Chapter 8 Flashcards
Acculturation
The degree to which a person is socially and psychologically integrated into a new culture.
Algorithm
A methodical, step-by-step procedure for trying all possible alternatives in searching for a solution to a problem.
Availability heuristic
Basing the estimated probability of an event on the ease with which relevant instances come to mind.
Belief perseverance
The tendency to hang on to beliefs in the face of contradictory evidence.
Bilingualism
The acquisition of two languages that use different speech sounds, vocabularies, and grammatical rules.
Cognition
The mental processes involved in acquiring knowledge.
Confirmation bias
The tendency to seek information that supports one’s decisions and beliefs while ignoring disconfirming information.
Conjunction fallacy
An error that occurs when people estimate that the odds of two uncertain events happening together are greater than the odds of either event happening alone.q
Decision making
The process of evaluating alternatives and making choices among them.
Fast mapping
The process by which children map a word onto an underlying concept after only one exposure to the word.
Field dependence–independence
Individuals’ tendency to rely primarily on external versus internal frames of reference when orienting themselves in space.
Framing
How issues are posed or how choices are structured.
Functional fixedness
The tendency to perceive an item only in terms of its most common use.
Gambler’s fallacy
The belief that the odds of a chance event increase if the event hasn’t occurred recently.
Heuristic
A strategy, guiding principle, or rule of thumb used in solving problems or making decisions.
Semantics
The area of language concerned with understanding the meaning of words and word combinations.
Syntax
A system of rules that specify how words can be combined into phrases and sentences.
Telegraphic Speech
Speech that consists mainly of content words; articles, prepositions, and other less critical words are omitted.
Theory of bounded rationality
Simon’s assertion that people tend to use simple strategies in decision making that focus on only a few facets of available options and often result in “irrational” decisions that are less than optimal.
Trial and error
Trying possible solutions sequentially and discarding those that are in error until one works.
Underextensions
Errors that occur when a child incorrectly uses a word to describe a narrower set of objects or actions than it is meant to.
Hill-climbing heuristic
Problem-solving approach that entails selecting the alternative at each choice point that appears to lead most directly to one’s goal.
Insight
In problem solving, the sudden discovery of the correct solution following incorrect attempts based primarily on trial and error.
Language
A set of symbols that convey meaning, and rules for combining those symbols, that can be used to generate an innite variety of messages.
- symbolic
- semantic
- generative
- structured
Language acquisition device (LAD)
An innate mechanism or process that facilitates the learning of language.
Linguistic relativity
The theory that one’s language determines the nature of one’s thought.
Mean length of utterance (MLU)
The average length of children’s spoken statements (measured in phonemes).
Mental set
Persisting in using problem-solving strategies that have worked in the past.
Metalinguistic Awareness
The ability to reect on the use of language.
Morphemes
The smallest units of meaning in a language.
Overextensions
Using a word incorrectly to describe a wider set of objects or actions than it is meant to.
Overregularization
In children, incorrect generalization of grammatical rules to irregular cases where they do not apply.
Phonemes
The smallest units of sound in a spoken language.
Problem solving
Active efforts to discover what must be done to achieve a goal that is not readily available.
Problem space
The set of possible pathways to a solution considered by the problem solver.
Representativeness heuristic
Basing the estimated probability of an event on how similar it is to the typical prototype of that event.
Risky decision making
Making choices under conditions of uncertainty.
emergentist theories
argue that the neural circuits supporting language are not prewired, but develop gradually in response to language learning experiences.
subjective utility
for a given individual, the personal worth of an uncertain outcome represents that outcome’s subjective utility
Evolutionary theorists
argue that the human mind is wired to think in terms of raw frequencies, rather than base rates and probabilities.
