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subjects, objects, negations, and questions. He compares our language acquisition capacity to a “language acquisition device,” in which grammar switches are turned on as children are exposed to their language. He cites overgeneralization as evidence that children generate all sorts of sentences they have never heard, and thus could not be imitating. He further believes that there is a critical period for language development. If children are not exposed to language before adolescence, Chomsky believes they will be unable to acquire language. On the nurture side of the language acquisition debate, behaviorist B. F. Skinner believed that children learn language by association, reinforcement, and imitation. He contended that babies merely imitate the phonemes around them and get reinforcement for these. A baby’s first meaningful use of words is a result of shaping that is done by parents over the course of the first year. Today, social interactionists agree with both sides that language acquisition is a combination of nature and nurture. They believe, like Chomsky, that children are biologically prepared for language, but, like Skinner, they assert that the environment can either activate this potential or constrain it. Cognitive neuroscientists emphasize that the building of dense neuronal connections during the first few years of life is critical for the mastery of grammar.

Thinking

Thinking affects our language, which in turn affects our thoughts. Linguist Benjamin Whorf proposed a radical hypothesis that our language guides and determines our thinking. He thought that different languages cause people to view the world quite differently. Some words do not translate into other languages. In support of his idea, people who speak more than one language frequently report a different sense of themselves depending on the language they are speaking at the time. His linguistic relativity hypothesis has largely been discredited by empirical research. Rather than language determining what we can perceive, a more likely hypothesis is that the objects and events in our environment determine the words that become a part of our language.

Do you ever think about how you solve problems to attain goals? If so, you engage in metacognition, thinking about how you think. We usually manipulate concepts to solve problems. Concepts enable us to generalize, associate experiences and objects, access memories, and know how to react to specific experiences.

Problem Solving

How do we solve problems? Most problem-solving tasks involve a series of steps. Typically, we first identify that we have a problem. Next we generate problem-solving strategies. These can include using an algorithm or a heuristic, or breaking the problem into smaller problems, developing subgoals that move us toward the solution. An algorithm is a problem-solving strategy that involves a slow, step-by-step procedure that guarantees a solution to many types of problems. Although we will eventually solve the problem correctly using an algorithm, we usually want to solve problems quickly and employ heuristics or mental shortcuts to solve most problems. For example, when we’re not sure how to spell the word receive, rather than look up the word in the dictionary, we usually follow the heuristic “I before E, except after C, or when sounded like ‘ay,’ as in neighbor and weigh.” A heuristic suggests but does not guarantee a solution to a problem, and can result in incorrect solutions. Sometimes after trying to find a solution to a problem for a while, the solution suddenly comes to us. Insight is a sudden and often novel realization of the solution to a problem. For example, after trying to unscramble the letters NEBOTYA to form a word, you suddenly realize that the word is bayonet. When we don’t have a clue how to solve a problem, we often start with a trial and error approach. This approach involves trying possible solutions and discarding those that do not work. If we need a combination lock for a locker and find an old lock in the drawer, we can try combinations of three