Psych Chapter 9: Thinking and LanguageThinking- Cognitiono Refers to all the activities associated with thinking including knowing, remembering and communicatingo Concepts: a mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas or people Give us so much information with little amount of words Organize our concepts into hierarchies which further categorize Form our concepts through definition- i.e. learning that a triangle has three sides most often form our concepts through prototypes- a mental image or best example that incorporates all the features we associate in a category - Solving Problemso Trial and error Thomas Edison and the light bulbo Algorithm A methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem. Contrasts with the usually speedier, but more error prone heuristicso Heurisitics A simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently, usually speedier and more error proneo Insight A sudden and often novel realization of the solution to a problem, it contrasts with strategy based solutions o Obstacle to Problem Solving Confirmation bias- A major obstacle to problem solving - We seek evidence verifying our ideas eagerly than evidence that might refute it - Ex: war in Iraq. Thought had nuclear weapons. Sought information to support, but not to refute Fixation- The inability to see a problem from a fresh perspective - When we incorrectly approach a problem it is difficult to restructure how to approach it - Mental set: predisposes how we thinko Refers to our tendency to approach a problem with the mind-set of what hasworked for us previouslyo Impedes the ability to solve new problems- Functional fixednesso To think of only familiar functions for objects without imagining another use - Making Decisions and Forming judgementso Follow intuition rather than making judgments systematically o Using and Misusing Heuristics The representative heuristic- Judging the likelihood of things in terms of how well they seem to represent, match, particular prototypes may lead us to ignore relevant information The availability heuristic- Estimating the likelihood of an event based on their availability from memory; if instances normally come to mind we presume such events are common- How easily it can pop into mind due to distinctiveness or vividness- Ex: if someone from a certain ethnic group commits a terrorist attack, we are more likely to think of that group as terrorists because the information is vivid Overconfidence- A tendency to overestimate our knowledge and judgments Exaggerated fear- The opposite of having overconfidence is having an exaggerated fear about what may happen. Such fears may be unfounded.- The 9/11 attacks led to a decline in air travel due to fear. The belief perseverance phenomenon- Often fuels social conflict - In a study of the relation of capital punishment and crime, both sides studied two supposedly new research findings, one supporting and the other refuting the claim that the death penalty deters crime. Each side was more im- pressed by the study supporting its own beliefs, and each readily disputed the other study. Thus, showing the pro– and anti–capital-punishment groups the same mixed evidence actually increased their disagreement. The perils and power of intuition - Intuition: an effortless, immediate feeling or thought as contrasted with explicit, conscious reasoning- Allow us to react quickly and adaptively, but often cause errors in judgment - Intuition is born from experiences, just like good nurses learn to make rapid judgment The effects of framing - Framing: the way an issue is pose: how an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and judgments - Taking the same information but presenting it in different wayso A surgeon tells the patient that they have 10% chance of dying and another that they have 90% chance of living, but the response is not the sameLanguage- Our spoken, written, or signed words and the ways that we combine them to communicate meaning - Structureo Phonemes In language, the smallest distinct sound unit The first thing developed in language Change in phenomes provide change in meaning Reason why one language has trouble learning another due to different phonemeso Morphemes The second building block, the smallest unit of language that carries meaning Prefixes and suffixes as well as some phenemes like I or a o Grammar Grammar: a system of rules in a given language that enables us to communicate with and understand others Semantics: is the set of rules that we use to derive meaning from morphemes And words and sentences- Like added -ed to laugh is in the past Syntax: refers to the rules we use to organize words into sentences- Developmento When do we learn language? Receptive language- Start without language and buy four months can discriminate speech sounds- They look at the lips to distinguish what motion makes what sound- By seven months segment language into words Productive Language- Ability to produce words after the receptive phase- Babbling stage: beginning at about 4 months, the stage of development in which the infant spontaneously utters various sounds at first unrelated to the household language- By 10 months, the babbling sounds like the native language of the household- Around age one most children reach the one-word phaseo That stage in speech (from 1 to 2) during which a child speaks in single wordso One-Word Stage: Beginning at or around his first birthday, a child starts tospeak one word at a time and is able to make family members understand him. The word doggy may mean look at the dog out there.- At 18 months learn a word a day rather than a word per week and enter the two word stage o When the child utters words in telepathic speecho Normally consists of verb and a nouno Two-Word Stage: Before the 2nd year, a child starts to speak in two-word sentences. This form of speech is called telegraphic speech because the child speaks like a telegram: “Go car,” means I would like to go for a ride in the car.- Longer Phraseso Longer phrases: After telegraphic speech, children begin uttering longer phrases (Mommy get ball) with syntactical sense, and by early elementary school they are employing humor.o Explaining Language Development Skinner: Operant Learning - Can explain development through o Association (of sights with words)o
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