Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-p2v8j Total loading time: 0.001 Render date: 2024-06-05T00:44:18.926Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

It takes two to talk: A second-person neuroscience approach to language learning

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 July 2013

Supriya Syal  and
Adam K. Anderson
Supriya Syal
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, M5S 3G3 ON, Canada. supriya.syal@utoronto.caanderson@psych.utoronto.ca
Adam K. Anderson
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, M5S 3G3 ON, Canada. supriya.syal@utoronto.caanderson@psych.utoronto.ca
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Language is a social act. We have previously argued that language remains embedded in sociality because the motivation to communicate exists only within a social context. Schilbach et al. underscore the importance of studying linguistic behavior from within the motivated, socially interactive frame in which it is learnt and used, as well as provide testable hypotheses for a participatory, second-person neuroscience approach to language learning.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 36 , Issue 4 , August 2013 , pp. 439 - 440
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Conboy, B. T., Brooks, R., Taylor, M., Meltzoff, A. & Kuhl, P. K. (2008) Joint engagement with language tutors predicts brain and behavioral responses to second-language phonetic stimuli. Poster presentation at the XVIth Biennial International Conference on Infant Studies, Vancouver, B.C., March 27–29, 2008.Google Scholar
Fernald, A. (1992) Meaningful melodies in mothers' speech to infants. In: Nonverbal vocal communication: Comparative and developmental approaches, ed. Papousek, H., Jurgens, U. & Papousek, M., pp. 262–82. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Fernald, A. & Simon, T. (1984) Expanded intonation contours in mothers' speech to newborns. Developmental Psychology 20(1):104–113.Google Scholar
Goldstein, M. H., King, A. P. & West, M. J. (2003) Social interaction shapes babbling: Testing parallels between birdsong and speech. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 100(13):8030–35. doi:10.1073/pnas.1332441100.Google Scholar
Goldstein, M. H. & Schwade, J. A. (2008) Social feedback to infants' babblings facilitates rapid phonological learning. Psychological Science 19(5):515–23. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02117.x.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldstein, M. H., Schwade, J., Briesch, J. & Syal, S. (2010a) Learning while babbling: Prelinguistic object-directed vocalizations indicate a readiness to learn. Infancy 15(4):362–91. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1532-7078.2009.00020.x.Google Scholar
Isen, A. M. (2002) A role for neuropsychology in understanding the facilitating influence of positive affect on social behavior and cognitive processes. In: Handbook of positive psychology, ed. Snyder, C. R. & Lopez, S. J., pp. 528–40 (Chapter 38). Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kuhl, P. K. (2007b) Is speech learning “gated” by the social brain? Developmental Science 10(1):110–20. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2007.00572.x.Google Scholar
Kuhl, P. K., Tsao, F.-M. & Liu, H.-M. (2003) Foreign-language experience in infancy: Effects of short- term exposure and social interaction on phonetic learning. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 100(15):9096–101.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Moll, H. & Tomasello, M. (2007) Cooperation and human cognition: The Vygotskian intelligence hypothesis. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B: Biological Sciences 362(1480):639–48. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2006.2000.Google Scholar
Onnis, L., Waterfall, H. R. & Edelman, S. (2008) Learn locally, act globally: Learning language from variation set cues. Cognition 109(3):423–30. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2008.10.004.Google Scholar
Rowe, G., Hirsh, J. B. & Anderson, A. K. (2007) Positive affect increases the breadth of attentional selection. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 104(1):383–88. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0605198104.Google Scholar
Schilbach, L., Wilms, M., Eickhoff, S. B., Romanzetti, S., Tepest, R., Bente, G., Shah, N. J., Fink, G. R. & Vogeley, K. (2010b) Minds made for sharing: Initiating joint attention recruits reward-related neurocircuitry. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 22(12):2702–15. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/jocn.2009.21401.Google Scholar
Schmitz, T. W., De Rosa, E. & Anderson, A. K. (2009) Opposing influences of affective state valence on visual cortical encoding. Journal of Neuroscience 29(22):7199–207. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5387-08.2009.Google Scholar
Syal, S. & Finlay, B. L. (2011) Thinking outside the cortex: Social motivation in the evolution and development of language. Developmental Science 14(2):417–30.Google Scholar
Tricomi, E. M., Delgado, M. R. & Fiez, J. A. (2004) Modulation of caudate activity by action contingency. Neuron 41(2):281–92.Google Scholar
Tricomi, E., Delgado, M. R., McCandliss, B. D., McClelland, J. L. & Fiez, J. A. (2006) Performance feedback drives caudate activation in a phonological learning task. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 18(6):1029–43 Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/jocn.2006.18.6.1029.Google Scholar
Zink, C. F., Pagnoni, G., Chappelow, J., Martin-Skurski, M. & Berns, G. S. (2006) Human striatal activation reflects degree of stimulus saliency. NeuroImage 29(3):977–83. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2005.08.006.Google Scholar