Chapter 9 Flashcards
What is learning
Symbols that convey meaning, plus rules for combining these symbols, that can be used to generate an infinite variety of messages
Learning Structures
Phenome: The smallest unit of sound in a language, an individual sound
Example: the word pig has three phonemes: /p/, /i/, /g/
Phonology: Study of how individual sounds or phonemes are used to produce language
Semantics: Study of how meaning in language is constructed of individual words and sentences
Morpheme: Smallest unit of a language that conveys meaning
Example: Pig has two morphemes: pig and s
Lexical Meaning: Dicitionary meaning a word
Syntax: The system for using words [Semantics] and word orders to convey meaning [Grammer]
Pragmatics: the practical aspects of language ususage, including; speech pace, gesturing and body language
Provocal Learning: 2 – 4 months old
- Babies distinguished all phenemes, will later use for languages [cooing]
Babbling: 6 months old
- Meaningless experimental sounds procceding actual language
Symbolic Gestures: 11 months of age
First words: 1 year old
- Simple single-world talking begins
How Language Develops:
Telegraphic Speech: 2 yrs of age
- Simple [two words] sentences omitting all but essential words
Pragmatics: 3 yrs old
- Basic understanding of practical information regarding langauage
Grammer: 4 yrs old
- Basic rules of grammer are understood without formal education
Common Errors
Overextension: A child incorrectly uses a word to describe a wider sey of objects or actions then it is meant ot
- E.g: using dog for all animals
Underextension: A child incorrectly uses a word to describe a narrower set of objects or action than it is meant to
- E.g: using dog only to refer to their dog “sammy”
Overregularizations: Grammatical rules are incorrectly generalized to irregular cases where they do not apply
- E.g: “he hitted a home run” or “ I went home”
Can Animals Develop
Language
Chimpanzees CANNOT speak due to limiations in vocal appartus BUT they can do sign language
Kanzi, the Bonobo:
- Communicates using geometric symbols that signify words
- Can understand instructions to complete simple actions
Theories of Language
Behaviourist Theories: Learn language through imitations, reinforcement and conditioning
Nativist Theories:We have the ability to learn language
Interactionist Theories: Biology and experience both make important contributions to the development of language
Language Centers in The Brain
Broca’s Area: Critical for speech production
- Associated with grammar comprehension
Wernicke’s Area:
- Critical for language comprehension
- Located in temporal lobe
Bilingualism: Learning more Than One Language:
Research Findings: Smalller vocab. In one language combined vocab. Similar or slightly superior
Higher scores for middle-class bilingual subjects on attention and metalinguistic awareness
Slight disadvantage: in terms of language processing speed
Second language more easily aquired early in life
Greater acculturalism facilitates acquisition
Gender Differences In Language
Girls: score higher in english than boys in elementry school
Language production and comprehension tend to occur at eariler age in girls than boys
Problem solving: Active efforts to discover what must be done to achieve a goal that is not readily attainable
Three Classes of Problem Solving
- Problems of Inducing structure
- Problems of arrangement
- Problems of transformation
Barriers to Problem Solving:
Functional Fixedness: Tendency to preceive an item only in terms of its most common use
Functional Fixedness:
Jessica has a loose screw in her desk, but no screwdriver. How can she tighten it.
Barriers of Problem solving:
The importance of Flexiability: Insight: sudden recognition or reconception of a problem that clarifies the problem and suggest a feasible solution
Nine-Dot Problem:
- Connect all 9 dots
- Use only 4 lines
- Don not lift your pencil from the page after begin
Pigen Problem:
Nine pigs are kept in a square pen. Your job is to draw two more square enclosrues that would put each pig in a pen by itself.
Barriers to Effective Problem-solving:
Mental Set: Rigidity, tendency to respond in the most familiar way or ways that have worked in the past
Approach to Problem solving:
Algorithm: Step by step proccedure for solbing problems, prescriptions for solutions
Heuristic: Guiding principle or “Rule of Thumb” used in solving problems or making decisions
Working backwards Strategy: Heuristic in which one starts with the goal and moves backward to solve the problem
Problem-Solving
Analogical Thinking: Heuristic in which a person limits the search for solutions to situations that are similar to the one at hand.
Solving Problems:
26 = L of the A 7 = W of the W 12 = S of the Z 52 = C in the D 18 = H on the G.C 24 = H in D
Decision-Making
Decision Making
Evaluating alternatives and making choice
among them
Theory of bounded rationality:
People tend to use simple strategies in decision
making that focus on only a few facets of available
options and often result in “irrational” decisions that
are less than optim
Exaggerating the Improbable:
Availability Heuristic:
The tendency to judge the probability of an event by
how easy it is to think of examples or instances.
E.g., after September 11, most people overestimated
their odds of dying in a plane crash even though they
continued to take higher risks by driving in their c
Decision Making:
Representativeness heuristic: The strategy of
judging the likelihood of things by how well
they represent, or match, particular prototypes;
may lead one to ignore other relevant
information
The Conjunction Fallacy
This fallacy occurs when people estimate that
the odds of two uncertain events happening
together
Judgmental Overconfidence:
Overconfidence phenomenon: The tendency
to be more confident than correct – to
overestimate the accuracy of one’s belie
The Confirmation Bias:
The tendency to look for or pay attention only
to information that confirms one’s own belie
Peter Wason’s Four Card Problem
Each card has a letter on one side and a number on the other
[A] [D] [4] [7]
These four cards represent patrons in a bar, and each
card has their drink on one side and their age in years on
the other. Here is a rule about the four patrons:
If a patron is drinking a beer, then they must be 21 years
or older. Which card(s) do you NEED to turn over in order to determine if the rule is being followed
[BEER] [COKE] [35] [19]
