Ch 9 - Language and Thought Flashcards
agrammatism
a neurological condition arising from damage to a brain region just anterior to Broca’s area, where the patient is incapable of using words in grammatical sequence.
availability heuristic
judging easily-recalled events as more common.
bounded rationality
the fact that in many situations, our ability to make clear rational decisions is limited or “bounded” by things like a lack of information, time constraints, or emotions attached to aspects of the problem we are trying to solve.
Broca’s aphasia
a neurological condition arising from damage to Broca’s area where the patient is unable to produce coherent speech.
Broca’s area
a brain region located in the frontal lobe that is important for speech production.
child-directed speech
speech characterized by exaggerated emotional responses and a slower pace that is cross-culturally common among caregivers communicating with babies and young children.
cognition
mental processes of thinking and knowing.
cognitive control
the ability to direct thought in accord with one’s intentions.
decision making
evaluating and choosing from among options.
dysexecutive syndrome
impairments in the ability to control and direct mental activities.
executive function
the brain’s ability to control and manage the mental processing of information.
functional fixedness
tendency to view objects as having only one function.
heuristic
a shortcut thinking strategy.
lexical meaning
dictionary meaning of a word.
linguistic relativity hypothesis
hypothesis suggesting that the vocabulary available for objects or concepts in a language influences how speakers of that language think about them.
mental imagery
picturing things in your mind.
mental set
tendency to use problem-solving strategies that have worked in the past.
metacognition
thinking about one’s own thoughts.
morpheme
the smallest units of a language that convey meaning.
obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
a mental disorder associated with abnormal anxiety-provoking thoughts that can lead to ritualistic behaviours.
overregularization
the process by which elementary school children over-apply newly learned grammatical rules to improperly “correct” an irregular part of speech, such as a verb (e.g., “goed” instead of “went”).
phoneme
the smallest unit of sound in a language; an individual sound such as ba, da, or ta
phonology
the study of how individual sounds or phonemes are used to produce language.
pragmatics
the practical aspects of language usage, including speech pace, gesturing, and body language.
representativeness heuristic
the assumption that individuals share characteristics of the category of which they are a member.
schizophrenia
a mental disorder characterized by disorganized thoughts, lack of contact with reality, and sometimes auditory hallucinations.
semantics
the study of how meaning in language is constructed of individual words and sentences.
sensitive period
a point in development during which the brain is more susceptible to influences.
speech
the expression of language through sounds.
syntax
the system for using words (semantics) and word order to convey meaning (grammar).
telegraphic speech
speech that consists of minimalistic sentences; characterizes early toddlerhood and is the first evidence of sentence formation.
theory of mind
an awareness of one’s own mental states and the mental states of others.
Wernicke’s aphasia
a neurological condition associated with damage to Wernicke’s area where a person cannot understand language.
Wernicke’s area
a brain region located in the temporal lobe that is important for language comprehension.
symbolic
Sounds/words, and now emojis represent things in our world e.g., bell= class change; sound of “tsk-tsk’ = shame
Generative
Symbols can be combined to generate new meanings
Phonemes
smallest unit of sound that can be distinguished e.g., “p” sound in “pansy”; “ng” sound in “string”
Words
unit of sound with meaning. Can be combined with morphemes to generate new words (un+real)
Phases/sentences
rules for arranging words into sentences = syntax
overextensionerrors
whereby they apply a word to a wider category than it should be applied to.
overextension error example
might use the word ‘doggie’ to apply to all pets
underextensionerrors
whereby they apply a word to a narrower category than it should be applied to.
Underextension error example
may think the word cat refers only to the family cat, but not a cat outside the house
telegraphic speech
whereby children begin to use 2-3 word combinations, using the most necessary words.
overregulations
-over-applying grammar rules.For instance, while adding the suffix ‘ed’ to imply past tense is often correct (e.g., I gratedthe cheese), children often apply it incorrectly
Overregulations example
“I goedto the zoo” or, “two mans”
Whorf hypothesis
argues that language determines our ability to express thought.
4 Barrier of problem solving
- Irrelevant information
- functional fixedness
- mental sets
- unnecessary constraints
Irrelevant information
Focusing on the irrelevant information distracts us from processing the relevant information.
Functional fixedness
occurs when we think of an item in terms of its most common use rather than having other functions
Unnecessary constraints
we put constraints on a problem that may not necessarily have to be there, and if we remove them, we could resolve the problem.
6 techniques to get around barriers of problems
- algorithm
- sub-goal
- work backwards
- analogies
- changing the representation
- incubation effect
algorithm
is a step by step procedure for trying all possible alternatives
Sub-goals
break down the problem into tasks
Work backwards
This is an important tactic forprospective thinking, whereby you have to think ahead in the future to understand what is required of you now.
Analogies
transferring information from one source to another
Incubation effect
solutions arise after time away from a problem
humans tend to have what 4 cognitive biases
- availability heuristic
- representative heuristic
- confirmation bias
- framing bias
availability heuristic
the more available something is in our mind, the more common we think it is
representative heuristic
we think one event is representative of all events- stereotypes
Confirmation bias
we seek out information that confirms our beliefs
Framing Bias
how choices are structured affects our decision
