Chapter 4 Thought and Language Thinking Thinking or cognition is the mental activity of knowing and the processes through which knowledge is acquired and problems are solved While Chapt er 10 examines how cognition develops in children in this chapter section we begin by examining the building blocks of cognition namely concepts Key term Cognition The mental activity of knowing and the processes through which knowledge is acquired and problems are solved 4 1a Concept Formation Is a Basic Element of Co gnition A concept is a mental grouping of objects ideas or events that share com mon properties Markman 1999 For example the concept insect stands fo r a class of animals that have three body divisions head thorax abdomen six legs an external skeleton and a rapid reproductive system As you reca ll from our discussion of the semantic network model in Chapter 7 Section 7 2b concepts enable us to store our memories in an organized fashion Wh en one concept in our long term memory is activated other closely related concepts are also activated or primed Key term Concept A mental grouping of objects ideas or events that share common properties The primary means of coding experience by forming concepts is called c ategorization Rakison Oakes 2003 As a species we spontaneously ca tegorize things we experience Categorization is adaptive because it saves t ime and helps in making predictions about the future I know for example t hat if I eat an object from the concept cheese I am likely to enjoy the exper ience I also know that if I need medical attention I will likely receive it by s eeking out people from either of the concepts physician or nurse Like the h eart that pumps life giving blood throughout the body or the lungs that repl enish the oxygen in this blood humans could not survive without engaging i n categorization Key term Categorization The primary means of coding experience through the process of forming concepts We form some concepts by identifying defining features For instance if an animal has three body divisions six legs an external skeleton and a rap id reproductive system I would say it was an insect if it lacks one or Page 76more of these features I would not think of it as an insect Medin 1989 The problem with forming concepts by definition is that many familiar conce pts have uncertain or fuzzy boundaries This fact makes categorizing some members of familiar concepts more difficult than others To see an illustrati on of this point consider the objects included within the fuzzy boundaries of the concept cup in Figure 4 1 In one experiment when people were individ ually shown objects like this and asked to name them they were more likel y to abandon the cup label and identify the object as a bowl as its width increased relative to its depth Labov 1973 However the point at which t his shift occurred was gradual not fixed FIGURE 4 1 When Is This Object a Cup and When Is It a Bowl Findings such as these suggest that categorizing has less to do with the f eatures that define all members of a concept and more to do with the featu res that characterize the typical member of a concept This is the reason so me members of familiar concepts are easier to categorize than others they are better representatives of the concept Olson et al 2004 Rosch 1978 The most representative members of a concept are known as prototypes For example most people consider a German shepherd more doglike than a Chihuahua a robin more birdlike than a penguin and an undergraduate mo re student like at 20 years of age than at 65 For most of us German she pherds are doggier robins are birdier and 20 year olds are studentier because they more closely resemble our prototypes for their respective co ncepts than the alternative choices In fact the Chihuahua might be mistak enly categorized as a rat because it looks more ratty than doggy and t he older student might be mistaken for a college professor Key term Prototype The most representative member of a concept Which of these birds is more birdlike to you the robin in a or the penguin in b That is which of these birds is closer to your bird prototype Page 77 Our failure to correctly categorize things because they don t match our p rototype for that concept can lead to errors in decision making For instance if certain physical symptoms don t fit our flu prototype we may continue o ur normal activities thus worsening our condition and also infecting others Bishop 1991 Similarly we may turn our life savings over to a dishonest in vestment adviser because he looks like Honest Abe 4 1b We Employ a Number of Problem Solving S trategies One important way we use concepts is in problem solving which is the th ought process you use to overcome obstacles to reach your goals Pretz 20 08 There are a number of ways to problem solve A very simple strategy is trial and error which involves trying one possible solution after another u ntil one works In Chapter6 Section 6 2a we will learn about Edward Thorn dike s puzzle box experiments with hungry cats Through trial and error Th orndike s cats eventually learned how to escape from a puzzle box to reach a bowl of food In many species trial and error often provides responses tha t are important to survival Whether you are a lion cub discovering how best to attack your prey or a teenager finding the right tone of voice to use when asking someone for a date haphazardly trying various solutions until you st umble on one that works may be time consuming but it is often effective Key term Problem solving The thought process used to overcome the obstacles to reaching a goal Key term Trial and error A problem solving strategy that involves trying one possible solution after another until one works Unlike trial and error which does not guarantee success an algorithm is a problem solving strategy that involves following a specific rule or step by step procedure that inevitably produces the correct solution For example r ecently I needed to contact a student named John Smith I knew he lived in Milwaukee but I didn t know his phone number There are 40 John Smiths in the Milwaukee telephone directory One available strategy was to use an al gorithm that is simply phone all the John Smiths until I found the right one Assuming that my John Smith had a phone and that his number was listed t his strategy was guaranteed to work The drawback to algorithms however is that they are inflexible Further like trial and error they are time consuming