language, thought and communication

• The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis suggests that thinking depends on language.
• Humans have a unique ability to use language to communicate, which is different from the communication abilities of animals.
• There are different theories that attempt to explain the relationship between language and thought, including Piaget’s theory that language depends on thought and the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.
• According to Piaget’s theory, children will develop language in four stages: the sensorimotor stage, the pre-operational stage, the concrete operational stage, and the formal operational stage.
• In the sensorimotor stage, babies are discovering what their bodies can do, including the ability to make sounds.
• Babies then learn to copy the sounds they hear other people making in the pre-operational stage.
• During the concrete operational stage, the ability to use language has developed significantly however children use it to talk about actual concrete things.
• Once children reach the formal operational stage, they can use language to talk about abstract, theoretical ideas.
• Piaget believed that while all children move through these stages, some people do not get to the formal operational stage.
• Two properties unique to human language and communication are productivity and displacement.
• Karl Von Frisch’s bee study from 1950 is important as it was one of the primary studies into animal communication and influenced other researchers to conduct research into animal communication.
• The results from Karl Von Frisch’s bee study have been found to be reliable as when others have recreated it, they have found similar results.
• The artificial setup of sugar-water and bees having to gather this from glass containers is not natural or indicative of the everyday behaviour of bees.
• The functions of eye contact include regulating flow of conversation, signalling attraction and expressing emotion.
• Bees do not normally live in such hives and this may have affected their behaviour.
• Researchers found that bees may also use cognitive maps based on their memory of landmarks.
• Human communication and animal communication may share some similar properties, but only human communication contains all properties.
• Body language includes open and closed posture, postural echo and touch.
• Non-verbal communication can be simply defined as a way of conveying messages without the use of words.
• Personal space includes cultural, status and gender differences.
• More is being learnt about animal communication all the time.
• Communication that uses words is called verbal communication.
• Researchers found that putting a sugar solution on flowers also resulted in the bees acting the same way as in the study, indicating the setup is valid and can be generalised to real-world settings for bee behaviour.
• Displacement is the ability to communicate about things that are not present or events that have yet to happen in the future.
• Due to the artificial setup of Karl Von Frisch’s bee study, it could be argued to lack ecological validity.
• Productivity is the ability to create an unlimited number of different messages.
• It is difficult to say for certain which properties of language are design features used exclusively by humans as we do not fully understand animal communication.
• Another limitation of Karl Von Frisch’s bee study is the use of glass hives.
• Piaget created his theory based on the observation of his own children, which may have affected the validity of his findings.
• Women tend to have their personal space boundary invaded more often by men than the other way around.
• Eye contact is used to regulate the smooth flow of conversation and can express emotion.
• Pupil dilation expresses emotion and can influence attraction.
• Personal space is affected by age and personality, with people tending to sit or stand next to people if they are a smaller age and people with the personality types known as introverts having a larger personal space boundary than those deemed extroverts.
• People have a preference to those that look at them more frequently, which may be a signal for attraction.
• Touch is a powerful signal that can produce unconscious emotional reactions and can lead to people being favoured more positively.
• Women prefer to sit next to their friends by their side while men prefer to sit opposite them.
• Status is another factor that affects personal space, with people tending to stand closer to others they deem to be of the same status as themselves compared to people of a higher status.
• The posture someone adopts influences how much they are liked.
• There are gender differences in personal space, with men having a bigger personal space boundary than women and both genders preferring to have a greater amount of space between themselves and members of the opposite sex.
• Cultural norms are another factor that affects personal space.