Chapter 9 Flashcards
Thinking and Language
All the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communication
Cognition
a mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people
Concept
a mental image or best example of a category
Prototype
A methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem.
Algorithm
a simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently; usually speedier but also more error-prone than algorithms
Heuristic
a sudden realization of a problem’s solution
Insight
a tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence
Confirmation Bias
in thinking, the inability to see a problem from a new perspective; an obstacle to problem solving.
Fixation
a tendency to approach a problem in one particular way, often a way that has been successful in the past
Mental Set
an effortless, immediate, automatic feeling or thought, as contrasted with explicit, conscious reasoning
Intuition
estimating the likelihood of events in terms of how well they represent, or match, particular prototypes; may lead us to ignore other relevant information
Representativeness Heuristic
estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; if instances come readily to mind (perhaps because of their vividness), we presume such events are common
Availability Heuristic
the tendency to be more confident than correct—to overestimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgments.
Overconfidence
clinging to one’s initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited
Belief Perserverance
the way an issue is posed; how an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and judgments.
Framing
the ability to produce novel and valuable ideas
Creativity
narrows the available problem solutions to determine the single best solution
Convergent Thinking
expands the number of possible problem solutions (creative thinking that spreads in different directions)
Divergent Thinking
our spoken, written, or signed words and the ways we combine them to communicate meaning
Language
in language, the smallest distinctive sound unit
Phoneme
in a language, the smallest unit that carries meaning; may be a word or a part of a word (such as a prefix)
Morpheme
in a language, a system of rules that enables us to communicate with and understand others
Grammar
beginning at about 4 months, the stage of speech development in which the infant spontaneously utters various sounds at first unrelated to the household language
Babbling Stage
the stage in speech development, from about age 1 to 2, during which a child speaks mostly in single words
One-Word Stage
beginning about age 2, the stage in speech development during which a child speaks mostly two-word statements
Two-Word Stage
early speech stage in which a child speaks like a telegram—”go car”—using mostly nouns and verbs.
Telegraphic Speech
impairment of language, usually caused by left hemisphere damage either to Broca’s area (impairing speaking) or to Wernicke’s area (impairing understanding).
Aphasia
hbrain area involved in language comprehension; usually in left temporal lobeelps control language expression- an area of the frontal lobe, usually in the left hemisphere, that directs the muscle movements involved in speech
Broca’s Area
brain area involved in language comprehension; usually in left temporal lobe
Wernicke’s Area
Whorf’s hypothesis that language determines the way we think
Linguistic Determinism
