[From: Bruce Nevin (Wed 93106 11:49:21 EDT)]
Let's look at the analogy to the coin game. In the coin game, both the
investigator and the subject of the Test clearly perceive the tokens
(coins) and their possible relationships in a way that is not merely
socially available, it is agreed upon during the preliminary instructions
prior to conducting the Test.
To make this a fair analogy to a linguist applying the Test to a language
whose phonemes he does not yet know, we have to take away some of this
shared and known-to-be-shared knowledge.
Suppose the subject S is controlling for an isosceles triangle. This
imposes a categorization on the possible arrangements of three coins:
isosceles vs. not isosceles. All that S can (without training) bring to
awareness is a perception of a triangle that is "balanced" (two sides
equal) or not. The coins and the details of their relationships are not
accessible to consciousness without careful attention, training, and
practice.
But the investigator or tester, T, has ready access to a different set of
perceptions. Assuming T is trained as the linguist would be trained,
then T can perceive the coins and the details of their varying relations,
and has experience with coins various conditions on the arrangements of
coins being controlled perceptions (in other "languages"). (If T is not
trained, then T comes in knowing how to control for a different
categorization, say, scalene vs. non-scalene, which is normal for the
"language" spoken where T comes from. T can only interpret S's responses
in terms of T's categories, and vice versa, and they generally get pretty
muddled.)
Now, suppose both T and S share the same "language", they both natively
control a perception of isoscelesness in the coin game. But T is a
"linguist" and has this additional training and experience with other
"languages" with their very different categorizations over the same field
of possible arrangements of coins. Indeed, it is only by virtue of this
training and experience that T perceives the game as taking place over a
field of possible arrangements of coins; S can perceive neither coins nor
arrangements of coins nor field of possibilities, S can perceive only
isosceles vs. non-isosceles ("balanced-unbalanced").
T wants to show S that what is being controlled is a categorization of
isosceles vs. scalene. But this recognition is attainable only if other
categorizations are possible. For S, no other categorizations are
possible, and, indeed, only the category perceptions exist.
This is where we stand in the discussion of phonemic perception. The
analogy is simplistic, of course. You would have to increase the number
of coins, include differences in type of coin as parameters, and then
apply some combinatorial restrictions to the enriched set of parameters
in order to get at the kinds of systematicity that is found in language,
even in phonemic systems.
It is not quite right to say that S cannot perceive coins and
relationships. When T talks to S about coins and relationships, S says
"yes, I see that", but in fact S sees it only in terms of the
categorization into balanced vs. unbalanced triangles. Here, the analogy
is difficult to use because it is simplistic. What I am referring to
here is the way Rick and Bill identify the phoneme p as a particular
sound, and then (against perceptual input that is accessible to them)
assert that this is the sound that occurs in "spin", and that it is the
substitution of b in "sbin" that is anomalous. That is why I introduced
the experiment with the strip of paper. The affect of egressive air on
the paper reinforces with visual perceptual input the abovementioned
perceptual input that is available but is ordinarily not accessed. It
may even be "blanked out" to avoid accessing it. There certainly seems
to be resistance to becoming aware of sensory input that contradicts the
categorization of the [p] of spin as identical to the [p`] of pin and in
contrast to the b of bin. After s, there is no phonemic contrast that
may be represented by voiced sounds vs voiceless aspirated sounds.
I am about four exchanges behind now. There may be some delay before I
can respond in detail to the various comments received today. By then, I
expect there will be more, so I will try to work concisely with all at
once rather than scattering scarce resources in cascading interchanges.
Bruce
bn@bbn.com