Anjali Pillai Thinking PSYC 111 Chapter 9 Thinking and Language Concepts Cognition the mental activities associated with thinking knowing communicating and remembering Concept a mental grouping of similar objects events ideas or people Prototype a mental image or best example of a category Matching new items to a prototype provides a quick and easy method for sorting items into categories as when comparing feathered creatures to a prototypical bird such as a robin o Form concepts by developing prototypes More away from prototypes category boundaries blur Problem Solving Strategies and Obstacles Algorithm a methodical logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem Contrasts with the usually speedier but also more error prone use of heuristics 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 problem s solution contrasts with strategy based solutions Confirmation bias a tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence Mental set a tendency to approach a problem in one particular way often a way that has been successful in the past Intuition an effortless immediate automatic feeling or thought as contrasted with explicit conscious reasoning o Rationality problem solving skill Some problems trial and error Others algorithms or heuristics Sometimes sudden flash of insight o Might seek out evidence verifying our ideas and ignore other evidence Confirmation bias Fixation inability to see problem from fresh perspective Ex mental set Forming Good and Bad Decisions and Judgments Availability heuristic estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory if instances come readily to mind perhaps because of their vividness we presume such events are common Overconfidence the tendency to be more confident than correct to over estimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgments Framing the way an issue is posed how an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and judgments Belief perseverance clinging to one s initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited o The Availability Heuristic When we estimate likelihood of events based on how mentally available they are stray in judgment irrational o Overconfidence judgment fails again i e BP and stock brokers Experience fixes this People live happier if confident and make choices easily etc o Belief Perseverance o The effects of Framing Fuels social conflict consider the opposite Framing affects decisions i e 10 die v 90 live o The perils and powers of intuition Feed gut fears and prejudices Intuition is huge deliberate conscious thought is wise Intuition is usually adaptive react quickly Intuition is recognition born of experience implicit knowledge Do other species share our cognitive skills o Using concepts and numbers animals can sort objects into categories o Displaying insight not only creatures to display insight i e ape and long stick o Use tools and transmit culture i e chimps o Other cognitive skills baboon knows voices sheep can remember faces etc Do they exhibit language Language Language our spoken written or signed words and the ways we combine them to communicate meaning Language Structure Phoneme in a language the smallest distinctive sound unit Morpheme in a language the smallest unit that carries meaning may be a word or a part of a word such as a prefix Grammar in a language a system of rules that enables us to communicate with and understand others In a given language semantics is the set of rules for deriving meaning from sounds and syntax is the set of rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences o Phonemes i e b a t and consonants carry more info than vowels o Morphemes i e pre in preview o Language becomes more and more complex we can comprehend it Language Development Babbling stage beginning at about 4 months the stage of speech development in which the infant spontaneously utters various sounds at first unrelated to the household language One word stage the stage in speech development from about age 1 to 2 during which a child speaks mostly single words Two word stage beginning about age 2 the stage in speech development during which a child speaks mostly in two word statements Telegraphic speech early speech stage in which a child speaks like a telegram go car using mostly nouns and verbs o Learned about 60 000 words in native language b w 1st bday and hs grad Only 200 consciously taught in school roughly Can figure out language s rules of syntax and create appropriate sentences o When do we learn language Receptive language by 4 months can rec differences in speech sounds and read lips ability to understand what is said 7 months individual words Productive language produce words rec noun verb differences Babbling stage da da o 10 months babbling seems a little more like native tongue o Without exposure to more than one tongue hard to grasp later One word stage around first birthday Two word stage 2nd birthday telegraphic speech i e want juice Then to phrases then elementary school complex sentences Explaining language development Noam Chomsky languages share basic elements universal grammar o Born with built in predisposition to learn grammar rules o Not built with specific language Statistical Learning Critical Period o Syllables run together when listening to foreign tongue o Human infants can learn statistical aspects of human speech o People who learn 2nd language accent of first o Window closes in early childhood by age 7 i e Genie o Deaf children who learn sign after 9 not as well as English Not as fluent after that age o People who lose sensation in one area compensate elsewhere i e reading Braille The Brain and Language Aphasia impairment of language usually caused by left hemisphere damage either to broca s area impairing speaking or to Wernicke s area impairing understanding Broca s area controls language expression an area of the frontal lobe usually in the left hemisphere that directs the muscle movements involved in speech Wernicke s area controls language reception a brain area involved in language comprehension and expression usually in the left temporal lobe o Aphasia can result from damage to different cortical areas Some can speak but cant read good vision too Says language is
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