to say that I don't enjoy learning about syntax and phonology, however I found this weeks material a lot more interesting! In this weeks lecture we talked about the different types of gestures that are used with speech (such as emblems, iconics, and beats) and why we use gestures. Growing up I remember my mother telling me don't talk with your arms crossed. She said it implied to people that I wasn't interested in what they were saying. Whether or not this is true, I do agree that gestures add a lot to speech. After the lecture I became more aware of my own gestures as well as others' gestures (nerdy? a little!). I realized that they change depending on whom you are talking to and the subject you are talking about. For example, my gestures changed when speaking to one of my professors compared to when I was speaking to my best friend, even though the subject was the same in this case (good ol' statistics). This makes sense when we consider the impact body language plays on communication. I’ve heard that 90% of communication is non-verbal. Now whether this is true is up for debate but I would argue that body language plays a big role in communication. This led to the thought of how do we learn aspects of communication such as gestures and body language? I suppose it’s like grammar, we learn from our environment. After all, most of us (myself included) did not receive a formal grammar class until grade 5 or so. But surely I knew how to use grammar before grade 5! After all, the thought of learning to communicate via those around us, whether it is verbal or non-verbal, is supported by the case of Genie, the girl who was deprived of language until she was 13 years old.

Until next time, Heather

Week Seven: February 28- March 4, 2011

This weeks lecture was really interesting and involved the concept of speech production. We discussed a topic I am very familiar with and have personal experience with, speech errors! We all make simple errors such as blending two words together, exchanging the place of words, or substituting one word for another (usually the opposite meaning). During the lecture I couldn't help but wonder why do we make these errors? What is it that actually causes these errors? I think it would be fascinating to run an fMRI scan while someone accidentally makes these errors, however I don't know how feasible that would be. I also began to think about a phenomenon that I have found interesting for many years, the tip of the tongue phenomenon. Although I'm sure it would fit better within a discussion on memory, it still involves the process of producing speech (or lack there of!). How is it that we cannot think of a specific piece of information, yet can recall some correct information such as the first letter or even how many syllables are in the word!? This actually happened to me last night. I was trying to recall the name of an artist and couldn't think of it for the life of me. I knew his name ended with -las and I could even picture how his name was written on the CD cover! After eventually giving up I recalled the name! That has got to be the greatest feeling :)

Until next time, Heather

P.S. In case you were wondering, the artist's name was Yiannis Kapoulas :)

Week Five: February 7-11, 2011

Growing up you hear all kinds of myths about anything and everything. One myth I remember hearing is “you only use 10% of your brain”. I remember thinking to myself how smart would we be if we could use more than 10%?! Well… I now know this is a myth. Staying on topic, this week we discussed semantics in the brain, an area that I’ve done a lot of research in due to my Wikiversity chapter. As explained by Dr. Newman, and the numerous amounts of research articles I’ve sifted through, the brain is not clearly defined like a well thought-out city. Although researchers have identified certain areas that more activate for certain functions, there is a lot of overlap and grey areas. This made me question, how will neurological research change in my lifetime? After all, a lot of the research that is available today, such as PET and fMRI scans, is fairly new technologies. I’m really excited to see how the research field will evolve in the next twenty years! And more importantly I’m excited to see how these technologies will improve our understanding of psycholinguistics and other fields of psychology. We often look back on Freud and other early psychologists and question their logic, but will there come a time that we questions the logic of today? I think it’s naïve to say we wont!

Until next time, Heather

Week Four: January 31- February 4, 2011

Living in Canada it is not surprising that Mother Nature left her mark this week. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it!) this left us who live on the Atlantic coast with a short week. The week became even shorter for Dalhousie University students due to a school holiday on the Friday. Luckily Monday’s lecture provided me with insight to a topic I enjoy, morphology. We defined a morpheme, discussed the different types of morphemes, and explored other languages such as ASL. What I found fascinating though is the past tense debate. Essentially you are asking if regular and irregular verbs are represented similarly or differently in the brain. I suppose one way researchers investigate this theory is by examining aphasic patients. After conducting a short search I found endless research papers investigating this very question! Continuing on the concept of irregular verbs I began to think about how the English language is evolving. For example, in the last few years Facebook and text messaging have become very popular. How would one refer to these nouns (which can be used as verbs) in the past tense? I “Facebooked” you? I “texted” you? Or I sent you a “text” message. I think some of these questions will be addressed in the upcoming lectures when we discuss words… or I hope!

