Language And Thought Flashcards
Cognitive miser
Tendency of people to be cognitively lazy and not use cognitive resources if we don’t have to, leading to less rational decision making
Inductive vs deductive reasoning
Inductive: drawing general conclusions from specific ideas
Deductive: drawing specific conclusions from general ideas
Syntax vs grammar
Syntax: how words/phrases are put together to create meaning
Grammar: general tools for language, not tied to meaning
Genie
Girl that suffered serious abuse and learned to speak at age 12, challenged understanding that language was a critical period
Homesign
Personalized language created in the absence of known language, in deaf children with hearing parents
3 Language rules
Symbolic: words/signs represent objects, actions, concepts
Generative: infinite sentences/expressions can be created using finite set of rules
Structured: language follows a specific set of rules governing arrangement of words/sounds
Semantics
Study of meaning in language
Denotation: dictionary definition (more important when communicating with unfamiliar people)
Connotation: emotional/cultural understanding (more important when communicating with familiar people)
4 language acquisition theories
Sociocultural: language is deeply rooted in social interaction and cultural context
Behaviorist: language is primarily learned through OC, (reinforcement = positive interactions w/ parents)
Nativist: language is an innate skill for humans, and language acquisition device is a cognitive structure in the brain that facilitates speech
Interactionist: believes language is part innate and part learned through social interactions, combines elements of behaviorist and nativist
2 language components
Phonemes: sounds we use in language
Morphemes: units of meaning in language (prefixes, root words, suffixes)
Receptive vs productive vocabulary
Receptive = words we understand
Productive = words we actually use
Receptive vocabulary is always higher than productive
Telegraphic speech
Young children speak/create units of meaning from “Simple subject + simple verb” structure
Language errors in children
Overextension: using words more liberally than you should, like calling every utensil a fork
Under extension: using a word more conservatively than you should, like only calling it a fork if its blue
Overregularization: applying regular grammar rules to irregular examples, like saying “octopuses, gooses”
Field independent vs dependent
Field independent: ignoring context of a situation to solve a problem (more common in western/individualist cultures)
Field dependent: taking context into account to solve a problem (more common in eastern/collectivist cultures)
Irrelevant information
Cognition barrier where irrelevant info in a sentence takes interest/focus away from relevant information
Functional fixedness
Cognition error where you a hard time seeing an unusual/non traditional function of an object in order to solve a problem
Unnecessary constraints
Cognition barrier when you put constraints you put on the problem that are not in the problem
Anticipated regret
Cognition barrier where we have the tendency to think “If I do this, I’ll regret it,” while in actuality we don’t regret that many things
Theory of bounded rationality
People oftentimes focus on one or two assets of a decision instead of all of them, which leads to irrational decisions, is a result of evolution
Conjunction fallacy
Belief that two traits are more likely to occur together than separately
Recognition heuristic
Making decisions based on what we recognize rather than facts or logic
Affect heuristic
The tendency of humans to be more emotional than rational and logical, and make decisions this way
Alternative outcomes effect
Belief that past random events impact future events (aka gambler’s fallacy)
Anchoring heuristic
First response to be heard will affect all subsequent responses, which will be close to the first response for fear of rejection
Availability heuristic
Mental shortcut where people rely on immediate examples that come to mind when evaluating a topic, decision or topic.
Confirmation bias
You process and remember information that agrees with you, and ignore and forget what disagrees with you
Ostrich bias
Tendency to ignore negative info and focus on positive info, to protect mentality, egos and worldview. Clinically depressed people do not have ostrich bias.
Overconfidence
Tendency of people to have a lot more confidence in our thought processes, actions, and decision making that we should
