Cognitive Perspective

Information-processingComplexity, Fluency and AccuracyOutput hypothesis

Initial task:What role do you think conscious attention to lexis and grammar plays in your teaching and learning context?

Information-processingbrain works like a sponge

the brain works like a muscle the brain works like a hologram

brain works like a digital computerthe brain works like a Swiss Army knifethe brain works like a nontrivial machine

your brain works like a telephone switchboardthe brain works like a social network or the internet

the brain works like a club bouncer to control what information gets inmy own brain works - like a stream-of-consciousness that I can’t turn

off

Human Cognition is Information Processingor

The Brain is a Computer

The Brain is a Computer

The Brain as a ComputerJournal of Evolution and Technology. 1998. Vol. 1

When will computer hardware match the human brain?

By: Hans Moravec

ABSTRACT

This paper describes how the performance of AI machines tends to improve at the same pace that AI researchers get access to faster hardware. The processing power and memory capacity necessary to match general intellectual performance of the human brain are estimated. Based on extrapolation of past trends and on examination of technologies under development, it is predicted that the required hardware will be available in cheap machines in the 2020s.

Information-processing

Scientific theories of the day always follow the main practice of the day. When the main practice of the day was about fluids and their flow, scientists of the day tried to explain the brain function in terms of fluids and their flow inside the brain chambers. Today, the practice of the day is all about computers and computation, and so many scientists are trying to explain the human brain by saying that it works like a computer. In the next century, once society moves beyond computers, future generations will laugh at this and think that it was stupid to think that the brain works like a computer!

http://kids.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/frym.2013.00013(accessed October 2nd, 2015)

General information-processing model

STM = short term memory (working memory)

LTM = long term memory

The magical number 7

Limited or unlimited?

Memory System

Declarative memory system / language knowledge

Procedural memory system / language use

Episodic memory system / Experience of events

Visual, Affective, Other ...

An Aside ... (not to be confused with information-processing theory)

■Competence: Chomsky’s UG (interlanguage)

■Performance: Actual language use

■Communicative Competence 1: Grammatical, lexical, sociolinguistic, pragmatic, etc competence (search Canale and Swain 1980)

■Communicative Competence 2: Sociolinguistics (Search Dell Hymes)

Complexity, Fluency and Accuracy

Magical Number 7

FluencyAccuracy

Complexity

Describe a language learning situation in your context where there is a trade-off between complexity, fluency and accuracy.

Output Hypothesis

Learners can fake comprehension, but not production. This means that,

“the processes involved in producing language can be quite different than those involved in comprehending language” (Swain, 1995, p. 127).

In particular,

“in speaking or writing, learners can ‘stretch’ their interlanguage to meet communicative goals” (Swain, 1995, p. 127).

Output Hypothesis

Swain’s Output hypothesis

The noticing/triggering function (consciousness-raising role);

The hypothesis-testing function;

The metalinguistic function (reflective role).

For Next Week

Nassaji, H. and Swain, M. (2000). A Vygotskian perspective on corrective feedback in L2: the effect of random versus negotiated help on the learning of English articles. Language Awareness, 9/1: 34-51.