Chapter 8

Question 1

Thinking

Answer 1

Any mental activity or processing of information, including learning, remembering, perceiving, communicating, believing and deciding

Question 2

Cognitive economy

Answer 2

Invest as little energy as possible in processing

Question 3

Thin slicing

Answer 3

Judgments of people, for example, are often made quickly and on the basis of limited observation

Question 4

Cognitive bias

Answer 4

Systematic error in thinking

Question 5

Heuristics

Answer 5

are mental shortcuts to increase our thinking efficiency
Simplify what we attend to, minimize the information we need for decision-making

Question 6

Base rate

Answer 6

how common a behaviour or characteristic is in general

Question 7

Representative heuristic

Answer 7

involves judging the probability of an event by its superficial similarity to a prototype (a nerdy guy would be assumed to be a librarian but he could be an engineer)
– ignores base rate
-can lead to overgeneralizations
Ex: If you see a man wearing a business suit, carrying a briefcase, and talking confidently, you might assume he’s a CEO or businessman because he fits the typical representation of someone in that role, even though he could just be an office worker or a lawyer.

Question 8

Availability heuristic

Answer 8

involves estimating the likelihood of an occurrence based on the ease with which it comes to our minds

Ex: If you recently read about a few house fires in your area, you might start to feel that fires are more common than they actually are. Your mind is influenced by the ease with which you can recall recent examples, even though house fires are relatively infrequent.

Question 9

Hindsight bias

Answer 9

“I knew it all along” – our tendency to overestimate how well we could have predicted something after it has already occurred

Ex: After a political event, like an election result, you may say, “I knew that candidate would win all along!” even though, before the event, you were unsure or had no strong opinion. The knowledge of the outcome influences how you perceive the situation leading up to it.

Question 10

Top down processing

Answer 10

Streamlines cognitive functioning by utilizing pre-existing knowledge to fill in gaps

Question 11

Concepts

Answer 11

our knowledge and ideas about a set
of objects, actions, and characteristics
that share core properties
Ex: Chair: The concept “chair” includes various types of chairs—wooden chairs, office chairs, lounge chairs—all of which are used for sitting, even though they look different.

Question 12

Schemas

Answer 12

stored mental framework
They help us to mentally organize events that share core features, say, going to a restaurant, cleaning the house, or visiting the zoo.
As we acquire knowledge, we create schemas that enable us to know roughly what to expect in a given situation and to draw on our
knowledge when we encounter something new.

Question 13

Linguistic relativity

Answer 13

view that characteristics of language
shape our thought processes
this idea is also called the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, named after the two scholars who proposed it
Studies suggest language shapes some aspects of perception, memory, and thought
• Difficulty in separating language from cultural differences

Question 14

Linguistic determinism

Answer 14

view that all thought is represented
verbally and that, as a result, our
language defines our thinking

Evidence suggests that this is not the case
– Studies of brain activity while vocal cords are paralyzed
– Children can perform cognitive tasks before they can speak

Question 15

Decision making

Answer 15

The process of selecting among a set of possible alternatives
• Involves System 1 (rapid and intuitive) and System 2 (slow and analytical) thinking
• Many of our daily decisions are made implicitly and based on cognitive economy
• Makes sense to make bigger decisions more carefully, but overanalyzing can overwhelm us (“paralysis by analysis”)

Question 16

Framing

Answer 16

the way a question is formulated that can influence the decisions people make. the way the information is framed can lead people to react differently, often with the negative frame causing more anxiety or fear.

Question 17

Neuro economics

Answer 17

how the brain works while making financial decisions

Question 18

Algorithm

Answer 18

step-by-step learned procedure used to solve a problem (making a PBJ sandwich)

Question 19

Distributed cognition

Answer 19

refers to group problem solving in which multiple minds work together,
bouncing ideas off of each other and each contributing different ideas, knowledge, and per-
spectives. In other words, the thinking is distributed across multiple coordinated brains. Often
people think of solutions that wouldn’t have occurred to them after hearing someone else gener-
ate an idea.

