Chapter 10 Key Terms

Question 1

the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating

Answer 1

Cognition

Question 2

a mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people

Answer 2

Concepts

Question 3

a mental image or best example of a category

Answer 3

Prototypes

Question 4

a methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem

Answer 4

Algorithm

Question 5

a simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgements and solve problems efficiently; usually speedier but also more error-prone than algorithms

Answer 5

Heuristic

Question 6

a sudden and often novel realization of the solution to a problem; it contrasts with strategy-based solutions

Answer 6

Insight

Question 7

a tendency to search for information that confirms one’s perceptions

Answer 7

Confirmation bias

Question 8

the inability to see a problem from a new perspective; impediment to problem solving

Answer 8

Fixation

Question 9

a tendency to approach a problem in a particular way, often a way that has been successful in the past

Answer 9

Mental set

Question 10

the tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual functions; an impediment to problem solving

Answer 10

Functional fixedness

Question 11

judging the likelihood of things in terms of how well they seem to represent, or match, particular prototypes; may lead one to ignore other relevant information

Answer 11

Representativeness heuristic

Question 12

estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; if instances come readily to mind (perhaps b/c its vivid), we presume such events are common

Answer 12

Availability heuristic

Question 13

the tendency to be more confident than correct; to overestimate the accuracy of one’s beliefs and judgements

Answer 13

Overconfidence

Question 14

the way an issue is posed; how an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and judgements

Answer 14

Framing

Question 15

the tendency for one’s preexisting beliefs to distort logical reasoning, sometimes by making invalid conclusions seem valid, or valid conclusions seem invalid

Answer 15

Belief bias

Question 16

clinging to one’s initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited

Answer 16

Belief perseverance

Question 17

our spoken, written, or signed words and the ways we combine them to communicate meaning

Answer 17

Language

Question 18

in a language, the smallest distinctive sound unit

Answer 18

Phonemes

Question 19

in a language, the smallest unit that carries meaning; may be a word or a part of a word (such as a prefix)

Answer 19

Morpheme

Question 20

in a language, a system of rules that enables us to communicate with and understand others

Answer 20

Grammar

Question 21

the set of rules by which we derive meaning from morphemes, words, and sentences in a given language; also, the study of meaning

Answer 21

Semantics

Question 22

the rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences in a given language

Answer 22

Syntax

Question 23

ability to comprehend speech

Answer 23

receptive language

Question 24

ability to produce words

Answer 24

productive language

Question 25

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

Answer 25

Babbling stage

Question 26

the stage in speech development, from about age 1 to 2, during which a child speaks mostly in single words

Answer 26

One-word stage

Question 27

beginning at about age 2, the stage in speech development during which a child speaks mostly two-word statements

Answer 27

Two-word stage

Question 28

early speech stage in which a child speaks like a telegram - “go car” - using mostly nouns and verbs and omitting auxiliary words

Answer 28

Telegraphic speech

Question 29

all languages have the same grammatical building blocks that underlies all human language

Answer 29

universal grammar

Question 30

Over time, we grasp specific phonemes, morphemes, words, and sentences, and the rules by which we can combine them; Chomsky called it this

Answer 30

surface structure

Question 31

While deciphering surface structure, we also learn to discern its meanings; Chomsky called it this

Answer 31

deep structure

Question 32

A period for mastering certain aspects of language during childhood

Answer 32

critical period

Question 33

Whorf’s hypothesis that language determines the way we think

Answer 33

Linguistic determinism

Question 34

ability to learn to inhibit one language while using their other language and helps better able to inhibit attention to irrelevant information

Answer 34

Bilingual advantage

Question 35

told to imagine the destination you want to achieve

Answer 35

Outcome stimulation

Question 36

told to imagine how you are going to get to the destination you want

Answer 36

Process stimulation