Chapter 8: Thinking, Reasoning, and Learning

Question 1

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

Answer 1

Thinking

Question 2

Systematic errors in thinking

Answer 2

Cognitive bias

Question 3

Heuristic that involves judging the probability of an event by its superficial similarity to a prototype

Answer 3

Representative heuristic

Question 4

How common a characteristic or behavior is in the general population

Answer 4

Base rate

Question 5

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

Answer 5

Availability heuristic

Question 6

Our tendency to overestimate how well we could have predicted something after it has already occurred

Answer 6

Hindsight bias

Question 7

Our knowledge and ideas about a set of objects, actions, and characteristics that share core properties

Answer 7

Concept

Question 8

The process of selecting among a set of possible alternatives

Answer 8

Decision making

Question 9

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

Answer 9

Functional fixedness

Question 10

Largely arbitrary system of communication that combines symbols in rule-based ways to create meaning

Answer 10

Language

Question 11

Category or sounds our vocal apparatus produces

Answer 11

Phoneme

Question 12

Smallest meaningful unit of speech

Answer 12

Morpheme

Question 13

Grammatical rules that govern how words are composed into meaningful strings

Answer 13

Syntax

Question 14

Elements of communication that aren’t part of the content of language but are critical to interpreting its meaning

Answer 14

Extralinguistic information

Question 15

Meaning derived from words and sentence

Answer 15

Semantics

Question 16

Language variation used by a group of people who share geographic proximity or ethnic background

Answer 16

Dialect

Question 17

Intentional vocalization that lacks specific meaning

Answer 17

Babbling

Question 18

Early period of language development when children use single-word phrases to convey an entire thought

Answer 18

One-word stage

Question 19

System of signs invented by children who are deaf and born of hearing parents and therefore receive no language input

Answer 19

Homesign

Question 20

Language developed by members of a deaf community that uses visual rather than auditory communication

Answer 20

Sign language

Question 21

Proficient and fluent at speaking and comprehending two distinct languages

Answer 21

Bilingual

Question 22

Awareness of how language is structured and used

Answer 22

Metalinguistic

Question 23

Allowing an infinite number of unique sentences to be created by combining words in novel ways

Answer 23

Generative

Question 24

Account of language acquisition that suggests children are born with some basic knowledge of how language works

Answer 24

Nativist

Question 25

Hypothetical organ in the brain in which nativists believe knowledge of syntax resides

Answer 25

Language acquisition device

Question 26

Account of language acquisition that proposes that children infer what words and sentences mean from context and social interactions

Answer 26

Social pragmatics

Question 27

View that kA thought is represented verbally and that, as a result, our language defines our thinking

Answer 27

Linguistic determinism

Question 28

View that characteristics of language shape our thought processes

Answer 28

Linguistic relativity (Sapir-Whorf hypothesis)

Question 29

Reading strategy that involves identifying common words based on their appearance without having to sound them out

Answer 29

Whole word recognition

Question 30

Reading strategy that involves sounding out words by drawing correspondences between printed sounds and letters

Answer 30

Phonetic decomposition