SAFMEDs Chapter 12 Flashcards
Noam Chomsky
- father of modern linguistics
- one of the founders of the field of cognitive science
Cognition
-the mental activity associated with thinking, knowing, remebering and communicating
Concepts
-mental groupings of similar objects, events, ideas or people
Prototype
-a mental image of the best example of a specific concept or category
Critical thinking
-going beyond acquiring new information using concepts, prototypes abd other cognitive activities to develop opinions and beliefs about that information
Jane Haloen
- psychologist
- critical thinking
Creativity
- the ability to produce novel and valuable ideas within any discipline
- art, music, architecture, mathematics, science and engineering
Convergent thinking
- a type of thinking in which a question invites only one correct answer
- limits creativity
- Ex: multiple choice questions- only one answer is correct
Divergent thinking
- when a question or problem can have several or many possible responses
- Ex: how can you use a paperclip? what should i do next?
Metacognition
-the active control and awareness of our own thinking
Trial and error
-a process by which we try out different solutions until we find one that works
Algorithms
-a methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a problem because it explores every possibility
Heuristics
- “rules of thumb”
- simple thinking strategy that allows us to solve problems efficiently
- the shortcuts present may lead to incorrect outcomes
Insight
-a sudden and novel realization of the solution to a problem
Wolfgang Kohler
- documented the insight method of problem solving by studying chimps trying to get bananas that were out of reach
- the chimps originally got frustrated and were unproductive then they suddenly realized they could stack the boxes to reach the bananas
Intuition
- what we know without knowing how we know it
- effortless, immediate, automatic
Mindset
- mental approach to problems and issues
- often connected to the psychological construct of intelligence
Growth mindset
- the belief that humans are able to improve and grow
- people CAN change
Fixed mindset
- the conclusion that change is unattainable
- people CANT change
Cognitive biases
-ways of thinking that veer us away from strictly rational conclusions
Confirmation bias
-the tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence
Fixation
-the inability to see or define a problem from a fresh point of view
Functional fixedness
-fixation applied to attempts to solve novel problems
Mental set
- a tendency to approach a problem in one particular way
- related to fixation
- often a way that has been successful in the past
- that’s the way we’ve always done it
Representativeness heuristic
- a mental shortcut that we use when estimating probabilities
- When we’re trying to assess how likely a certain event is, we often make our decision by assessing how similar it is to an existing mental prototype
- misjudging a new acquaintance or blind date
Availability heuristic
- estimates the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory
- if instances come readily to mind we presume the events are common
Overconfidence
- the tendency to overestimate the accuracy of your beliefs and judgements
- we often think we are more correct than we are
Self serving bias
- a problem-solving barrier resulting from evaluating ourselves in an overly favorable manner
- Ex: we think we did well on a test bc we’re smart but poorly bc the teacher did not prepare us
Belief perseverance
- clinging to our initial conceptions even after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited
- can be denial
Cognitive dissonance
- finding a seemingly reasonable but actually false explanation for the evidence presented
- rationalizing, ignoring and even denying evidence in order to justify core belief
Justification of effort
-cognitive dissonance occurs because we need to justify our struggles
Framing
- the process of presenting or posing an issue or question
- how an issue is framed can influence the outcome
Risk or loss aversion
-the tendency of people to prefer avoiding losses to achieving equivalent gains
Anchoring effect
-a cognitive bias favoring the first information offered
Linguistics
-the scientific study of language
Phoneme
- the smallest distinct sound unit in a language
- english uses about 40 phonemes
Morpheme
- the smallest unit that carries some meaning
- ex: prefix
Grammar
-a set of rules that enables us to communicate with and understand others
Syntax
-determines the rules for combining or arranging words into grammatically sensible sentences
Semantics
-the set of rules by which we derive meaning
Pragmatics
-knowing when to use certain kinds of language in social situations
Babbling stage
- the first stage of language skills
- occurs around 4 months of age
- the stage of speech development in which the infant spontaneously vocalizes various sounds at first unrelated to the language spoken at home
- ba ba, da da
One-word stage
- typically takes place between ages one and two
- a child speaks mostly in single words
- holophrastic stage
Two-word stage
- age 2
- child speaks mostly 2 or 3 word statements
- telegraphic speech
Telegraphic speech
- child’s speech is like a telegram
- mostly uses nouns and verbs
Overgeneralization
-the application of grammar rules in instances which they do not apply
Sentences stage
- ages 6-10
- 80% of the language a person will know
Language Acquistion device (LAD)
- Noam Chomsky
- all people have an inborn capacity to learn the language with which they are raised
Statistical learning
babies observe where breaks and pauses are in speech and what syllables go with other syllables to “extract the structure” of language
Linguistic determinism
- Benjamin Lee Whorf
- the language one uses dtermines the way one thinks and one’s view of the world
Linguistic relativity
- Sapir-Whorf
- language and thought have influences on each other
- the language influences how one thinks and vice versa but language does not determine thought
