Avram Noam Chomsky (born 1928) is considered by many as the contemporary embodiment of at least one branch modern cognitive psychology. Chomsky's contribution to psychology lies in his theory of universal grammar. Chomsky postulates that there is an underlying set of grammatical rules common to all human language which is innate or native to human biology. As evidence for this, Chomsky points out the rapid language acquisition of children, and there surprisingly fast developing ability to form grammatically correct sentences with minimal experience of incorrect grammar, an argument known as the poverty of stimulus argument. This argument states that the natural acquisition of language by children us highly improbable given the relatively small data set available to children during the language acquisition stage of development. Chomsky's argument can be summarized in the following logical argument.
- There exists in all human languages, patterns which are to complex for children to learn using only the positive data which they are presented with.
- For the most part, children are presented only with positive data for these complex patterns. ie. they are only subject to people speaking with correct grammar.
- Thus, children do learn the complex set of grammatical rules present in human languages. An alternate hypothesis must be formed, such as the existence of an innate set of grammatical rules which is common to all languages.
Chomsky's view supports the presence of complex innate features and abilities of the psyche, and as such has had a dramatic effect on the way in which psychologist view learning.
The following is a link to the work of Chomsky titled Linguistic Contributions to the Study of Mind. The text details Chomsky's linguistic theory and the way in which in relates to learning theory as well as other aspects of psychology.
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