Question 20

Salience of surface similarities

Answer 20

Ignoring irrelevant surface details and focusing on meaningful details can be challenging

Question 21

Mental set

Answer 21

phenomenon of becoming stuck in
a specific problem-solving strategy,
inhibiting our ability to generate
alternatives

Question 22

Functional fixedness

Answer 22

difficulty conceptualizing that an
object typically used for one purpose can be used for another

Question 23

Language

Answer 23

largely arbitrary system of
communication that combines symbols
(such as words and gestural signs) in
rule-based ways to create meaning
arbitrary: Its sounds, words, and sentences bear no clear relation to their meaning. For example, there’s nothing about the word dog that resembles a friendly, furry animal that barks.
Highly practiced and automatic process

Question 24

Phoneme

Answer 24

category of sounds our vocal
apparatus produces “k” “a” “b”

Question 25

Morpheme

Answer 25

smallest meaningful unit of speech Ex: morpheme in recall is "re" "ish"

Question 26

Semantic

Answer 26

is the study of meaning in language. It focuses on how words, phrases, sentences, and texts convey meaning

Question 27

Syntax

Answer 27

grammatical rules that govern how words are composed into meaningful strings

Question 28

Extra linguistic information

Answer 28

elements of communication that aren’t part of the content of language but are critical to interpreting its meaning. speaker’s nonverbal cues—such as his or her facial expression, posture, gestures

Question 29

Morphological markers

Answer 29

morphemes, which means they change the meaning of a word but they do so based on a grammati- cal rule. For example, in English, we add -s for plural, -ed for past tense, and -ing for ongoing action.

Question 30

Babbling

Answer 30

intentional vocalization that lacks meaning – emerges early (before 1 year) and allows babies to develop control over vocal tracts • Phoneme recognition also develops during this time (8, 10 and 12 months)

Question 31

Learning words

Answer 31

Comprehension precedes production. Children learn to recognize and interpret words well before—sometimes months before—they can produce them. That’s because they have only a limited ability to coor-dinate sounds to produce recognizable words. They may be perfectly aware that elephant refers to a large gray animal with a long trunk, but they may be unable to produce this big word. Recognize own name by 6 months, comprehend other words by 10-12 months • Begin to produce words around 1 year of age, with an exponential rate of increase • Tend to over (all men = daddy) - and under-extend (word cat = only their cat) word meanings

Question 32

Synatic development

Answer 32

Refers to combining words into phrases

Question 33

Sign language

Answer 33

Type of language used by deaf communities that relies on visual communication • Not simply gesturing; sign language exhibits all features of spoken language – Same brain areas are involved – Developmental stages are the same in spoken and sign languages – Deaf babies “babble” with their hands

Question 34

Bilingual

Answer 34

proficient and fluent at speaking and comprehending two distinct languages The earlier the better • Usually have one dominant language, but proficient in both • Pass through same stages as monolinguists, although syntax is slowed Not only can bilingual individuals con-verse with two language communities rather than one, but the process of figuring out how two languages work gives them heightened metalinguistic insight—awareness of how language is structured and used. As a result,they tend to perform better on language tasks in general.

Question 35

Metalinguistic

Answer 35

awareness of how language is structured and used

Question 36

Home sign

Answer 36

system of signs invented by children who are deaf and born of hearing parents and therefore receive no language input Younger you are the better you will learn a new language (“less is more” theory)

Question 37

Nativist

Answer 37

The strongest nature view is the nativist account, which says that children come into the world with some basic knowledge of how language works. Nativists propose that children are born with expectations that there will be syntactic rules that influence how sentences are constructed. Chomsky hypothesized that humans possess a specific language “organ” in the brain that houses these rules. He called it the language acquisition device and argued that it comes preprogrammed to enable children to use language. A key weakness of the nativist view is that many of its claims are difficult to falsify.

Question 38

Imitation

Answer 38

Suggests babies hear language used in systematic ways and learn to use language as adults use it • Does not account for generative nature of language – Allowing an infinite number of unique sentences to be created by combining words in novel ways

Question 39

General cognitive processing

Answer 39

Says that ability to learn language results from general skills children apply across a variety of activities • However, children learn language better than adults even though adults are overall better at learning things • Specific brain areas are recruited during language

Question 40

Social pragmatics

Answer 40

suggests that specific aspects of the social environment structure language learning. According to this model, children use the context of a conversation to infer its topic from the actions, expressions, gestures, and other behaviors of speakers. Requires assuming that infants have insight into others’ thoughts

Question 41

Accounts of language acquisition

Answer 41

Imitation • Nativist • Social pragmatics • General cognitive processing

Question 42

whole word recognition

Answer 42

How words look on the page

Question 43

Phonetic decomposition

Answer 43

How to sound out unfamiliar words