Until next time, Heather

Week Three: January 24-28, 2011

In my second year of university I took a course called "Introduction to Linguistics". On the first day of class my professor said that the English language lacks history, is full of contradictions and exceptions, and is one of the most boring languages to study. Despite her negativism, I stayed in the class. Being in this psycholinguistic class I began to wonder if she was correct. This week we talked about acoustic phonetics, and more specifically elisions. I tried to imagine myself as someone learning the English language and having to understand the rules and exceptions of the language. For example, the word vegetable... Why is it what it is? It has no relation to the object we call a table, and even worse it has sounds eliminated when pronouncing it (elisions)! As I pondered this thought, I had a new respect for those who attempt to understand the complex English language as a second language. I have heard that English is one of the most difficult languages to learn, of course this is simply through hear say, but I wonder if it's true. From a psychological perspective, is one language more difficult to learn than another? I would assume it depends on how close the language is to your first language. What is the psychological impact of learning multiple languages? This is definitely something I will research and report back on.

Until next time, Heather

Week Two: January 17-21, 2011

This week's lectures covered a lot of different topics. We began the week by discussing language and the brain, covering topics such as lateralization, aphasia, and neuroplasticity. I have a general understanding of aphasia, but I never realized how many different types of aphasia there are to study based on the site of lesion. After this lecture I began to wonder, how bilinguals are affected by aphasia? Dr. Newman mentioned that the effects vary among cases however; I would love to look into specific case studies to learn more! Later in the week I learned a valuable skill that I wish I learned years ago. Dr. Newman explained a more effective format to read an academic journal article. Contrary to believe you don’t necessarily want to start with the introduction. (It seems a little backwards, I know, but it work!). I spent the weekend researching articles for a couple of papers, and his suggestion of reading the results and the method prior to the introduction and discussion really worked! Now if only I had learned that first year! The week ended with an introduction to phonetics and phonology. We discussed the difference between the two and touched upon one of my favourite studies, the wug test. The wug test was an experiment conducted by Jean Berko Gleason in 1958. This experiment relates to our discussion last week in that language is innate and learned through observational learning. Children are never taught that the plural of the non-word “wug” is “wugs” with the allomorph /z/, yet they simply know how to apply the rules of English.

Until next time, Heather

Week One: January 10-14, 2011

Well…I might as well be honest from the start. When I registered for psycholinguistics I didn’t think I would be all that interested, however, I was highly mistaken! This week’s lectures produced so many questions (which hopefully I’ll be able to answer one day)! During the second lecture we spoke about Kanzi, a Bonobo chimpanzee that communicates via a lexigram keyboard. Although highly impressive in itself, the part that amazed me is how he was able to learn language simply by being exposed to his mother’s learning experience. I suppose this relates the theory that we, humans, are born with an innate ability to learn language. After all, our children are exposed to language everyday. Perhaps this is a larger factor for toddlers learning to speak than their parents attempting to teach them specific words? In addition, this lecture made me think of the mental capacity of animals such as Kanzi. Dr. Newman mentioned that Bonobo chimpanzees are capable of learning how to write and even set fires! Clearly this should be alarming for all of us. It’s amazing that we can teach these animals however, I question if there is an ethical aspect that we are failing to see. Or even on a more basic level, what is the long-term harm in teaching these animals. Will we reach a point where Bonobo chimpanzees will be able to teach other Bonobo chimpanzees? If so, what happens if they are released into the wild with that mental knowledge? I do have a strong appreciation for research however, I question our impact on the future.

Until next time, Heather Gallant