task specificity of language

the theory, mainly associated with Noam Chomsky, that language use differs from other cognitive tasks in qualitative ways and makes use of components that are specific to this purpose. The theory accords with Chomsky’s ideas of autonomous syntax and intuited grammaticality but is incompatible with the approaches taken in functional grammar, cognitive grammar, or behaviorist accounts of language (see verbal behavior). See also modularity; species specificity of language.

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Psychology term of the day

January 23rd 2025

functional measurement

functional measurement

a procedure that measures the subjective experience of stimuli as that experience changes across different contexts. Two or more stimuli are presented in various combinations to an observer who assigns ratings to each. These ratings are then integrated according to a simple arithmetical law discovered by examining the way in which the observer’s ratings change when the combination of stimuli is changed.