Chapter 9: Language and Thought Flashcards
Language
System for communicating with others using signals that are combined according to rules of grammar and that convey meaning
Grammar
Set of rules that specify how the units of language can be combined to produce meaningful messages
Human language
- Is more complex than other forms of communication
- Involves words representing intangible things
- Used to think and conceptualize (different
than other animal species)
Phoneme
Smallest unit of sound that is recognizable as speech rather than random noise
Phonological rules
Set of rules that indicate how phonemes can be combined to produce speech sounds (e.g.,’ts’ in German)
Morphemes
The smallest meaningful units of language (e.g., bat, pat); content (things/events) vs. function (grammatical - e.g., ‘s’ – plural)
Fast mapping
happens when kids, after just one exposure, associate a term with an underlying idea
Telegraphic (two-word) speech
occurs around 24 months and is devoid of function morphemes and consists mainly of content words (e.g., ‘more milk’, ‘throw ball’)
Behaviourist explanations (B.F. Skinner)
Language is learned through operant conditioning (e.g., reinforcement/punishment; hugs/smiles for ‘da’ vs. ‘pra’) and imitation.
Nativist theory
Language development is best explained as an innate biological capacity (Chomsky)
Interactionist explanation
Explains how social experience interacts with innate, biological language abilities (e.g., baby talk) to explain how language develops.
Aphasia
Difficulty in producing or comprehending language
Linguistic relativity hypothesis
Language shapes the nature of thought, the particular language one speaks influences the way one thinks about reality, Benjamin Whorf (1897–1941)
Concept
Mental representation that groups or categorizes shared features of related objects, events, or other stimuli. eg dog, bird
Necessary condition
a condition that must be present for an event to occur
Sufficient condition
a condition or set of conditions that will produce the event
Prototype theory
individuals make category judgments by comparing how similar the object is to a prototypical (or ideal) example of that category
Exemplar theory
individuals make category judgments by comparing new stimuli with instances already stored in memory (exemplar)
Category-specific deficit
problems with new word acquisition, storage and organization of known words, and lexical access/retrieval
Rational choice theory
Classical view that decisions are made by determining how likely something is to happen, judging the value of the outcome, and then multiplying the two
frequencies
People are good at estimating the frequency of an event
probabilities
People are poor at tasks that require thinking in terms of probabilities
Heuristics
a mental shortcut or rule of thumb that people use to make decisions but does not guarantee that a solution will be reached (e.g., availability, conjunction fallacy, representativeness)
Algorithm
The well-defined sequence of procedures or rules that guarantees a solution to a problem; in contrast to heuristics
Availability heuristic
makes us estimate the likelihood of an event based on our ability to recall similar events
Conjunction fallacy
People think that two events are more likely to occur together than either as an individual event
Representativeness heuristic
makes us estimate the probability of something based on the degree to which it resembles (or is representative of) a known situation
Framing effects
People give different answers to the same problem depending on how the problem is phrased (or framed); e.g.,70% success rate vs. 30% failure rate
Sunk-cost fallacy
People make decisions about a current situation based on what they have previously invested in the situation. E.g., outdoor concert ticket; Peter Pan; NBA Players
Prospect theory
People choose to take on risks when evaluating potential losses and avoid risks when evaluating potential gains. Two phases (e.g., apartment)
Means–ends analysis
Ends, or goals, are what we aim to do, and means are what we use to do what we aim to do, we focus on the ends first to reach to the means
Analogical Problem Solving
Solving a problem by finding a similar problem with a known solution and applying that solution onto the current problem
Functional fixedness
the tendency to see the functions of objects as unchanging
Reasoning
Mental activity that consists of organizing information or beliefs into a series of steps to reach conclusions (evaluated by logic)
Belief bias
Judgements about whether to accept conclusions depend more on how believable the conclusions are than on whether the arguments are logically valid
Syllogistic reasoning
a form of deductive argument where the conclusion follows from the truth of two (or more) premises
Illusory truth effect
describes how when we hear the same false information repeated again and again, we often come to believe it is true
Illusion of explanatory depth
describes our belief that we understand more about things than we actually do
