Midterm 3 Flashcards
language
system of communication using sounds or symbols that enable us to express feelings, thoughts, ideas, and experiences
importance of language
provides a way of arranging a sequence of signals to transmit different types of information from one person to another; makes it possible to create new and unique sentences
structure of language
hierarchical system, governed by rules
hierarchical system in language
components that can be combined to form larger units
rules in language
specific ways components can be arranged
the universality of language
language occurs wherever there are people; language development is similar across cultures; language are “unique but the same” because they have different words, sounds, and rules but all have nouns, verbs, negatives, questions, past/present tense
B. F. Skinner on language
language learned through reinforcement
Noam Chomsky on language
human language coded in the genes; underlying basis of all language is similar; children produce sentences they have never heard and that have never been reinforced
psycholinguistics
discover psychological processes by which humans acquire and process language
organization of language
sentence –> phrase –> word –> morpheme –> phoneme
sentence
coherent sequence of words
word
a complete, discrete unit of meaning in a language
morpheme
the smallest language unit that carries meaning
phoneme
the smallest unit of sound that serves to distinguish meaning
production of speech
speech produced by airflow from the lungs that pass through the larynx and oral and nasal cavities; different vowels are created by movements of the lips and tongue that change the size and shape of the oral cavity; consonants are produced by movements that temporarily obstruct the airflow through the vocal tract
ways to distinguish sounds
- manner of production
- voicing
- place of articulation
manner of production
how the airflow is restricted to produce different speech sounds
voicing
distinguish between sounds that are and are not voiced
place of articulation
point of airflow restriction; closing of lips, top teeth against bottom lip, tongue behind upper teeth
speech segmentation
the “slicing” of a continuous speech stream into appropriate segments
coarticulation
how the production of each phoneme is slightly altered depending on the preceding and following sounds
complexity of speech perception
has to “read past” context differences in order to identify the phonemes produced
perception of language
relies on prior knowledge and expectations to supplement input
phonemic restoration effect
occurs when phonemes are perceived in speech when the sound of the phoneme is covered up; “fill in” missing phonemes based on context of sentence and portion of word
categorical perception
people are better at hearing differences between categories of sounds than within sound categories
for each word that a speaker knows, the speaker…
knows the word’s sound; usually knows the word’s orthography (how it’s spelled); knows the rules of syntax (how to combine it with other words); knows the word’s semantics (what it means)
generativity
the capacity to create an endless series of new combinations from a small set of fundamental units
morphological knowledge
specifies how to create variations of each word by adding appropriate morphemes
lexical ambiguity
words have more than one meaning
meaning dominance
a particular meaning of a word could be used more frequently than others
biased dominance
when words have two or more meanings with different dominance
balanced dominance
when words have two or more meanings with about the same dominance
semantics
meanings of words and sentences
syntax
rules for combining words into sentences
factors that influence the way people access the meaning of words
meaning frequency, context
prescriptive rules
rules describing how something is “supposed to be” in the language
descriptive rules
rules describing the language as it is ordinarily used by fluent speakers and listeners
parsing
mental grouping of words in a sentence into phrases; central process for determining the meaning of a sentence
garden path sentences
sentences that begin by appearing to mean one thing, but then end up meaning something else
temporary ambiguity
when the initial words are ambiguous, but the meaning is made clear by the end of the sentence
syntax-first approach to parsing
- as people read a sentence, their grouping of words into phrases is governed by a number of rules that are based on syntax
- if readers realize there is something wrong with their parsing, then they take other information into account in order to reinterpret the sentence
interactionist approach to parsing
semantics and syntax both influence processing as one reads a sentence (ex. how “the spy saw the man with the binoculars” is interpreted)
people tend to do this regarding parsing…
- seek the simplest interpretation in parsing sentences
- assume that sentences will be in an active voice rather than passive voice
interpretations are influenced by…
context, experience, function words, morphemes signaling syntactic roles, background knowledge
N400 wave
peculiarity produced in the N400 brain wave when someone hears a semantic anomaly or perfectly sensible but false sentence
extralinguistic context
the physical and social setting in which we encounter sentences
prosody
the patterns of pauses and pitch changes that characterize speech production; reveals speaker’s mood, directs the listener’s attention to the sentences focus and theme, highlights the sentences intended meaning
language users rely on a set of principles when processing linguistic inputs
syntax, semantics, prosody
pragmatic rules
rules that govern how people actually use a language; maxim of relation and maxim of quantity
maxim of relation
says the speaker should say things that are relevant in conversation
maxim of quantity
