Ch9 THINKING Solving problems Identify current situation Identify goal Sub problems o Ex main problem how am I gonna get an A in psych111 Subproblem how am I going to get an A on the next quiz The next thought exercise lead to the ultimate goal of the A in the course Routines o Automatically Obstacles to problem solving and making faulty judgments Fixation Mental Set cognitive fixation o Ex the nine dot problem Exaggerating the improbable mixing up the recent events with the most frequent Ex tumor that is 95 benign but 5 malignant we focus our attention on what we heard last the worst case scenario Even though its just 5 we focus on the 5 o People scared of flying because in the news it s displayed like it happens all the time and therefore is exaggerated in their minds o Cognitively you know that flying is more safe than dangerous but you still think that flying is horrible o News displaying so much violence the world seems scarier than it is Ex old times the kids would just go out and play themselves then come back Nowadays the parents take the child to the friends house and picks them back up Avoiding loss buying lotto tickets They don t present it with your chances of losing but they present your chances of winning They don t post how many people lost at this deli but how many people won Confirmation bias we focus on things that relate to our beliefs With information we find consistent with what we believe we process it deeper Hindsight Bias I knew that was going to work after it has happened I thought that was a bad idea after it happened Availability Heuristic Overconfidence we tend to be confident about information we don t actually know Belief perseverance even when there s contradicting information we don t want to believe it THINKING How do we organize our thoughts 2 possibilities 1 Prototype the standard or prototype for what YOU think Based on YOUR instances of encounter a Ex looking at pictures of a cat we immediately recognize that it s a car When shown a hairless cat we re hesitant to answer that it s a cat because we re not used to cats not having fur 2 Schema hierarchically organized characteristics All the things that make up YOUR idea of whatever it is a Ex All the characteristics that make up dogs fur mammal carnivorous canine etc LANGUAGE Phonemes basic sounds of language the sounds that vowels and consonants make Each language has their own phonemes there s a lot of overlap o Babies make MORE phoneme sounds than they re hearing As they grow they focus on the sound of the language they re hearing If they hear a couple of different phonemes they ll learn phonemes from both o When we try to speak in a different language that doesn t have phonemes that we re used to accents Ex English language vs Spanish language The rolled r is not a phoneme in English so it s hard for some people to say it accents Morphemes basic meaning units of language roots of words suffixes prefixes anything that changes the meaning of a word Does NOT correspond to syllables o strange 1 morpheme o stranger 2 morphemes o strangers 3 morphemes o unforgettable 3 morphemes Un forget table NOT based on the syllables which would be 5 HUMAN LANGUAGE NATURE AND NURTURE Animal communication get out of my territory I want to mate you BUT they can t say what are we going to do tomorrow Human language can speculate about the future we can say things that are completely new and be able to understand them Novelty parents have to say things that are completely novel because children are unexpected Ex child dropping a battery in a glass of milk the mother says don t drop a battery in mommys drink it s a new statement but no explanation needed we understand what the mom s saying Recycled language how are you today 1 A role for nature Chomsky LAD language acquisition device allows us to understand and produce structure of language o Word order o Syntax Ex a kangaroo comes into class and everyone says a kangaroo And you say it to your baby and it says roo without thinking that it s something dangerous or harmful how do they know it s not a monster The structure of language 2 Lennerberg sensitive critical period for language 2 13y o and its more easily acquired during that period a Genie the Wild Child was not exposed to language Tied to a potty seat during the day placed in a sleeping bag at night restricting her mobility Raised in isolation until she was 13y o uncivilized i Could she learn language outside lennerberg s sensitive period She did learn to say a few words but not very well Even at the height of her language ability she didn t talk like a normal teen Knew words but had difficulty with language structure putting words together ii Dichotic listening headphones presenting conflicting sounds simultaneous in the left and right ear Most likely your right ear will be dominant for left hemisphere language Genie showed left ear right hemisphere for language Language missed the period didn t land on the correct hemisphere 1 Was placed in foster homes and was physically beaten and lost her language completely