Chapter 9 psychology text book Thinking and Language - Thinking o Concepts  Cognition- the mental activites associated with thinking, knowing, remembering and communicating  Concepts- a mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas or people - Ex: the concept chair includes many iteams—high chair, recliner chair, desk chair… concepts simplify our thinking. With out them we would need a different name for everything  Prototype- a mental image or best example of a category. Matching new iteams to a prototype provides a quick and esay method for sorting iteams into catagories - Ex: people more quickly agree that a robin is a bird before agreeing a penguin is a bird because a robin more clearly resembles our bird prototype - Categorizing faces influence recollection—shown a face that was 70% cacasusion people tend to classify the face as Caucasian o Problem Solving: strategies and Obstacles  Problem solving stratagies - Algorithms-a methodical, logical rule or procedure that gaurentees solving a particular problem. Contrasts with the usally seedier—but also more error prone heuristis - Some problems we solve through trail and error o Ex:Thomas eddison with the light bulb - Heuristic- a simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently; usually speedier but also more error-prone than algorithms - Insight- a sudden realization of a problems solutuion; contrast with strategy based solutions - Conformation bias- a tendancy to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence - Mental set- a tendency to approach a problem a sertian way. Often a way that has been successful in the past o Forming good and bad Decisions  Intuition- an effortless, immediate automatic feeling or thought as contrasted with explicit, conscious reasoning  The Availability Heuristiic - Availability Heuristic- estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; if instances come readily to mind (perhaps because of vividness) we presume such events are common o Anything that “pops” in our mindo Can sometimes affect our judgment about people or event  Ex: if someone from a terrorist group comits a terrorist act as happened on 9/11 or readily available memory of the dramtic event might shape or impression of the whole group  We fear the wrong things. EX: flying because we play in our heads some air disaster  We fear letting our children walk to school or play outside because we play tapes or news casts or families whose children were abducted (even though its really not the norm) Over confidence - Over confidence- the tendency to be more confident than correct –to over estimate the accuracy of our belief and judgements  Belif perseverance - Belif perseverance- clinging to ones initial conceptions after the biais on which they were formed has been discredited  The effects of framing - Framing- the way an issue is posed. How an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and judgments - Ex: one Dr. says that 10% of patients die during this surgery another Dr. says 90% survive. The information is the same but the result is different - Why being an organ donor depends on where u live: In some countries the defualit option to be an organ donor is yes but after you can decide to opt out. In the U.S and many eurpoean countries the defalt option is no but you can opt for yes. There is nearly an 100% organ donor rate for the opt no countries vs the 25% from for the opt yes - Other book exaamples  The power of intuition - We often think that the more complex an issue or choice is the longer we should spend making a rational thought out decision. But psychologists have shown that its is actually better to let are brain do the work on the problem without thinking about it. - Intuition is usally adaptive o Do other species share our cognitive skills? Using concepts and numbers- even pigons can sort objects. When given a picture of an unseen chair the pigeon was able to press a key that signified chair. Displaying insight using tools and transmitting culture other cognitive skills  Language - Language  Language-our spoken, written or signed words and the way we combine them tocommunicate meaningo Language structure  Phonemes- the smallest distinctive sound in a language  Morphemes- in a language the smalles unit that carries meaning, it may be part of a word - Ex: a prefix  Grammer- in a language the system of rules that enables us to communicate with and understand others. In a given language, semantics is the set of rules forderiving meaning from sounds and syntax is the set of rules for combining wordsinto grammatically correct sentences o Language development o The brain Language o Do Other Species have Language - Thinking and Language o Language influences Thinking o Thinking in