says the speaker shouldn’t be more informative than is necessary
common ground
beliefs shared by the conversational partners
early stages of a conversation often serve to establish…
common ground
conversations
two or more people talking together; dynamic and rapid; involves shared knowledge; need to take into account what the other person is saying
given-new contract
speaker constructs sentences; they include given information, new information
syntactic coordination
using similar grammatical constructions in conversation
syntactic priming
production of a specific grammatical construction by one person increases chances other person will use that construction
speakers are sensitive to…
the linguistic behavior or other speakers and adjust their behavior to match
fluent language use in humans
enabled via innate neural machinery that is specialized for language learning and use
Broca’s aphasia
characterized by slow, laborious, nonfluent speech; better language comprehension than production; difficulty with function words; better with content words; produced by lesions in and around Broca’s area
agrammatism
difficulty in using grammatical constructions and comprehending them; produced by lesions in and around Broca’s area
anomia
word-finding difficulty; produced by lesions in and around Broca’s area
Wernicke’s aphasia
production of meaningless speech
by 3 to 4 years
most children can reasonably converse
overregularization errors
an error in which a person perceives or remembers a word/event as being closer to the “norm” than it really is
language learning
depends on one’s environment; children are sensitive to patterns and regularities; children derive broad principles form the language to which they are exposed
animal language
many species have sophisticated communication systems, but no naturally occurring animal communication system comes close to human language in richness or complexity
vervet monkey language
give alarm calls when they spot a nearby predator; distinct alarm calls for different types of predators
language learning may depend on both a human genome and a human environment
approximately 30 wild children have been discovered; none have been able to use language normally
linguistic relativity
the hypothesis that people who speak different languages think differently as a result; claims that the categories recognized by your language become the categories used in your thoughts
cultural differences in color perception
Berinmo people have only five words for describing colors; people who speak languages with a richer color vocabulary are able to make finer and more sharply defined distinctions among various hues
cultural differences in spatial terminology
absolute directions vs. relative directions; language differences can lead to corresponding differences in how people remember, and perhaps, how they perceive position
cultural differences in descriptions of events
active voice vs. passive voice; speakers of languages that do not mention the agent for an accidental event are less likely to remember the person who triggered the accident
another hypothesis
our language guides what we pay attention to, and what we pat attention to shapes our thinking
children raised in bilingual homes…
learn both languages as quickly as monolingual children learn one language; tendency to have a temporarily smaller vocabulary than monolingual children at an early age
bilingual patients with lesions
could show aphasia symptoms in one language and not another or specific deficits in one language and writing in another
decisions
the process of making choices between alternatives
judgement and reasoning
processes through which people draw conclusions from the evidence they encounter
inductive reasoning
reasoning based on observations; reaching conclusions from evidence
strength of argument of inductive reasoning
representativeness of observations, number of observations, quality of observations
inductive reasoning uses
make scientific discoveries; used in everyday life; some types of inductive reasoning happen automatically
frequency estimate
assessment of how often various events have occurred in the past
attribute substitution
strategy of relying on easily assessed information as a proxy for needed information; how easily and how quickly you can come up with relevant examples; thinking the more examples that come to mind, the more common something is
heuristics
shortcuts to help people reach conclusions rapidly based on past experience
two types of heuristics
availability and representativeness heuristics
availability heuristic
events more easily remembered are judged as being more probable than those less easily remembered
problem with availability heuristic
factors could make events stand out in memory and make you believe it is more probable than it actually is (e.g., distinctiveness, emotional salience, frequency of encoding/retrieval)
representativeness heuristic
people often make judgements based on how much one event resembles another event; assumption that resemblance to the prototype reflects probability
assumption of homogeneity
an expectation that each individual is representative of the category overall
conjunction rule
probability of two events cannot be higher than the probability of the single consituents
representativeness heuristic example
randomly pick one male from the population of the US; that male, Robert, wears glasses, speaks quietly, and reads a lot; more likely that people will believe Robert is a librarian over a farmer because his description is closer to the prototype associated with librarians
conjunction rule example
Linda is 31, single, outspoken, and very bright; she majored in philosophy; as a student, she was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and also participants in antinuclear demonstrations; more likely that Linda is a bank teller than her being a bank teller and active in the feminist movement
gambler’s fallacy
