chapter 8 - thinking, reasoning and language Flashcards
thinking
any mental activity or processing of information
-learning, remembering, perceiving
cognitive misers
invests as little mental energy as possible unless neccesary to do again
-allows for cognitive economy
heuristics
mental shortcuts to increase our thinkning effciency
cognitive economy
allows us to simplify what we attend to and keep the infromation we need for decision making to a manageable minimum
-short cut (top down processing —> automatic)
-best use of thinking capacity
how is cognitive economy a mixed blessing
lead us to faulty conclusions
-occasionally be wildly wrong
cognitive biases
systematic error in thinking
representatitve heuristic
heuristic that involves judging the probability of an event on how prevalent that event has been in past expereince
avaliability heuristic
we estimate the likelihood of an occurence based on how easily it comes to our minds
hindsight bias
tendancy to overestimate how well we knew something, after its happened
-feel like we knew what it was before, only because we saw the answer
linguistic determinism
suggests we cannot expereince thought without language
-thought represented verbally
-not very strong argument
Top down processing
Using prior knowledge to influence responses
-build off of what we already know
-fast and efficient
-categories and schemas
Concepts
Where we make categories to sort
schema
Very quickly access information, by organizing like by like
Bottom up processing
Brain processes only information it receives, does not fill in the gap
-constructing meaning in that moment
Automaticity
Muscle memory, a feature of top down processing
-how to walk, don’t need to think to do it
Dechunking
Take the skill and break it into multiple parts
Extreme version of top down processing
Linguistic determinism
Linguistic relativity
Characteristics of language shape our through processes
-sapir whorf hypothesis
Sapir whorf hypothesis
Some domains are more influenced by language than others
-linguistic relatively
-interpretation more directed at language—> meaning—> relayed in words (crashed versus bumped)
Strop interference tasks
Automaticity can interfere with our ability to think about what is just in front of us, since it forces us into top down processing
-as you get better at reading, the worse you do in this test
Language and reading
Are highly practiced and become automatic
-because of prior knowledge
Strop effect wont happen
If you don’t understand the language
-don’t have top down processing or automaticity
Language influences
The way we think
Language
-serves as social and emotional
-textbook definition**