For questions about the psychology and neuroscience of the production and perception of oral and written language.
15
votes
2answers
434 views
Does language and/or culture affect an individual's cognitive capacity?
Some languages have multiple expressions to identify, address, comprehend, and interpret a single concept and/or experience.
Are limits placed on understanding and describing aspects of cognition due ...
15
votes
0answers
171 views
How do emotions influence the language structures we use?
What are the verbal signs of subjectivity?
I am doing research about the linguistic content of media (debates, talk-show, sport comments). It occurs that once the participant gets nervous or excited, ...
13
votes
3answers
962 views
Why do you sometimes write down one word while actually intending to write another?
I've caught myself writing (typing) "possible" instead of "possibly" a few times over the past few days, while I do intend to write "possibly". Only upon rereading the sentence I notice my mistake.
...
12
votes
2answers
972 views
Is it called something when I can't remember the word I want to say, but I can remember its first letter?
This happens to me frequently. I'll say, "Oh you know that guy... uhh... I can't remember his name. But he starts with a 'Z'." You can remember part of the word but not the whole word.
Is there a ...
10
votes
1answer
416 views
How is a young child able to learn language so easily?
It's a well known fact that the earlier children are exposed to languages the better, as young children have a better ability to learn new languages than adults.
Why is this?
At what age does a ...
10
votes
2answers
516 views
What is the effect of motherese on development?
Most cultures (Falk, 2009) have a special type of language that is used to talk to children: infant-directed-speech (IDL; or informally, motherese, baby talk). For instance, Fernald (1992) argues that ...
9
votes
2answers
155 views
What are different ways to determine centroids of fMRI activation, their drawbacks and perks?
I'm reading an older article on bilingualism (Kim, Relkin, Lee, & Hirsch, 1997) for a seminar. They were interested in the spatial separation of two languages in early and late bilinguals. They ...
9
votes
0answers
105 views
Does the effect of naturalistic exposure on second language acquisition vary with age?
A while back, I watched the movie The Terminal and the main character played by Tom Hanks learns to speak fluent English while he is stranded in the airport for more than a year. Which seems somewhat ...
8
votes
1answer
226 views
Why might a stutterer not stutter when talking to themselves, whispering, or singing?
Background: I'm a stutterer myself and have always wondered what caused my stuttering. There have been reports of the effects of certain genes and environmental factors that causes stuttering. But ...
7
votes
3answers
194 views
What psychological factors account for code readability?
Readability is often intuitively synthesized. If you see some piece of code, you just know whether it is readable or not. But what are actual psychological, scientific explanations for this?
There ...
7
votes
1answer
116 views
Any attempts at testing or modeling the 'cognitive conception' of language?
For those unfamiliar, the 'cognitive conception of language' refers to a claim made by some theorists that, in the words of Carruthers:
"besides its obvious communicative functions, language also ...
6
votes
1answer
175 views
How does the brain learn what something is for the first time?
I'm trying to understand how the idea of what a thing is originates in humans.
For example, in computer science, it is possible to know what an object is and what it does, by examining its ...
6
votes
2answers
303 views
What is the average amount of new vocabulary adults retain when learning a second language?
What are the realistic/optimal (or maximal) number of words of vocabulary that can be learned (retained and later successfully accessed) by an adult learner of a foreign/second language? (Unit: Per ...
5
votes
1answer
138 views
Is there a lot of redundancy in written and spoken language?
I read years ago in a pop science book that written and spoken language can be shown to have a high level of redundancy. The speculation was that this served to allow error correction because language ...
5
votes
1answer
107 views
How does language change the understanding of a complex concept?
For example, does breaking down a complex concept, initially described with scientific and uncommon terms, into less complex language degrade the understanding of the concept or can it maintain all ...
5
votes
2answers
149 views
Is sub-vocalization when reading and writing merely a symptom of lack of fluency?
In reading & writing, I for one, find myself subvocalizing the statement to myself. This behaviour is language-independent. However, the effort and subvocalization involved is greater in any ...
3
votes
3answers
144 views
How much information is lost when conveying an experience or emotion to another person?
Certain languages have words that do not literally translate into any another language. There is already a small loss of information in this sense.
Emotions are a personal experience and the ...
3
votes
2answers
243 views
What is the fastest language to think in?
If you think in any language you're never misstaken on what word you mean even if there are many words that are spelled/pronounced the same. This causes a language with only one word meaning every ...
3
votes
0answers
87 views
Are there any cutting edge techniques that enable to acquire foreign language at relatively fast pace?
I am aware of immersion method as well as mnemonics such as the one Daniel Tammet's Born on a Blue Day. I read that Kim Peek's lack of corpus callosum enabled his brain to absorb information faster ...
3
votes
0answers
69 views
Can non-verbal communication in interpersonal relationships be taught rather than acquired?
In my experience people living together in difficult circumstances (e.g. close friends, family members) often learn to relate to each other's non-verbal cues.
For instance; A spouse may go shopping ...
2
votes
1answer
100 views
What is the relationship between language and the level of comprehension of consciousness?
I asked a similar/related question a couple days ago about how language and/or culture affect an individual's cognitive capacity.
I'm looking for materials, if any, on the subject of a language's ...
2
votes
1answer
58 views
Is there sub-conscious error correction in interpreting heard language?
My personal experience suggests there is a background process taking place when interpreting a partially heard utterance. The sound is taken in, the conscious part of my mind begins the process of ...
2
votes
0answers
32 views
Is the eye direction language dependent on the direction of writing?
I've read from various sources about the eye direction language. What is of my special interest now, is:
looking right means thinking (about future, new ideas etc.)
looking left means remembering ...
2
votes
0answers
45 views
What are the most well-understood vocal animal languages?
There are many examples of animal language that involve vocal pattens or "grammar".
For example, there is the the Bee dance, bird songs, whale songs, dogs.
Bird vocalization includes both bird calls ...
2
votes
0answers
59 views
Why do we seem to have an internal drive to use different expressions(mostly when writing)?
How come we have so many words/phrases that share the same meaning?
I suppose the most obvious answer to this would be that through communication between people with accent/language A and B, new ...
1
vote
1answer
30 views
What is the linguistic equivalent of functional fixedness?
Recently, I saw a crossword clue: (5 letters) "They help you after a crash." After going through the list of EMTs, firemen, police officers, etc. I realized that the answer was "IT Guy." This seems to ...
