chapter 9 thinking and language recognition

Question 1

the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating.

Answer 1

cognition

Question 2

a mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or peoples.

Answer 2

concept

Question 3

mental image or best example of a category. Matching new items to a prototype provides a quick and easy method for sorting items into categories (as when comparing feathered creatures to a prototypical bird, such as a robin).

Answer 3

prototype

Question 4

a methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem. Contrasts with the usually speedier-but also more error-prone – use of heuristics.

Answer 4

algorithm

Question 5

a simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgements and solve problems efficiently; usually speedier but also more error-prone than algorithms.

Answer 5

heuristic

Question 6

a sudden realization of a problem’s solution; contrast with strategy-based solutions.

Answer 6

insight

Question 7

a tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence.

Answer 7

confirmation bias

Question 8

an effortless, immediate, automatic feeling or thought, as contrasted with explicit, conscious reasoning.

Answer 8

intuition

Question 9

estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; if instances come readily to mind (perhaps because of their vividness), presume such events are common.

Answer 9

availability heuristic

Question 10

the tendency to be more confident that correct-to overestimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgements.

Answer 10

overconfidence

Question 11

clinging to ones initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited.

Answer 11

belief perseverance

Question 12

the way an issue is posed; how an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and judgements.

Answer 12

framing

Question 13

our spoken, written, or signed words and the ways we combine them to communicate meaning.

Answer 13

language

Question 14

in a language, the smallest distinctive sound unit.

Answer 14

phoneme

Question 15

in a language, the smallest unit that carries meaning; may be a word or a part of word (such as a prefix).

Answer 15

morpheme

Question 16

in a language, a system of rules that enables us to communicate with and understand others. In a given language, semantics is the set of rules for deriving meaning from sounds, and syntax is the set of rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences.

Answer 16

grammar

Question 17

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.

Answer 17

babbling stage

Question 18

the stage in speech development, from about age 1 to 2, during which a child speaks mostly in single words.

Answer 18

One-word stage

Question 19

beginning about age 2, the stage in speech development during which a child speaks mostly in two-word statements.

Answer 19

Two-word stage

Question 20

early speech stage in which a child speaks like a telegram-”go car”-using mostly nouns and verbs.

Answer 20

telegraphic speech

Question 21

impairment of language, usually caused of left-hemisphere damage either to Broca’s area (impairing speaking) or to Wernicke’s area (impairing understanding).

Answer 21

aphasia

Question 22

Whorf’s hypothesis that language determines the way we think.

Answer 22

linguistic determinism