Thinking and Language Flashcards
process of thinking
working through your memories
cognition psychologists
study mental processes of thinking, knowing, communicating
availability heuristic
our tendency to judge the likelihood of an event by how available it is in our memory (how easy we can think of examples of the event)
common things
easier to think about (memories are biased so not always accurate)
probability of natural disasters
people rate the probability of dramatic events higher than reality (because it’s publicized)
confirmation bias
our tendency to seek out and pau more attention to information that confirms our beliefs
- avoid evidence that indicates we’re wrong
- want to prove ourselves correct more than find the truth
belief perseverance
our tendency to cling to our beliefs even when presented contradictory evidence
- takes more evidence to change someone’s mind than it takes for them to form those beliefs in the first place
overconfidence
our tendency to be overconfident regarding accuracy of our knowledge/judgements
dunning-kruger effect
tendency for those who lack skill to overestimate their skill, those who do have skill underestimate their skill
essential characteristics of language
symbols and grammar
babbling
- meaningless syllable repetition
- starts around 4 months
one word stage
babies start using words to communicate
- around age 1, only use one word at a time
- understand more words than they can produce
receptive language
what you understand
productive language
what you produce
productive language
what you produce
two word stage
babies start putting words together
- around age 2, kids use 2 words
- “telegraphic speech”
- words follow native language grammar rules
- also overgeneralize some grammar rules
language acquistion
biologically predisposed to acquire a language
- babies acquire language at impressive speed
childhood language acquisition
- childhood is a critical period for language acquisition
- if we don’t learn early enough, we won’t be able to speak as well later in life
feral child
a child who grows up with little to no human contact due to severe neglect and abuse
critical language acquisition period
critical period slows around 7, completely closed around puberty
thinking and language
reciprocal relationship between thinking and language
linguistic relativitity hypothesis
language influences thinking
- better able to notice, remember, think about something if we have a word for it
bilingualism
bilinguals show greater creativity, cognitive skills, social skills, language skills
- globally most people are bilingual (in US, only ~20% are bilingual)
doublespeak
language that is manipulative
- commonly used by governments, institutions, companies
