Psych ch. 10

Question 1

prototype

Answer 1

a mental image or best example of a category. Matching new items to a prototype provides a quick and easy method for sorting items into categories (as when comparing feath- ered creatures to a prototypical bird, such as a robin).

Question 2

algorithm

Answer 2

a methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem. Contrasts with the usually speedier—but also more error-prone

Question 3

heuristic

Answer 3

a simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently; usually speedier but also more error-prone than algorithms.

Question 4

insight

Answer 4

a sudden and often novel real- ization of the solution to a problem; it contrasts with strategy-based solutions.

Question 5

confirmation bias

Answer 5

a tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence.

Question 6

fixation

Answer 6

the inability to see a problem from a new perspective, by employing a different mental set.

Question 7

mental set

Answer 7

a tendency to approach a problem in one particular way, often a way that has been successful in the past.

Question 8

functional fixedness

Answer 8

the tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual functions; an impediment to prob- lem solving.

Question 9

representativeness heuristic

Answer 9

judging the likelihood of things in terms of how well they seem to represent, or match, particular prototypes; may lead us to ignore other relevant information.

Question 10

availability heuristic

Answer 10

estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; if instances come readily to mind (perhaps because of their vividness), we presume such events are common.

Question 11

overconfidence

Answer 11

the tendency to be more confident than correct—to overes- timate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgments.

Question 12

belief perseverance

Answer 12

clinging to one’s initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited.

Question 13

intuition

Answer 13

an effortless, immediate, automatic feeling or thought, as contrasted with explicit, conscious reasoning.

Question 14

framing

Answer 14

the way an issue is posed; how an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and judgments.

Question 15

language

Answer 15

our spoken, written, or signed words and the ways we combine them to communicate meaning.

Question 16

phoneme

Answer 16

in language, the smallest distinctive sound unit.

Question 17

morpheme

Answer 17

in a language, the smallest unit that carries meaning; may be a word or a part of a word (such as a prefix).

Question 18

grammar

Answer 18

in a language, a system of rules that enables us to communicate with and understand others.

Question 19

semantics

Answer 19

the set of rules by which we derive meaning from morphemes, words, and sentences in a given lan- guage; also, the study of meaning.

Question 20

syntax

Answer 20

the rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences in a given language.

Question 21

:babbling stage

Answer 21

beginning at about 4 months, the stage of speech develop- ment in which the infant spontaneously utters various sounds at first unrelated to the household language. Phonemes

Question 22

one-word stage

Answer 22

the stage in speech development, from about age 1 to 2, during which a child speaks mostly in single words.

Question 23

two-word stage

Answer 23

beginning about age 2, the stage in speech development during which a child speaks mostly two- word statements.

Question 24

telegraphic speech

Answer 24

early speech stage in which a child speaks like a telegram—“go car”—using mostly nouns and verbs.

Question 25

aphasia

Answer 25

impairment of language, usu- ally caused by left hemisphere damage either to Broca’s area (impairing speak- ing) or to Wernicke’s area (impairing understanding).

Question 26

Broca’s area

Answer 26

controls language expression—an area of the frontal lobe, usually in the left hemisphere, that directs the muscle movements involved in speech.

Question 27

::Wernicke’s area

Answer 27

controls language reception—a brain area involved in lan- guage comprehension and expression; usually in the left temporal lobe.

Question 28

linguistic determinism

Answer 28

Whorf’s hypothesis that language determines the way we think.