Cognitive theory is a learning theory of psychology that attempts to explain human behavior by understanding the thought processes.

Compiled By > Dr Shamim Ali Class > Mphil First Semester

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that language is so uniquely human, distinguishes us so clearly from animals, that our species might be more appropriately named homo loquens than homo sapiens. that human language is species-specific and that it is both a generic accomplishment as well as genetic endowment with which the individual is born.

Language is characterized by its productivity, creativity and open-endedness. Animal communication is restricted to fixed circumstances and sign or gestures have fixed references. For example: bees can communicate only about nectar; dolphins, despite their intelligence and large number of clicks, whistles, and squawks, communicate about same things again and again; and even the clever vervet monkey, claimed to have thirty-six different vocal sounds, is obliged to repeat them over and over again.

Conversely, the potential number of utterances in any human language is infinite. Novel utterances are continually created and there is very rare chance for the repetition of same structures uttered by any individual. In this context, the productivity of novel utterances, manipulation and occassional repetition of linguistic resources advocates language learning as a cognitive skill.

It refers to the mental processes involved in gaining knowledge and comprehension, including thinking, knowing, remembering, judging, and problem solving. These are higher-level functions of the brain and encompass language, imagination, perception, and planning.

Language is central in our lives. In our global society, this is the case not only of our mother tongue, but also of other second languages required to communicate within the international society in specialized contexts The ability to learn language is a cognitive specialization of our species, thus language is considered to be an essential human feature.

Key Theorists & their Contributions Jean Piaget

Was the major pioneer of cognitive theory. How children think is much more important than what they know.

Was founder of the Gestalts theory. His studies with Apes led him to a view of problem solving as an active process of insight and on determining the role that mental processes play in determining emotions and behavior. Insight Learning: is a sudden change in the way one organizes a problem. Situation typically this is characterized by a change in behavior from random responding to rulebased responding.

Developed a concept of Purposive behaviourism which emphasised the distinctions between learning and performance and viewed learning in terms of the formation of hypothesis and cognitive maps. Helped to lay the foundations for the cognitive approach

 Mental set or schema (Tolman) The method individuals use to organize their perception of a particular situation such as a problem. Latent Learning (Tolman) A term used by Tolman used to describe situations in which learning is distinct from the performance

 Is best known for his work in determining Chunking for the Short term memory Chunk: The basic measure of Short term memory capacity representing a meaningful unit, such as random letters number or words.

Hermann Ebbinghaus

Developed techniques for the experimental study of memory and forgetting.

Known for the three distinct forms of long term memory:

Procedural memory: Stores how to information such as how to play a piano. Semantic memory: Involves general knowledge of how the world, such as knowing the capital of Japan. Episodic memory: Contains personal experiences

Cognitive theory is a Learning theory of psychology that attempts to explain human behavior by understanding the thought processes. The assumption is that humans are logical beings that make the choices that make the most sense to them. Information processing is a commonly used description of the mental process, comparing the human mind to a computer.

Cognitive development is the construction of thought processes, including remembering, problem solving, and decision-making, from childhood through adolescence to adulthood. Cognitive development refers to how a person perceives, thinks, and gains understanding of his or her world through the interaction of genetic and learned factors. Among the areas of cognitive development are information processing,intelligence, reasoning,language development, and memory.

Piaget's theory, first published in 1952, grew out of decades of extensive observation of children, including his own, in their natural environments as opposed to the laboratory experiments of the behaviorists. Although Piaget was interested in how children reacted to their environment, he proposed a more active role for them than that suggested by learning theory. He envisioned a child's knowledge as composed of schemas

What is Learning?

Learning is a process of relating new information to previously learned information. Learning is most likely to occur when an individual can associate new learning with previous knowledge.

