Week 3 Reading Material - Topic 6 - Innatism

READING MATERIAL
WEEK 3 – TOPIC 6
THE INNATENESS THEORY

Extracts from Behaviorism, Innatism, Cognitivism: Considering the
Dominance to Provide Theoretical Underpinning of Language Acquisition
Conjecture
Innatism in Learning
There are two ways in which animals can achieve information. The first of these two ways
is learning when an animal gathers information about its surroundings and then proceeds
to produce this information. For example, if an animal eats something that hurts its
stomach, it has learned not to eat this again. The second way that an animal can acquire
facts is through innate storage of facts. This knowledge is genetically inherited. The animal
automatically knows it without any prior experience. An example of this is when a horse is
born and can immediately walk. The horse has not learned this behavior rather achieves
it automatically. (Dunlap Lehtila, 2013) Cognitivism became the dominant force in
psychology in the late-20th century, replacing behaviorism as the most popular paradigm
for understanding mental function. Cognitive psychology is not a wholesale denial of
behaviorism, but rather an expansion. The main issues that interest cognitive
psychologists are the inner mechanisms of human thought and the processes of knowing.
Cognitive psychologists have attempted to shed some light on the alleged mental
structures that stand in a causal relationship to our physical actions.
Cognitive theory tends to focus on conceptualizing the student's learning process: how
intimation is received, how intelligence is processed and organized into existing schema,
and how individual can retrieve information. Cognitive approaches mainly focus on the
mental activities of the learner like planning, goal setting, and organizational
strategies (Shell, 1980). In cognitive theories, not only the environmental factors and
instructional components play an essential role in learning. There are additional elements
like learning to code, transform, rehearse, and store and retrieve the facts. The learning
process includes learner's thoughts, beliefs, and attitude values. Memory plays a vital role
in the learning process. Usually, information stays within a memory in an organized,
meaningful manner. Here, teachers and designers play different roles in the learning
process. Teachers supposedly facilitate learning and the organization of information in an
optimal way. Forgetting is an inability to retrieve information from memory. Memory loss
may be a mechanism used to discard situationally irrelevant intelligence by assessing the
relevance of new details. According to cognitive theory, if a learner knows how to
implement knowledge in different contexts and conditions then we can say that the learner
learns to transfer the pre-existing idea. (Schunk, 1991) Understanding is composed of
knowledge -in the form of rules, concepts and discrimination (Duffy and Jonassen, 1991).
Memory use prior idea to identify.
Global Journal of human-social science. (2024, May 10). Global Journal of Human-Social
Science. https://socialscienceresearch.org/index.php/GJHSS Professor: Ed. M. Karen Meza Fernandez
Differences between Innatism and Cognitivism
The neuroscientists found the evidence for innatism by working on the "Blue Brain
Project." They discovered that neurons transmit signals despite an individual's
experience. The linguists assumed that neuronal circuits are made when the experience
of an individual is imprinted in the brain, making memories. Researchers at Blue Brain
discovered a network of about fifty neurons. These neurons were like building blocks that
contain difficult knowledge and later it would be added to acquired knowledge, like
memory. 28 Scientists ran tests on the neuronal circuits of several rats and ascertained
that if the neuronal circuits had only been formed based on an individual's experience,
the tests would bring about very different characteristics for each rat. However, the rats
all displayed similar characteristics as their neuronal circuits must have been established
previously to their experiences-it must be inborn and created before their skill. The
research done in the Blue Brain project expresses that some of the building blocks of all
our knowledge are genetic, and we're born with it. (Pousaz, L., 2011) Some immediate
findings may come out of the above discussions. Human brain is an active organ that is
pre-shaped naturally and the neuronal functions shape most of the language activities.
Cognitivism goes for highlighting the role of intelligence and memory for the acquiring a
language. Human brain is not an empty vessel to be filled up with experience after its
birth. Language acquisition is a very conventional phenomenon in all the human
civilizations. It is somehow possible due to the presence of an Innate Language Universal
in human brain since its birth. Cognition, or sense or perception or consciousness or
understanding is evident all human brain that is secondary to innate ability. Innate ability
is fundamental to the human in general. It is universal that lets people gather knowledge
of language in a simple manner.
Final thoughts: Chomsky's idea of Innatism has been empirically tested, discussed,
and criticized since long and this doctrine achieved popularity more than others. Nature
is more important than nurture according to the theory of innatism. Innatism is more
authentic in the case of the Critical Period Hypothesis by Eric Lenneberg, (1964) who
stated that if anyone doesn't learn a language before the age of 12, it could be most
difficult to acquire any language in a usual and fully functional sense. Environment and
conditioning will not function here anymore. Preexisting notion present in our mind is
genetically preprogrammed according to the field of genetics, cognitive psychology, and
psycholinguistics.
The proposition of "Language Acquisition Device" (LAD) by Chomsky is another fruitful
explanation in favour of innatism that offered how children develop competence in their
first language in a relatively short time. Chomsky cleared it more by saying that Black
Box or LAD is situated in Broca's area on the left side of the human brain. A complex set
of neural circuits of this area are connected with Universal Grammar (UG). Innatism is
the focal point of interest of the linguists as this philosophy is highly logical and scientific.
And if anything is scientific, its acceptability will be high. We know language in infancy is
acquired rather than learned; children learn languages following some subtle and
abstract principles. Explicit instructions or any other environmental clues don't have that
much impact on language acquisition. Critics argued that no theory is absolutely
standard to meet up the dispute regarding child language acquisition. Innatism can
minimize much of the existing debates than the other theories.
Global Journal of human-social science. (2024, May 10). Global Journal of Human-Social
Science. https://socialscienceresearch.org/index.php/GJHSS Professor: Ed. M. Karen Meza Fernandez

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READING MATERIAL

THE INNATENESS THEORY

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