Thinking and Language Flashcards
cognition
mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating
concept
mental grouping of similar objects, events, or people
prototypes
best example of a category
algorithm
step by step procedure that guarantees a solution
heuristic
thinking strategy that allows quick problem solving (faster, more error prone)
intuition
experts vs non experts
insight
(aha moment)
obstacles to problem solving
- cognitive biases
- problematic heuristics
- overconfidence
- framing
- anchoring
fixation (cognitive bias)
inability to see a problem from a fresh perspective (mental set, functional fixedness)
mental set
using a strategy that has worked for you in the past
cognitive bias
people will only take in information that confirms their preconceived notions (do not want their opinion to be contradicted)
hindsight bias
after we know the outcome of an event, it seems like the solution was obvious
sunk investment fallacy
when we put alot of time/effort into something, it feels like a waste to walk away from the endeavor
representativeness heuristic
judging the likelihood of things in terms of how ell they seem to represent particular prototypes (ex: tall people play basketball) (tall people is the prototype)
availability heuristic
estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory
anchoring heuristic
a type of cognitive bias that causes people to favor information they received early in the decision-making process (ex: people who were asked ‘is the percentage of african american representatives in the un greater than or less than 45%’, more people answered lower)
overconfidence
tendency to overestimate the accuracy of our judgements and knowledge
belief perseverance
our tendancy to cling to beliefs in the face of contrary evidence
framing
the way an issue is posted (should we say a medical treatment has a 90% success rate ? or a 10% chance of death)
insight
suddent and often novel realization of the solution to problem; not strategy based; requires an “incubation period”
language
spoken, written, or gestured words and the way we combine them to communicate meaning
grammar
system of rules in a language that enables us to communicate with and understand each other
semantics
is the set of rules by which we derive meaning from morphemes, words, and sentences in a given language
syntax
rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences in a given lanaguage (rules of grammar)
phonemes
smallest distinct sound unit in a spoken language (bat has 3 phomenes b-a-t and chat also has 3 ch-a-t)
morpheme
smallest number of sound units in a spoken language that has meaning (pumpkin has 2 - pump-kin)
babbling stage
- beginning from 3-4 months
- “pre-linguistic” event
- noises made represent sounds heard in household’s native language
- lose the ability to hear and pronounce some words
one-word stage
- from ages 1-2
- child speaks mostly in single words
two-word stage
child speaks in mostly two-word statements such as “go-car”
advantages of bilingualism
- better able to follow complicated instructions
- better on tests of creativity and non-verbal intelligence
- focus on specific, subtle aspects of a language
- more easily recognize the sames for things
inborn universal grammar (Noam Chomsky)
- deep structure
- language acquisition device (lad)
Noam Chomsky
- language can have “surface structure” or “deep structure”
- deep structure involves elements common to all languages
- understanding a sentence involves transitioning from surface structure to deep structure
- all people are born with a language acquisition device
LAD (language acquisition device)
ability to learn a language