ex. if a coin is tossed and the result is heads six times in a row, people will think the seventh coin toss is more likely to be tails even thought the odds of each individual toss are always 50-50
law of large numbers
the larger the number of individuals randomly drawn from a population, the more representative the resulting group will be of the entire population
covariation
X and Y “covary” if the presence (or magnitude) of X can be predicted by the presence (or magnitude) of Y and vice versa (ex. years of education and annual salary)
illusory correlations
correlation appears to exist, but either does not exist or is much weaker than assumed
stereotypes
oversimplified generalizations about a group or class of people that often focuses on the negative; may lead people to pay particular attention to behaviors associated with the stereotype, thus creating an illusory correlation that reinforces the stereotype
range of availability effects
people regularly overestimate the frequency of rare events; rare events are likely to be well-recorded in memory and thus more available than common events
base-rate information
information about how frequently something generally occurs
rule subjects tend to follow
- use base rate information if that is all that is available
- use diagnostic information if available and disregard base rate information
dual-process model
proposal that people have two distinct ways of thinking about evidence that they encounter: type 1 and type 2
type 1
fast and automatic thinking; reliance on heuristics; used under time pressure or being distracted
type 2
slower, effortful thinking; used only if it is triggered by certain cues and only if the circumstances are right
use of type 1 or type 2 thinking usually depends on…
the context of the decision
trigger for skilled intuition in type 1 thinking
emphasizing the role of random chance cues more accurate type 1 judgements
education can influence the likelihood of reasoning with this type of thinking
Type 2
the cognitive reflection test
measures individuals’ ability to suppress an intuitive and spontaneous wrong answer in favor of a reflective and deliberative right answer; consists of three questions and there is an obvious but incorrect answer for each one that subjects have to resist; people who score high tend to have better scientific reasoning
induction
process through which you forecast about new cases based on observed cases
deduction
process through which you start with “givens” and ask what follows from these premises
confirmation bias
tendency to be more alert to evidence that confirms one’s beliefs than to evidence that challenges them
classic case of myside bias
had participants in favor and against capital punishment; both groups read the same article; those in favor found the article in favor while those against found the article to be against
myside bias
tendency of people to generate and evaluate evidence and test their hypotheses in a way that is biased toward their own opinions and attitudes; focus on information that agrees with beliefs and disregard the rest
belief perseverance
a tendency to continue endorsing a belief even when disconfirming evidence is undeniable
confirmation bias represents…
a failure of logic
deductive reasoning
determining whether a conclusion logically follows from premises
syllogism
basic form of deductive reasoning; two statements called premises, third statement called conclusion
categorical syllogism
describe relation between two categories using all, no, or some
when a syllogism is valid
if the conclusion follows logically from its two premises
if two premises of a valid syllogism are true…
the conclusion must be true
conditional syllogism
have two premises and a conclusion with the first premise being in the form of “if, then”
mental model approach
a specific situation represented in a person’s mind that can be used to help determine the validity of syllogisms in deductive reasoning; create a model of a situation, generate tentative conclusions about model, look for exceptions to falsify model, determine validity of syllogism, conclusion is valid only if it cannot be refuted by any model of the premises
falsification principle
to test a rule, you must look for situations that falsify the rule
permission schema
if A is satisfied, B can be carried out
Wason four-card problem
determine minimum number of cards to turn over to test conditional-reasoning in the real world; if there is a vowel on one side, then there is an even number on the other side
decision making
making judgements that involve choices between different courses of action
utility
outcomes that are desirable because they are in the person’s best interest
expected utility theory
if people have all relevant information, they will make a decision that results in the maximum expected utility; principle of utility maximization –> choosing the option with the greatest expected value
problem with expected utility theory
decisions are often guided by factors that have little to do with utility maximization; people find value in other things besides money; many decisions do not maximize the probability of the best outcome
decisions depend on how…
choices are presented
status quo bias
tendency to do nothing when faced with making a decision
opt-in vs. opt-out decisions
- opt-in: fewer people choose to opt-in to a program
- opt-out: more people choose not to opt-out and stay in the program
endowment effect
the tendency to put a higher value on your current status and possessions simply because they are currently your own
framing effect
decisions are influenced by how a decision is stated
endowment effect in mug experiment
one group given a coffee mug and the opportunity to sell it; another group given cash and the opportunity to buy a coffee mug; first group set a value on the mug that was twice as high as the value set by the second group because the simple fact of already possessing the mug doubled its value to them
