Author Question: What sound characteristics can be compared between the two ears to locate the source of the sound? ... (Read 44 times)

strangeaffliction · **on:** Jun 22, 2018

What sound characteristics can be compared between the two ears to locate the source of the sound?

a. sound shadows and frequency
b. frequency and amplitude
c. loudness and timing
d. timbre and rhythm

Question 2

Briefly discuss the concept of a language acquisition device and its genetic basis.

What will be an ideal response?

wergv · **Reply #1 on:** Jun 22, 2018

Answer to Question 1

c

Answer to Question 2

Noam Chomsky (1980) and Steven Pinker (1994) proposed that humans have a language acquisition device, a built-in mechanism for acquiring language. Most children develop language so quickly and easily that it seems they must have been biologically prepared for this learning. Also, deaf children quickly learn sign language, and if no one teaches them a sign language, they invent one and teach it to one another (Goldin-Meadow, McNeill, & Singleton, 1996; Goldin-Meadow & Mylander, 1998).

Researchers have begun to explore the genetic basis of this preparation for language. A family whose members have trouble with pronunciation and basic grammar is one such case. Their problem has been shown to stem from a mutation in a gene designated FOXP2, which regulates a protein that promotes synapse formation in the cerebral cortex (Lai et al., 2001; Sia, Clem, & Huganir, 2013). Although both humans and chimpanzees have that gene, it differs in two places, resulting in proteins with different amino acids at two sites. That gene produces not only a multitude of effects, partly on brain development, but also on structures of the jaw and throat that are important for speech (Konopka et al., 2009).