Posted on 07/26/2004 7:45:29 PM PDT by neverdem
SCIENCE Notebook
Five-month-old babies can comprehend concepts for which they have not yet learned words, suggesting that some types of thinking precede language, researchers have found.
A simple experiment probed what has become one of the most complex questions in psychology -- the role of language in learning. Some scholars believe language directs the ways people think, so that learning one language produces a different conceptual view of the world than learning another language.
Susan J. Hespos at Vanderbilt University and Elizabeth S. Spelke at Harvard University found that 5-month-old babies being reared in English-speaking homes were able to grasp the difference between a loose fit and a tight fit -- putting a pencil into a plastic cup, for instance, versus stacking a second cup inside the first.
That difference is emphasized by Korean but not by English. By showing that babies growing up in English-speaking homes are sensitive to the distinction, the researchers demonstrated that some forms of thinking do precede language.
Babies can learn any language but eventually lose the ability to detect foreign sounds -- this is partly why it is difficult to learn a second language at an older age. The same idea may apply to concepts, said psychologist Paul Bloom at Yale University, in an editorial published along with the new research in last week's issue of the journal Nature -- babies in different cultures acquire meaning that is of most relevance to their contexts.
There is one crucial difference, however: Adult English speakers can tell the difference between a loose fit and a tight fit. Unlike sounds, Bloom concluded, humans do not lose the ability to learn distinctions in meaning.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
PING
Probably better than DemocRATS.
I don't get it.
<|:)~
That's OK. Ask a baby to explain it to you :)
Who ARE these morons and how much are the taxpayers paying for a study that any mother has known all along? Every baby develops a method of communication and understanding long before it utters a word. As its language develops, its methods of communication change. And example is a crying baby who is hungry and a 4 year old who says "I'm hungry." When my daughter barely had language she would press my lips together and say roughly "Sing sunshine." And I would sing "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine." And most mothers don't have scientific degrees and are still able to figure non-language communication with their infants.
"I don't get it."
The words needed to describe diaper situation are usually picked later than at 5 months age, right? But diaper situation comprehension starts much earlier.
My eight month old grandkids not only smile, laugh and cry, they come to me when they see my outstretched arms. They certainly do not need to hear anything to do any of the above. What I am wondering is how stupid do you have to be to be eligible for a government job studying such lunacy. It’s all bovine flatulence if you ask me, let them study that…oh yea, they already did.
Babies also smile in the womb. Now that should really confuse them
Fercryinoutloud. As a father of seven, I can tell you that babies are sharp as TACKS.
My youngest is now 2 1/2, and if I told you what this kid knows (all his siblings are in their teens or twenties) and can say, you wouldn't believe me.
So-called scientists...........jeez..........
Einstein said that he thought in pictures rather than words. We all do, pictures, actions, percepts.
This is not the first time that scientists have "discovered" a concept that mothers have known for so long they didn't think it was news. I remember when scientists discovered that babies could actually see at birth. Or that babies could tell who their mother was.
It is both irritating and amusing when they name a "discovery" after themselves. For example, Braxton-Hicks contractions. Mothers have been experiencing them for thousands of years and then some arrogant doctor thinks he discovered them.
While what you are saying is absolutely true (raised five myself) it is a little different from what the authors are saying.
While we can all agree that babies are amazingly communicative, and sharp as tacks, none of us could know what kind of non-verbal logical associations are going on in there without experimentation of a very specific kind.
Thinking before language in babies, yes, we all can know that from our experiences with babies, but I don't think we could have known that they could develop non-verbal conceptualization of some rather abstract ideas like "tightness of fit".
Now, do babies raised in English-speaking homes with Boston dialects learn differently than those in English-speaking homes with Texas dialects?
Well, as my daughter used to say when she was a teenager --- DUH!
A surprising new study released Monday by UCLA's Institute For Child Development revealed that human babies, long thought by psychologists to be highly inquisitive and adaptable, are actually extraordinarily stupid.
LOL, thanks for the link.
I really thought you were making a Python-esque joke, so I had to register and find out for myself.
I think ebonics produces a different world view. Of course, so does that idiotic way Canadians say "aboot".
That was thr best laugh I had today!
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