Psycholinguitics

COGNITIVE VARIATIONS IN LEARNING LANGUAGE

v  Types of Learning 

According to Robert Gagne, there are eight types of learning that he identified in different types that used by all human. Those eight types of learning are:

1. Signal learning

The individual learns to make a general diffuse response to a signal. This is the classical conditioned response of Pavlov.

2. Stimulus-response learning

The learner acquires a precise response to a discriminated stimulus. What is learned is a connection or, in Skinnerian terms, a discriminated operant, sometimes called an instrumental response.

3. Chaining

What is acquired is a chain of two or more stimulus-response connections. The conditions for such learning have also been described by Skinner.

4. Verbal association

Verbal association is the learning of chains that are verbal. Basically, the conditions resemble those for other (motor) chains. However, the presence of language in the human being makes this a special type because internal links may be selected from the individual’s previously learned repertoire of language.

5. Multiple discrimination

The individual learns to make a number of different identifying responses to many different stimuli, which may resemble each other in physical appearance to a greater or lesser degree. Although the learning of each stimulus-response connection is a simple occurrence, the connections tend to interfere with one another.

6. Concept learning

The learner acquires the ability to make a common response to a class of stimuli even though the individual members of that class may differ widely from each other. The learner is able to make a response that identifies an entire class of objects or events.

7. Principle learning

In simplest terms, a principle is a chain of two or more concepts. It functions to organize behavior and experience. In Ausubel’s terminology, a principle is a “subsume” – a cluster of related concepts.

8. Problem solving

Problem solving is a kind of learning that requires the internal events usually referred to as “thinking”. Previously acquired concepts and principles are combined in a conscious focus on an unresolved or ambiguous set of events.

v  Strategies of Learning

Two basic categories of strategies can be distinguished in language learning: learning strategies and communication strategies. According to Brown (1980:83), a learning strategy is a method of perceiving and storing particular items for later recall. By contrast, a communication strategy is a method of achieving communication, of encoding or expressing meaning in a language. Although, there is a strong relationship between the two types of strategy above, they are clearly different in their manifestation.

1.         Learning Strategies

There are four terms which are commonly explained in the literature on language learning strategies, namely: Transfer, interference, simplification and overgeneralization.

a.    Transfer and Interference

According to Brown, 1980, Positive transfer happens when the prior knowledge benefits the learning task, that is, when a previous item is correctly utilized in the present subject matter.

The positive transfer can be referred to as transfer, which is a general term that describes the carryover of previous performance or knowledge to subsequent learning.

By contrast, negative transfer happens when the previous performance hinders the performance on a second task. The negative transfer can be referred to as interference.

b.    Generalization and Simplification

To generalize means “to infer or drive a law, rule, or conclusion, usually based on observation of special instances.” Meaningful learning is really generalization, in the sense that, items are subsumed (generalized) under high-order categories for meaningful retention. Much of human learning is a process of generalization.

Simplification is a term that has also been used in the literature on second language acquisition. In one sense all human learning is simplification: the process of “uncomplicating,” of reducing events to a common denominator, to as few parts or features as possible. Simplification is synonymous with generalization. But simplification can be contrasted with complexification, the act of discovering many varied parts of a whole, or even parts that do not fit into a whole.

2.         Communication Strategies

According to Brown (1980), communication strategies are systematic attempts to express meaning in the target language (TL), in which the speakers must tend to both form of language and function of language. Communication is the output modality and learning is the input modality of language acquisition. While strategies of communication are related to strategies of learning, it is nevertheless appropriate to consider the two types separately.

v  Styles of Learning

The cognitive style is the way we learn things in general and the particular attack we make on a problem seem to hinge on a rather amorphous link between personality and cognition. Ausubel (1968) defines cognitive style as “self-consistent and enduring individual differences in cognitive organization ad functioning. The term refers both to individual differences in general principles of cognitive organization…, and to various self-consistent idiosyncratic tendencies…that are not reflective of human cognitive functioning in general.”

There are five cognitive styles that are particularly relevant to second language learning.

1.    Field independence and Dependence

Field independence (FI) style is the ability to perceive a particular item or factor in a ‘field’ of distracting items. On the other hands, Field dependent (FD) style is the tendency to de ‘dependent’ in the total field.

In psychological terms, the ‘field’ may comprise the different things, it may be perceptual; it maybe more abstract; such as ideas, thoughts, or feelings.  On the other hand, dependence style parts emended within the field are not easily perceive although then total field is perceived more apparently as a unified whole.

2.    Reflectivity and Impulsivity

It is common for us to show in our personalities certain tendencies toward reflectivity sometimes and at other times impulsivity. Psychological studies have been conducted to determine the degree to which, in the cognitive domain, a person tends to make either a quick, or gambling (impulsive) guess that at an answer to a problem, or a slower, and more calculated (reflective) decision. David Ewing (1977) refers to two styles that are closely related to the reflectivity-impulsivity dimension: systematic and intuitive styles.

3.    Tolerance and Intolerance of Ambiguity

A third cognitive style concerns the degree to which you are cognitively willing to tolerate ideas and propositions that run counter to your own belief system or structure of knowledge.

Again, advantages and disadvantages are present in each style. The person who is tolerant of ambiguity is free to entertain a number of innovative and creative possibilities, and not be cognitively or affectively distributed by ambiguity and uncertainty.

Intolerance of ambiguity also has its advantages and disadvantages. A certain tolerance at an optimal level enables one to guard against the wishy-washiness referred to above, to close off avenues of hopeless possibilities, to reject entirely contradictory material, and to deal with the reality of the system that one has built. But clearly intolerance can close the mind too soon, especially if ambiguity is perceived as a threat; the result is a rigid, dogmatic, brittle mind that is too narrow to be creative. This may be particularly harmful in second language learning.

4.    Broad and Narrow Category Width

The sentence above means that people have to categorize items either broadly or narrowly. Narrow categorizers, like impulsive learners, are more often willing to take the risk of being wrong in problem-solving situations by attending to “smaller” subordinate concepts, while broad categorizers may choose a larger slice of the pie in an attempt to encompass more possibilities.

5.    Skeletonization and Embroidery

This cognitive style is referred for some individuals to skelitenize and others to embroider in the recall of cognitive material, related to the distinction between simplification and complexification strategies.

According to Brown (1980), embroidery is a natural offshoot of the human intellectual tendency toward closure; sometimes one will perceive something that is not present in the data simply because he extrapolates beyond the overt stimuli.