Language and thought Flashcards
Language
A system for communicating with others using signals that are combined according to rules of grammar and that convey meaning.
Grammar
A set of rules that specify how the units of language can be combined to produce meaningful messages.
Phoneme
The smallest units of speech that distinguish one word from another.
Phonological rules
A set of rules that indicate how phonemes can be combined to produce words.
Morphemes
The smallest meaningful units of language.
Morphological rules
A set of rules that indicate how morphemes can be combined to form words.
Syntactic rules
A set of rules that indicate how words can be combined to form phrases and sentences.
Telegraphic speech
Speech that is devoid of function morphemes and consists mostly of content words.
Novel strategy
Examining the acquisition of English by internationally adopted children who did not know any English prior to adoption
Nativist theory
The view that language development is best explained as an innate, biological capacity.
Universal grammar
A collection of processes that facilitate language learning.
Broca’s area
located in the left frontal cortex and is involved in the production of the sequential patterns in vocal and sign languages
Wernicke’s area
located in the left temporal cortex, is involved in language comprehension
Aphasia
Difficulty in producing or comprehending language.
Linguistic relativity hypothesis
The idea that language shapes the nature of thought.
Prototype theory
The concept that we classify new objects by comparing them to the “best” or “most typical” member (the prototype) of a category.
Exemplar theory
The concept that we make category judgements by comparing a new instance with stored memories of other instances of the category.
category-specific deficit
A neurological syndrome characterized by an inability to recognize objects that belong to a particular category, even when the ability to recognize objects outside the category is undisturbed.
Rational choice theory
The classical view that we make decisions by determining how likely something is to happen, judging the value of the outcome, and then multiplying the two.
availability heuristic
A rule of thumb that items that are more readily available in memory are judged as having occurred more frequently.
heuristic
A fast and efficient strategy that may facilitate decision making but does not guarantee that a solution will be reached.
Algorithm
A well-defined sequence of procedures or rules that guarantees a solution to a problem.
representativeness heuristic
A mental shortcut that involves making a probability judgement by comparing an object or event with a prototype of the object or event.
conjunction fallacy
Thinking that two events are more likely to occur together than either individual event alone.
framing effects
A bias whereby people give different answers to the same problem depending on how the problem is framed.
sunk-cost fallacy
A framing effect in which people make decisions about a current situation on the basis of what they have previously invested in the situation.
Optimism bias
A bias whereby people believe that, compared with other individuals, they are more likely to experience positive events and less likely to experience negative events in the future.
Prospect theory
The theory that people choose to take on risk when evaluating potential losses and avoid risks when evaluating potential gains.
Means-ends analysis
A process of searching for the means or steps to reduce differences between the current situation and the desired goal.
1. Analyze the goal state (i.e., the desired outcome you want to attain).
2. Analyze the current state (i.e., your starting point, or the current situation).
3. List the differences between the current state and the goal state.
4. Reduce the list of differences by
analogical problem solving
The process of solving.a problem by finding a similar problem with a known solution and applying that solution to the current problem.
functional fixedness
The tendency to perceive the functions of objects as unchanging.
Reasoning
is a mental activity that consists of organizing information or beliefs into a series of steps in order to reach conclusions.
belief bias
The idea that people’s judgements about whether to accept conclusions depend more on how believable the conclusions are than on whether the arguments are logically valid.
syllogistic reasoning
Determining whether a conclusion follows from two statements that are assumed to be true.
illusory truth effect
An error in reasoning that occurs when repeated exposure to a statement increases the likelihood that people will judge that statement to be true.
illusion of explanatory depth
An illusion that occurs when people overestimate the depth of their understanding.
