Chapter 9: Language and Thought

Question 1

Language

Answer 1

System for communicating with others using signals that are combined according to rules of grammar and that convey meaning

Question 2

Grammar

Answer 2

Set of rules that specify how the units of language can be combined to produce meaningful messages

Question 3

Human language

Answer 3

• Is more complex than other forms of communication
• Involves words representing intangible things
• Used to think and conceptualize (different
  than other animal species)

Question 4

Phoneme

Answer 4

Smallest unit of sound that is recognizable as speech rather than random noise

Question 5

Phonological rules

Answer 5

Set of rules that indicate how phonemes can be combined to produce speech sounds (e.g.,’ts’ in German)

Question 6

Morphemes

Answer 6

The smallest meaningful units of language (e.g., bat, pat); content (things/events) vs. function (grammatical - e.g., ‘s’ – plural)

Question 7

Fast mapping

Answer 7

happens when kids, after just one exposure, associate a term with an underlying idea

Question 8

Telegraphic (two-word) speech

Answer 8

occurs around 24 months and is devoid of function morphemes and consists mainly of content words (e.g., ‘more milk’, ‘throw ball’)

Question 9

Behaviourist explanations (B.F. Skinner)

Answer 9

Language is learned through operant conditioning (e.g., reinforcement/punishment; hugs/smiles for ‘da’ vs. ‘pra’) and imitation.

Question 10

Nativist theory

Answer 10

Language development is best explained as an innate biological capacity (Chomsky)

Question 11

Interactionist explanation

Answer 11

Explains how social experience interacts with innate, biological language abilities (e.g., baby talk) to explain how language develops.

Question 12

Aphasia

Answer 12

Difficulty in producing or comprehending language

Question 13

Linguistic relativity hypothesis

Answer 13

Language shapes the nature of thought, the particular language one speaks influences the way one thinks about reality, Benjamin Whorf (1897–1941)

Question 14

Concept

Answer 14

Mental representation that groups or categorizes shared features of related objects, events, or other stimuli. eg dog, bird

Question 15

Necessary condition

Answer 15

a condition that must be present for an event to occur

Question 16

Sufficient condition

Answer 16

a condition or set of conditions that will produce the event

Question 17

Prototype theory

Answer 17

individuals make category judgments by comparing how similar the object is to a prototypical (or ideal) example of that category

Question 18

Exemplar theory

Answer 18

individuals make category judgments by comparing new stimuli with instances already stored in memory (exemplar)

Question 19

Category-specific deficit

Answer 19

problems with new word acquisition, storage and organization of known words, and lexical access/retrieval

Question 20

Rational choice theory

Answer 20

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

Question 21

frequencies

Answer 21

People are good at estimating the frequency of an event

Question 22

probabilities

Answer 22

People are poor at tasks that require thinking in terms of probabilities

Question 23

Heuristics

Answer 23

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)

Question 24

Algorithm

Answer 24

The well-defined sequence of procedures or rules that guarantees a solution to a problem; in contrast to heuristics

Question 25

Availability heuristic

Answer 25

makes us estimate the likelihood of an event based on our ability to recall similar events

Question 26

Conjunction fallacy

Answer 26

People think that two events are more likely to occur together than either as an individual event

Question 27

Representativeness heuristic

Answer 27

makes us estimate the probability of something based on the degree to which it resembles (or is representative of) a known situation

Question 28

Framing effects

Answer 28

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

Question 29

Sunk-cost fallacy

Answer 29

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

Question 30

Prospect theory

Answer 30

People choose to take on risks when evaluating potential losses and avoid risks when evaluating potential gains. Two phases (e.g., apartment)

Question 31

Means–ends analysis

Answer 31

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

Question 32

Analogical Problem Solving

Answer 32

Solving a problem by finding a similar problem with a known solution and applying that solution onto the current problem

Question 33

Functional fixedness

Answer 33

the tendency to see the functions of objects as unchanging

Question 34

Reasoning

Answer 34

Mental activity that consists of organizing information or beliefs into a series of steps to reach conclusions (evaluated by logic)

Question 35

Belief bias

Answer 35

Judgements about whether to accept conclusions depend more on how believable the conclusions are than on whether the arguments are logically valid

Question 36

Syllogistic reasoning

Answer 36

a form of deductive argument where the conclusion follows from the truth of two (or more) premises

Question 37

Illusory truth effect

Answer 37

describes how when we hear the same false information repeated again and again, we often come to believe it is true

Question 38

Illusion of explanatory depth

Answer 38

describes our belief that we understand more about things than we actually do