Thinking and Language Flashcards
Cognition
The mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating.
Concept
A mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people.
Prototype
A mental image or best example of a category. Matching new items to the prototype provides a quick and easy method for including items in a category (as when comparing feathered creatures to a prototypical bird, such as a robin).
Algorithm
A methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem. contrasts with the usually speedier- but also more error prone- use of heuristics.
Heuristic
A simple thinking strategy that often allows use to make judgments and solve problems efficiently; usually speedier but also more error-prone than algorithms.
Insight
A sudden and often novel realization of the solution to a problem; in contrasts with strategy-based solutions.
Confirmation Bias
A tendency to search for information that confirms one’s preconceptions.
Fixation
The inability to see a problem from a new perspective; an impediment to problem solving.
Mental Set
A tendency to approach a problem in a particular way, often a way that has been successful in the past.
Functional Fixedness
The tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual functions; an impediment to problem solving.
Representativeness Heuristic
Judging the likelihood of something in terms of how well the seem to represent, or match particular prototypes; may lead one to ignore other relevant information.
Availability Heuristic
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.
Overconfidence
The tendency to be more confident than correct- to overestimate the accuracy of one’s beliefs and judgments.
Framing
The way an issue is posed; how an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and judgments.
Belief Bias
The tendency for one’s preexisting beliefs to distort logical reasoning, sometimes by making invalid conclusions seem valid, or valid conclusions seem invalid.
Belief Perseverance
Clinging to tone’s initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited.
Language
Our spoken, written, or signed words and the ways we coming them to communicate meaning.
Phonemes
In a language, the smallest distinctive sound unit.
Morphemes
In a language, the smallest unit that carries meaning; may be a word or a part of a word (such as a prefix).
Grammar
In a language, a system of rules that enables us to communicate and understand others.
Semantics
The set of rules by which we derive meaning from morphemes, words, and sentences in a given language; also, the study of meaning.
Syntax
The rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences in a given language.
Babbling Stage
Beginning at about 4 months, the stage of speech development in which t he infant spontaneously utters various sounds at first unrelated to the household language.
One-Word Stage
The stage in speech development, from about ages 1 to 2, during which a child speaks mostly in single words.
Two-Word Stage
Beginning at about age 2, the stage in speech development during which a child speaks mostly two-word statements.
Telegraphic Speech
Early speech stage in which a child speaks like a telegram- “go car”- using mostly nouns and verbs and omitting auxiliary words.
Linguistic Determination
Whorf’s hypothesis that language determines the way we think.
