how much of language acquisition does operant conditioning explain?

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ID: 251596
2017
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Abstract
Since the 1950s, when Chomsky argued that Skinner’s arguments could not explain syntactic acquisition, psychologists have generally avoided explicitly invoking operant or instrumental conditioning as a learning mechanism for language among human children. In this article, we argue that this is a mistake. We focus on research that has been done on language learning in human infants and toddlers in order to illustrate our points. Researchers have ended up inventing learning mechanisms that, in actual practice, not only resemble but also in fact are examples of operant conditioning (OC) by any other name they select. We argue that language acquisition researchers should proceed by first ruling out OC before invoking alternative learning mechanisms. While it is possible that OC cannot explain all of the language acquisition, simple learning mechanisms that work across species may have some explanatory power in children’s language learning.
Reference Key
sturdy2017frontiershow Use this key to autocite in the manuscript while using SciMatic Manuscript Manager or Thesis Manager
Authors ;Christopher B. Sturdy;Elena Nicoladis
Journal accounts of chemical research
Year 2017
DOI
10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01918
URL
http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01918/full
Keywords
operant conditioning language learning

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