when situations are framed in terms of gain…
people tend toward a risk-aversion strategy
when situations are framed in terms of losses…
people tend toward a risk-taking strategy
reason-based choice
goal is simply to make a decision that we feel good about because we feel they are reasonable and justified
emotions and decisions
people want to avoid the negative feeling of being a loser (by making the “wrong” decision”)
decisions are powerfully influenced by…
emotion
somatic markers
body states
somatic markers and decisions
may be a way of evaluating options
“gut feeling” and decisions
may favor options that trigger positive feelings
somatic markers experiment
participants had to choose cards from one of two decks; better to choose from the second deck in the long run; healthy control participants quickly learned about the decks and were soon making most of their choices from the advantageous deck; participants with damage to the orbitofrontal cortex continued to favor the risky deck because they were unable to use the somatic markers normally associated with risk
anxious people and decision making
tend to avoid making decisions that could potentially lead to large negative consequences; risk avoidance
optimistic people and decision making
more likely to ignore negative information and focus on positive information
expected emotions
emotions that people predict that they will feel concerning an outcome; one of the determinants of risk aversion
people inaccurately predict their emotions
- consistently overestimate how long these feelings will last
- underestimating their ability to adjust to change
- avoid things that they’d soon get used to anyhow and spend money for things that provide only short-term pleasure
- do not consider coping mechanisms that get activated
incidental emotions
emotions that are not specifically related to decision making
problem
an obstacle between a present state and a goal; solution not immediately obvious
problem solving
a process by which one determines the steps needed to reach a goal
problem space
the set of all states that can be reached in solving the problem
tower of hanoi
initial state and goal state given; rules specify which moves are allowed and which are not
hill-climbing strategy
at each step in solving a problem, choose the option that moves you in the direction of your goal
limited use
many problems require briefly moving away from the goal
means-end analysis
compare the current state and the goal state and ask, “What means do I have to make these more alike?”
people tend to abandon strategies when…
they think they are moving away from their goal
pictures/diagrams and problem solving
often helpful to translate a problem into concrete terms, relying on a mental image or a picture
how a problem is state can affect…
its difficulty
analogical transfer
the transfer from one problem to another; using experience with past problems that have similarities with the present problem to solve it
surface features
specific elements of a given problem
high surface similarities and making structural features more obvious aid…
analogical problem solving
structural features
the underlying principle(s) that govern the solution to a problem
analogical encoding
the process by which two problems are compared and similarities between them are determined; effective way to get people to pay attention to structural features that aid problem solving
experts and problem solving
solve problems in their field faster and with a higher success rate than beginners; less likely to be open to new ways of looking at problems; may be a disadvantage when confronting a problem that requires flexible thinking
experts and defining the problem
focus on the underlying structures, break it down into meaningful parts, more likely to realize what other problems are analogous to the current problem; more likely to benefit from analogies
ill-defined problem
the goal state and the available operators for reaching the goal are not clearly specified
ill-defined problems solved best by
creating well-defined subgoals and adding extra constraints or assumptions
functional fixedness
the tendency to be rigid in thinking about an object’s function
problem-solving set
collection of beliefs and assumptions a person makes about a problem; could result in rigidity
einstellung
problem solver’s beliefs, habits, and preferred strategies
early steps and rigidity
people start working on a problem and, because of their early steps, get locked into a particular line of thinking
problem-solving sets can…
narrow your options for approaching the problem
divergent thinking
open-ended, large number of potential solutions; an ability to move one’s thoughts in novel, unanticipated directions
highly creative people have shared “prerequisites” for creativity
great knowledge and skill in the domain; certain personality traits; motivated by the pleasure of the work and not external rewards
Wallas’s argument of creative thought’s four stages
preparation, incubation, illumination, verification
preparation
information gathering
incubation
conscious break; unconscious work on the problem that leads to considerable progress
illumination
insight emerges; “Aha!” moment
verification
confirmation that the new idea leads to a solution
many creative discoveries…
do not include Wallas’s steps or happen in a back-and-forth sequence
studies of the incubation effect
many find no effect for time away from a problem; some argue a benefit from incubation is more likely if the circumstances allow your thoughts to “wander”
“mind wandering”
spreading activation could be the process involved
convergent thinking
an ability to spot ways in which seemingly distinct ideas might be interconnected
creative people
differ in how or how well they search through memory; seem to have an advantage in divergent thinking
forward flow
