Cognition and Intelligence

Question 1

Describe the theories of language acquisition

Answer 1

• Behaviorist
  
  • BF Skinner
  • Imitation, reinforcement, conditioning principles
• Nativist
  
  • language acquisition device
  • innate mechanism that facilitates learning of language
• Interactionist
  
  • combination of biological makeup and social communication

Question 2

Describe the barriers to effective problem solving

Answer 2

• Irrelevant information
• Functional fixedness: only perceives the most common use
• Mental set: fixates on strategies that worked in the past
• Unnecessary constraints

Question 3

Describe how the rational choice theory is violated

Answer 3

• Decoy
  
  • a seemingly irrelevant option that affects people’s decisions
• Endowment
  
  • people are more likely to retain an object that they own, rather than acquire the same object when they do not own it
• Framing
  
  • perceptions are altered by the way options are described

Question 4

Describe Kahneman and Tversky’s prospect theory

Answer 4

• Non-linearity
• Loss aversion
• Reference point: the zero point where we consider gaining or losing something

Question 5

What are the factors in making a good test?

Answer 5

• Reliability
  
  • Consistent results across time/different raters
• Validity
  
  • Whether the test measures what it means to measure

Question 6

Describe the two factors contributing to intelligence

Answer 6

• Heredity
  
  • Identical twins tend to be similar in intelligence
• Environmental
  
  • Foster parents
  • Siblings of identical twins
  • School attendance
  • Environmental deprivation

Question 7

Describe problem solving

Answer 7

• Active efforts to discover what must be done to achieve a non-readily attainable goal
  1. Inducing structure: relations among parts of the problem
  2. Arrangement
  3. Transformation

Question 8

Describe the approaches to problem solving

Answer 8

• Trial and Error
• Heuristic (guiding principle)
• Forming subgoals
• Analogies
• Changing the representation of the problem
• Taking a break - Incubation

Question 9

Describe bounded rationality

Answer 9

• H. Simon
• People tend to use simple strategies in decision making
• Focus only on a few available options
• Leads to irrational decisions

Question 10

Describe choice overload

Answer 10

• People feel overwhelmed by decisions with many options
• Choice deferral, less satisfaction, post-decision regret

Question 11

Describe heuristics in judging probabilities

Answer 11

• Availability
  
  • basing probability of an event on the ease with which relevant instances come to mind
• Representativeness
  
  • basing probability on how similar it is to the typical prototype
• Recognition
  
  • placing a higher value on something the subject recognizes

Question 12

How is intelligence measured?

Answer 12

• Binet-Simon Scale
  
  • expressing score in terms of mental age
• Intelligence Quotient
  
  • IQ = Mental Age / Chronological Age x 100