Cognition and Language

Question 1

What is the bottom-up process?

Answer 1

The bottom-up process occurs when peripheral stimulus controls what grabs our attention

Question 2

What is the top-down process?

Answer 2

The top-down process occurs when we deliberately decide to shift our attention.

Question 3

What is the preattentive process?

Answer 3

The preattentive process occurs when we identify stimuli because it stands out immediately.

Question 4

What is the attentive process?

Answer 4

The attentive process requires to search through items in series when processing stimulus.

Question 5

What is change blindness?

Answer 5

Change blindness is the failure to detect changes in parts of a scene.

Question 6

What’s the difference between ADD and ADHD?

Answer 6

Both ADD and ADHD are characterized by easy distraction, impulsiveness, moodiness, and failure to follow through on plans. ADHD also comes with excessive activity and fidgeting.

Question 7

What is spreading activation?

Answer 7

Spreading activation is a process where thinking about a concept will activate, or prime, other concepts linked to it.

Question 8

What are the two systems of thinking?

Answer 8

System 1 is for quick, automatic processes.
System 2 is for whatever requires attention, and largely relies on working memory.

Question 9

What is representativeness heuristic?

Answer 9

Representativeness heuristic is decision-making based on the similarity to the typical prototype of the event / circumstance and the assumption that an item that resembles members of a category is probably also in that category.

Question 10

What is base-rate information?

Answer 10

Base-rate information describes the percentage of a population that demonstrates some characteristic, and looks at how common the two categories are between two items.

Question 11

What is the availability heuristic?

Answer 11

Availability heuristic is decision-making based on the assumption that examples/things that can be easily recalled are common or typical.

Question 12

What are some common errors in human cognition?

Answer 12

1. Overconfidence
2. Confirmation bias - accepting a hypothesis and then look- ing for evidence to support it instead of considering other possibilities.
3. Framing effect - the tendency to answer a question differently when it is framed differently
4. Sunk cost effect - the willingness to do something undesirable because of money or effort already spent

Question 13

What’s the difference between near and far transfer?

Answer 13

Near transfer is the benefit to a new skill based on practice of a similar skill.
Far transfer is the benefit from practicing something less similar.

Question 14

What is Chomsky’s theory of a language acquisition device and what are its criticisms?

Answer 14

Chomsky’s theory of a language acquisition device suggests that we have a built-in mechanism for acquiring language, and that we are hard-wired to sort input form 20-80 phonemes, but we lose this ability by 12 months.

His theory is not widely researched on because there is no concrete way to test and prove it.

Question 15

What is Williams syndrome?

Answer 15

Wiliams syndrome is a genetic condition characterized by mental retardation in most regards but surprisingly good use of language relative to their other abilities.

Question 16

What is Broca’s aphasia?

Answer 16

Broca’s aphasia is a condition characterized by difficulties in language production.

Question 17

What is Wernicke’s aphasia?

Answer 17

Wernicke’s aphasia is a condition marked by impaired recall of nouns and impaired language comprehension, despite fluent and grammatical speech.

Question 18

What is the word-superiority effect?

Answer 18

The word-superiority effect suggests that people identify the letter more accurately when it is part of a word than when it is presented by itself.

Question 19

What are the different types of eye movements?

Answer 19

Fixations - when your eyes are stationary, usually for smaller or more familiar words
Saccades - quick eye movements from one fixation point to another

Question 20

What is resemblance theory?

Answer 20

Resemblance theory suggests that we identify members of a category based on characteristic features.

Question 21

What is exemplar theory?

Answer 21

Exemplar theory suggests that we categorise information by comparing the image to other instances stored in our memory of members within the category and making a judgment about inclusion.

Question 22

What is the prototype theory by Rosch?

Answer 22

The prototype theory suggests that concepts are defined by a prototype.

Question 23

What is prospect theory / loss aversion?

Answer 23

Prospect theory suggests that the risk we willing to take depends on whether it is to avoid a loss or achieve a gain. It is more important to avoid losses than achieve comparable gains.

Question 24

What is confirmation bias?

Answer 24

Confirmation bias is when we seek to confirm what we already believe.

Question 25

What is distraction?

Answer 25

Distraction is when we get sidetracked by irrelevant information and it distracts us from effective problem solving.

Question 26

What is mental set?

Answer 26

Mental set is our tendency to stick to solutions which have worked in the past.

Question 27

What is functional fixedness?

Answer 27

Functional fixedness is our tendency to rely on a function for an object and ignore other possible uses.

Question 28

Define insight.

Answer 28

Insight is the sudden discovery of the correct solution following incorrect attempts based primarily on trial and error.

Question 29

What is conjunction fallacy?

Answer 29

Conjunction fallacy is the basic flawed assumption that two events are more likely to occur together than either individual event.

Question 30

What is gambler’s fallacy?

Answer 30

Gambler’s fallacy is the belief that the odds of an event increase if the event has not occurred recently.

Question 31

What are fast and frugal heuristics?

Answer 31

Fast and frugal heuristics are shortcuts that guide us in decision-making about probabilities.

Question 32

What is Whorf’s theory of linguistic relativity?

Answer 32

Linguistic relativity suggests that one’s language determines one’s thoughts.

Question 33

What’s the difference between phonemes and morphemes?

Answer 33

Phonemes are smallest units of sound, e.g. “c” at

Morphemes are the smallest units of meaning in a language, e.g. “un-friend-ly”

Question 34

What is the difference between semantics and syntax?

Answer 34

Semantics is the understanding the meaning of words and word combinations.

Syntax is the structure of a language, underlying rules of order/function for how words can be combined to form phrases and sentences

Question 35

What are overregularizations?

Answer 35

Overregularisations are grammatical rules incorrectly generalized to “exception” cases.

Question 36

What is fast-mapping?

Answer 36

Fast-mapping is the rapid adding of words into vocabularies after one exposure, typically seen in children.

Question 37

What is the difference between overextensions and underextensions?

Answer 37

Overextensions is when one word is over-applied to a broader range of objects or actions.
e.g. all animals are called ‘doggy’

Underextensions is when one word is incorrectly believed to apply to only one member of a group or classification.
e.g. the generic word ‘cat’ refers to their personal pet cat

Question 38

Define expressive / productive language.

Answer 38

Expressive language is the ability to express yourself through language and communication.

Question 39

Define receptive language.

Answer 39

Receptive language is the ability to comprehend, process and integrate the meaning of language.