Mechanical meaningless repetition unnaturalistic speech talk (words are uttered) e.g. parrots/budgerigars limited utterances (finite inputfinite output) no creativity/ productivity Machine Translation

Meaningful significant & consequential repetition naturalistic speech talk (language is used in a meaningful way) e.g. humans unlimited utterances (finite input infinite output) creativity/productivity/open-endedness (mental faculties are utilized and optimized) cognition is involved

Some learning processes may be unique to human beings. (Example, complex language.) Individuals are actively involved in the learning process. They are not passive receivers of environmental conditions, they are active participants in that learning process. In fact, they can control their own learning. Learning involves the formation of mental associations that are not necessarily reflected in overt behavior changes. This is very contrary to the behaviorist position, where no learning can happen without an external behavior change. This is contrasted with behavioral objectives. Knowledge is organized. An individual's knowledge is self organized through various mental associations and structure

There is an old proverb which states:

Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach him how to fish and he eats for a lifetime.

Applied to the language teaching and learning field, this proverb might be interpreted to mean that if students are provided with answers, the immediate problem is solved. But if they are taught the strategies to work out the answers for themselves, they are empowered to manage their own learning.

Second language learning pertains to the adult learning as compared to the first/native language learning of a child. Psychologists and psycholinguists viewed 2nd language learning as the acquisition of complex cognitive skill which involve application of subskills: grammatical rules, choosing the appropriate vocabulary, following the pragmatic conventions governing the use of a specific language. These sub-skills become automatic with practice.

From the cognitivists point of view, language acquisition is dependent in both content and developmental sequencings on prior cognitive abilities. Hence, requires cognitive learning strategies and style and approach to learn and acquire both L1 & L2

Assimilation and Accommodation are the two complementary processes of Adaptation described by Piaget, through which awareness of the outside world is internalised

In Assimilation, what is perceived in the outside world is incorporated into the internal world (note that I am not using Piagetian terminology), without changing the structure of that internal world, but potentially at the cost of "squeezing" the external perceptions to fit hence pigeon-holing and stereotyping. If you are familiar with databases, you can think of it this way: your mind has its database already built, with its fields and categories already defined. If it comes across new information which fits into those fields, it can assimilate it without any trouble

In Accommodation, the internal world has to accommodate itself to the evidence with which it is confronted and thus adapt to it, which can be a more difficult and painful process. In the database analogy, it is like what happens when you try to put in information which does not fit the pre-existent fields and categories. You have to develop new ones to accommodate the new information. In reality, both are going on at the same time, so thatjust as the mower blade cuts the grass, the grass gradually blunts the bladealthough most of the time we are assimilating familiar material in the world around us, nevertheless, our minds are also having to adjust to accommodate it.

Piaget was mainly concerned with children's developing understanding of the world, so for him (and for children) accommodation is no more problematic than assimilation. That does not necessarily hold as we grow older. We have ways of understanding our world which work for us, as relatively successful (i.e. surviving) adults. There is no problem in assimilating new information and ideas which fit with this world-view, but we find it increasingly difficult to accommodate to new stuff. One cognitive problem of ageing has been well labelled "hardening of the categories"!

Constructivism Emphasises Kelly's Personal Construct Theory Kolb's work on the Cycle of Adult Learning. Pask distinguishes between Holist and Serialist Learning Strategies. Hudson distinguishes between Convergent and Divergent Cognitive Styles, Bateson disentangles various levels of Learning Contextualised by the one above. Festinger's theory of Cognitive Dissonance

is defined as the factual information stored in memory and known to be static in nature. Other names, e.g. descriptive knowledge, propositional knowledge, etc. are also given. It is the part of knowledge which describes how things are. Things/events/processes, their attributes, and the relations between these things/events/processes and their attributes define the domain of declarative knowledge. Procedural knowledge is the knowledge of how to perform, or how to operate. Names such as knowhow are also given. It is said that one becomes more skilled in problem solving when he relies more on procedural knowledge than declarative knowledge.

Declarative Knowledge is factual knowledge. For example knowing that "A cathode ray tube is used to project a picture in most televisions" is declarative knowledge. Propositional knowledge or declarative knowledge is knowledge or the possession of information that is either true or false. Declarative knowledge is assertion-oriented. It describes objects and events by specifying the properties which characterize them; it does not pay attention to the actions needed to obtain a result, but only on its properties.

Procedural Knowledge Is related to the procedure to carry an action out. For example, a method to balance a checkbook would be considered procedural knowledge. Knowledge about "how" to do something is procedural knowledge. Procedural knowledge is instruction-oriented. It focuses on how to obtain a result