Chapter 8: Thought and Language Flashcards
_____: the mental
representation of an object,
event, or idea
Concept
_____: clusters
of interrelated
concepts
Categories
Rule-based categorization
is… _______:
Membership in a category
is all-or-none and all
members are equal
Definition-based
ex: all birds are recognized as birds, no matter how different they may look
______:
Members of category
vary in typicality
Graded Membership
alters response time, may take longer to recognize more obscure members
what does high typicality mean? low?
high typicality means we automatically can place an object/thing (ex: an apple has high typicality as a fruit)
low typicality: more obscure objects, harder to place, takes more time (olives arent as recognizable as fruits)
______: mental
representations of an
average category
member
prototypes
explains graded membership
_____: categorization made by comparing stimulus to an
available example from memory (i.e., whatever comes to mind)
Exemplars
______ provide information about typicality, ______
provide information about variability within a category
Prototypes
exemplars
Categories and concepts organized from general
to more specific in a ______
semantic network
do semantic networks have hierarchial organization?
yes! subordinate, basic, superorindate
______: Language influences how we experience the world
Linguistic relativity hypothesis
________:
Faster and more accurate
discrimination of stimuli
that straddle a colour
boundary
Categorical Perception
if we have specific, different names for colours, our reaction time might be faster if we can separate the colours in our mind when given multiple shades of similar colours
_____: common repertoire of thought
and perception that then influences all languages
Universalist view
believes everyone is equal in same way
T/F: Languages guide what we pay attention to,
then attention shapes our cognition
true
T/F: Languages evolve along predictable lines
true!
what view is opposite from linguistic relativity?
universalist view
_____: strategies based on following a series of rules
Algorithms
trying EVERYTHING in a specific order, how a computer has to solve things
_____: strategies that rely on our prior experiences
Heuristics
mental shortcuts, educated guesses
what are our two approaches to solving problems?
algorithms and heuristics
_____: Can result from rote
learning during problem
solving with no deeper
understanding of problem
developed
mental set
when we’re stuck in our ways… believe/trust things that may not be accurate anymore
______: Occurs when an individual can only think of
an object’s most obvious function
functional fixedness
ex: people not recognizing they can use the box to help them stand a candle up against the wall
_______: mistaken belief that finding a
specific member in two overlapping categories is
more likely than finding any member of one of the
larger, general categories
Conjunction fallacy
_______: Making judgments of
likelihood based on how
well an example
represents a specific
category
explains gambling, law of small numbers
representative heuristic
explain base-rate neglect with doctor/lawyer question
Decided based on whether the person resembles their
conception of a lawyer or
engineer (when given a short description of person), rather than using
base-rate likelihood… if theres 70 lawyers in a room and 30 engineers, probs more likely they’re a lawyer
what is the Monty Hall problem? what does it show?
The Monty Hall Problem shows that the best strategy is to always switch doors after Monty reveals a goat. While it might seem like a 50/50 situation after Monty opens a door, the correct probabilistic reasoning reveals that switching gives a 2/3 chance of winning, while staying with the original choice only gives a 1/3 chance.
This counterintuitive result can be difficult to grasp at first, but it highlights the importance of understanding probability and how new information (Monty revealing a goat) affects the odds of different outcomes.
______: Estimating the frequency of
an event based on how easily
examples of it come to mind
availability heuristic
Frequency information
substituted with ease of
examples coming to mind
what can impact our availability heuristic tendencies?
constant media exposure to
certain events can provide an
example that is ‘top of mind’… makes shark attacks seem likely, makes planes seem scary (their incidents are over-reported because they’re so rare!)
T/F: Emotional memories are particularly influential for
our availability heuristic
true!
ex: nuclear power is our best option for climate change, but people emotionally remember chernobyl so they’re innately scared of it… even though its now super safe!
Participants asked to
provide either 6 or 12
examples from their life
when they acted in an
assertive manner, what were the results? how does availability heuristic have an impact?
when having to think of LESS answers, people come up with them quicker… convince themselves they MUST be more assertive as a person since they so easily came up with six examples
opposite with 12, took more time = less assertive
how does framing a question affect our judgement?
we notice extremes more often, because we’re constantly trying to justify our decisions we will pick things that can justify our thinking
ex: if we frame things as a loss, people become more risk adverse because they don’t want to be wrong/ruthless
how are two ways we use framing in the real world?
political polls- using names (ex: obamacare)
sales and negotiating tactics: anchor people to original price, make them believe sale is so good they cant pass up!
______: Tendency to readily
accept evidence
consistent with our
beliefs and to ignore
information that
refutes them
belief perseverance
any counter evidence is resisted
______: Tendency to
search only for
evidence that will
confirm our
beliefs instead of
for evidence that
might disconfirm
them
confirmation bias
what does the Four Card task work?
“if a card has a vowel on one side, then it must have an even number on the other side”
people tend to only want to flip cards that are confirming of this theory, when we would really want to flip one card to confirm, one to disconfirm
we tend to not seek out disconfirming evidence!
how does confirmation bias affect conspiracy theories?
Challenging information
reinterpreted to fit with
current beliefs
its biased, people only internalize info they want to hear