how much one’s current thinking breaks away from past thoughts
blind-sight patients
cannot see but can nevertheless sometimes perceive visual targets; demonstrates consciousness is not required for visual perception
consciousness
a state of awareness of sensations or ideas
cognitive unconscious
the broad set of mental activities outside of your awareness that make your ordinary interactions with the world possible
unconscious reasoning
people often do not recall the reasoning behind certain decisions; part of the reason behind memory errors
videotape unconscious reasoning study
participants viewed a videotaped crime then attempted to pick the perpetrator’s picture out of a lineup; received confirming, disconfirming, or no feedback after selection; feedback altered memory for earlier events; subjects who received confirming feedback now recalled that they’d gotten a better view of the crime; participants not aware of making the adjustment
electric shock and unconscious causal reasoning study
participants asked to undergo a series of electric shocks, with each shock slightly more severe than the one before; placebo participants given a placebo pill to “diminish the pain” with side effects and a control group; participants in placebo group withstood four times the shock amperage that participants in the control group withstood; placebo participants unconsciously attributed physical symptoms of the shock to “side effects”
after-the-fact reconstructions
introspective explanations for our thoughts and behaviors are often after-the-fact; people tend to hypothesize why they did or thought something; often based on generic knowledge
in some settings, you are aware of your own thoughts
often make well-articulated “inner dialogues” with ourselves; still influenced by the cognitive unconscious
language understanding and unconscious processes
can choose one interpretation of a phrase or word so rapidly that you’re generally unaware that another interpretation is even possible
blind sight experiment
two conditions: hold the card at an angle that matches the orientation of the slot in front of them; imagine “mailing” the care, placing it into a “mail slot”; patient made lots of mistakes with the first condition but performed the second perfectly
subliminal perception
people can be influenced by visual inputs that they did not consciously perceive
evidence for subliminal perception
studies of the N400 brain wave; participants were unconsciously primed with items consistent or inconsistent with expectations associated with consciously presented items; larger N400 waves followed unconscious but unexpected items
huge range of activities that can be done without awareness
see, remember, interpret, infer
unconscious processing is out of your control
governed by habit or by setting; not by current plans or desires
action slips
cases in which you do something differently than you intended due to the unconscious; when trying to do something different, you often end up doing what is normal or habitual
how unconscious processes run without supervision
- biology: built into the nervous system
- practice: processes become more automated
metacognitive skills
skills in monitoring and controlling one’s own mental processes
metamemory
knowledge and beliefs about, awareness of, and control over one’s own memory
link between claims about metacognition and claims about executive control
in both cases, there’s a need for self-monitoring, self-control, and self-direction and are guided by a sense of goals
neural correlations of consciousness/neural signatures of consciousness
events in the nervous system that occur at the same time as, and may be the biological basis of, a specific mental event or state
two broad categories of sites in the brain used for consciousness
1) overall alertness or sensitivity: range from being sleep and dimly aware to fully awake, highly alert, and totally focused; thalamus and reticular activating system
2) content of consciousness: various contents rely on different brain regions
consciousness has two separate aspects
1) level of arousal or overall alertness
2) clarity or specificity of its content
neuronal workspace hypothesis
a claim about how the brain makes conscious experience possible; “workspace neurons” link the activity of various specialized brain areas to lead to consciousness; links stimuli into a dynamic, coherent representation
the neuronal workspace and executive control
workspace provides a plausible neural basis for executive functioning and goal-directed behavior
multiple parallels between the functioning of the neuronal workspace and the executive control as well as the capacities of consciousness
- allows comparisons across processing streams –> enabling the executive to ensure there are no conflicts
- supports sustained neural activity –> enabling the executive to keep its goals and plans in view
- can amplify certain types of activity –> allowing executive to take control of mental events
workspace proposal does not answer this question
how subjective experience arises from the physical activity of the brain
access consciousness
one’s sensitivity and access to certain types of information
phenomenal conciousness
what it feels like to have a certain exprience
qualia
one’s subjective experiences that cannot be conveyed as a first-person experience to someone else
inverted spectrum problem
the possibility that individual may perceive colors differently despite using the same labels and having learned the same associations
processing fluency
the steps in a cognitive process might sometimes proceed swiftly and with little effort, but at other times more slowly and with more effort; makes a stimulus seem special; often interpreted as familiarity or accuracy of memories
consciousness may promote
spontaneous and intentional behavior
mind-body problem
the mind is a different sort of entity from the physical body, yet each can influence the other
