Ch.9 Language & Thought Flashcards
What is Language?
a system for communicating via signals grammatically arranged to convey meaning
What is Grammar?
The rules that symbols and signals must follow to convey meaning
What is a Phoneme?
short sounds recognizable as speech, rather than random noise; 100 possible; about 40 in English
What are Morphemes?
the smallest unit of meaningful sound; (Pat); can be combined with other Morphemes to make longer words; (Paternal)
What are Syntax Rules?
rules that indicate how words can be combined to form phrases and sentences.
What is Deep structure?
The meaning that you are trying to convey
What is Surface structure?
How you word a sentence to try and convey a meaning
Children learn language…
quickly and make few errors
Children develop…
passive mastery faster than active mastery
Infants can distinguish between all phonemes up until…
6 months of age
What is fast mapping?
the fact that children can map a word onto an underlying concept after only a single exposure
Children don’t only imitate, they…
develop implicit understanding of grammar
What is overgeneralization?
During the ages of 3-4, children overgeneralize the rules of grammar; “run” to “raned”
What are the three theories of language development?
the behaviorist, nativist, and interactionist
What is the behaviorist theory of language development?
it states that language is learned through operant conditioning and imitation
What is the nativist theory of language development?
it states that language is innate; (inborn)
What is the interactionist theory of language development?
it states that language is learned mainly by social interactions
What does Broca’s area do?
produces language
What does Wernicke’s area do?
comprehends language
Where are the Broca and Wernicke areas located in the brain?
left hemisphere
What do the Broca’s and Wernicke’s equivalents do in the right side of the brain?
“Broca”- expresses emotion
“Wernicke”- detects changes in language (emotion)
What is Aphasia?
difficulty in producing or understanding language
What is Broca’s aphasia?
difficulty producing language
What is Wernicke’s aphasia?
difficulty understanding language
What is the linguistic relativity hypothesis?
states that language shapes the way we think
What is a concept?
a mental representation that categorizes objects, events, and stimuli
What is the family resemblance theory?
members of a category have similar characteristics, but not all of them do
What is the prototype theory?
people compare stimuli to a “prototype” in their mind
What is a prototype?
the “best” or “typical” member of a category
What is the Exemplar theory?
comparing new instances with memories of other instances of the same category
What is a category-specific deficit?
the inability to recognize objects in a certain category; can categorize animals, but not books or shoes
What is the rational choice theory?
states that we make decisions by determining how likely something is to happen; judging the value of the outcome and multiplying times two
What is the expected value of a coin flip for $100?
.5 x $100 = $50
What is the expected value of a roll of the dice for $500?
.17 x $500 = $85
We are good at estimating….. but not….
frequency (one in fifty); probability (2%)
What is the frequency format hypothesis?
states that our minds evolved to notice how frequently things occur, not how likely they are to occur
What are Heuristics?
fast and efficient strategies to facilitate decision making, but does not guarantee a solution
What are algorithms?
longer, well-defined sequences that guarantee a solution
What is availability bias?
items that are more readily available in memory are judged as having occurred more frequently
What is a Conjunction fallacy?
when people think that two events are more likely to occur together than either individual event
What is a Representativeness heuristic?
making a probability judgement by comparing an object or event to a prototype of the object or event
What are Framing effects?
when people give different answers to the same problem depending on how the problem is phased
What is the Sunk-cost fallacy?
people tend make decisions on the current situation based on what they have invested in it.
What is Loss aversion?
losses outweigh gains of equal magnitude
What is confirmation bias?
looking at the information that confirms our preconceptions, and ignoring the information that contradicts that.
What are phonological rules?
they indicate how phonemes can be combined to produce speech sounds.
What are morphological rules?
they indicate how morphemes can be combined to form words.
What are content morphemes?
they refer to things and events; cat, dog, take
What are function morphemes?
they serve grammatical functions; and, or, but, when
What is telegraphic speech?
sentences that consist mostly of content words (lack function morphemes); “throw ball”
The behaviorist explanation of language development does not account for the fact that…
- parents don’t spend much time teaching grammar
- children generate many more grammatical sentences than they ever hear
- children overgeneralize; cannot be explained by learning purely out of trial and error
What is a language acquisition device (LAD)?
a collection of processes that facilitate language learning; equipped in the brain
what is genetic dysphasia?
a syndrome characterized by the inability to learn the grammatical structure of language despite having otherwise normal intelligence
Nativist theories are often criticized because…
They do not explain HOW language develops
Learning a second language….
increases the density and ability of the left parietal lobe to handle linguistic demands.
Concepts allow us to…
make sense of the world
What is the prospect theory?
states that people choose to take on risk when evaluating potential losses and avoid risks when evaluating potential gains.
The certainty effect states that…
people give greater weight to outcomes that are a sure thing.
What is the frequency format hypothesis?
our minds evolved to notice how frequently things occur, not how likely they are to occur.
An ill-defined problem…
does not have a clear goal or well-defined solution paths.
A well-defined problem…
has clear, specific goals and clearly defined solution paths
Means-ends analysis…
is a process of searching for the means or steps to reduce the differences between the current situation and the desired goal.
What are the steps in a means-ends analysis?
- analyze the goal state
- analyze the current sate
- list the differences between the current state and the goal state
- reduce the list of differences by: direct means, generating a subgoal, and finding a similar problem with a known solution
Analogical problem solving:
attempting to solve a problem by finding a similar problem with a known solution and applying that solution to the current problem.
Compound remote associates:
being shown three words and coming up with a solution either by insight or analytical solving
Functional fixedness is…
the tendency to perceive the functions of an object as fixed
Reasoning is…
a mental activity that consists of organizing information or beliefs into a series of steps to reach conclusions.
Practical reasoning:
figuring out what to do, or reasoning directed toward action
Theoretical reasoning:
reasoning directed toward arriving at a belief
syllogistic reasoning:
assessing whether a conclusion follows from two statements that we assume to be true
belief-laden reasoning
logical reasoning influenced by prior beliefs
belief-neutral reasoning
logical reasoning not influence by prior beliefs
People with damage to the pre-frontal cortex are prone to:
risky decision making
