Thinking & Language Flashcards
Heuristics
Mental rules of thumb that permit us to make decisions and judgments in a rapid and efficient manner.
Availability heuristic
A cognitive rule of thumb in which the importance or probability of various events is judged on the basis of how readily they come to mind.
Representativeness heuristic
A mental rule of thumb suggesting that the more closely an event or object resembles typical examples of some concept or category, the more likely it is to belong to that concept or category.
Anchoring-and- Adjustment Heuristic
A cognitive rule of thumb for making decisions in which existing information is accepted as a reference point but then adjusted (usually insufficiently) in light of various factors.
Escalation of Commitment
The tendency to become increasingly committed to bad decisions even as losses associated with them increase.
Stages of creative thinking
- Preparation
- Incubation
- Illumination
- Evaluation
- Revision
Convergent thinking
Critical thinking in which an individual uses linear, logical steps to analyze a number of already formulated solutions to a problem to determine the correct one or the one that is most likely to be successful.
Divergent thinking
Creative thinking in which an individual solves a problem or reaches a decision using strategies that deviate from commonly used or previously taught strategies.
Aka lateral thinking
Language
A system for expressing or communicating thoughts and feelings through speech sounds or written symbols
Features of linguistic competence
- Knowledge of sounds of letters and combining them to make words
- Knowledge of grammar, syntax & rules of language
- Storage in long-term semantic memory
- Knowledge to use speech to have intended effect on others
- Knowledge of rules to interpret speech from others
Psycholinguistics
Study of behaviour of using language and ways in which behaviour is influenced by language
Phoneme
A speech sound that plays a meaningful role in a language and cannot be analyzed into smaller meaningful sounds
Eg: ‘p’ in tap - plays a role to separate the word from tan, tag, tad
Syllable
Smallest unit of speech perception
Theories of language development
Social learning: combination of operant conditioning and imitation
Nativist theory: Acc. to Chomsky, humans have a language-acquisition-device [LAD] with an innate intuitive grasp of grammar
Cognitive theory: combination of innate & learning; children possess certain information-processing abilities or strategies that they use in acquiring language
Basic components of language development
Phonological development—development of the ability to pronounce the sounds and words of one or more languages
Semantic development—learning to understand the meaning of words
Acquisition of grammar—the rules by which words are arranged into sentences in a given language
Linguistic relativity hypothesis by Whorf
View that language shapes thought; people who speak different languages may perceive the world in different ways, because their thinking is determined, at least in part, by the words available to them
Thinking
Cognitive behaviour in which ideas, images, mental representations, or other hypothetical elements of thought are experienced or manipulated.
Includes imagining, remembering, problem solving, daydreaming, free association, concept formation, and many other processes.
(a) It is covert—that is, it is not directly observable but must be inferred from actions or self-reports
(b) it is symbolic—that is, it seems to involve operations on mental symbols or representations, the nature of which remains obscure and controversial
Concept
An idea that represents a class of objects or events or their properties
Algorithm
A well-defined procedure or set of rules that is used to solve a problem or accomplish a task or that is used for conducting a series of computations.
Functional fixedness
The tendency to perceive an object only in terms of its most common use
Chomsky’s theory of grammar
Surface structure of a sentence is the actual word order of the words in a sentence.
Deep / abstract structure is an underlying form that specifies the meaning of the sentence.
Transformational rules tell us how we can change one structure into another.
Mental sets
Tendency to keep repeating solutions that worked in other situations
Base-rate fallacy
When provided with both individuating information, which is specific to a certain person or event, and base rate information, which is objective, statistical information, we tend to assign greater value to the specific information and often ignore the base rate information altogether.
Morpheme
Smallest unit of meaning in language
Eg: Walked [walk; ed]
Gambler’s fallacy
Aka Monte Carlo fallacy; when an individual erroneously believes that a certain random event is less likely or more likely to happen based on the outcome of a previous event or series of events.
Phones
Speech sounds
Characteristics of a creative person
- prefer complexity
- psychodynamically complex and greater personal scope
- reject suppression
- more assertive & dominant
- more independent in judgements
Connotative meaning
Emotional & evaluative meaning of a word / concept
Pragmatics of language
Speech or writing to have an impact on others
Depends on context and status of people we are addressing
Aphasia
Impairment in speech comprehension and/or production that can be permanent or temporary.
Apraxia
Inconsistent production of sound and rearrangement maybe due to a stroke or progressive illness
Dysarthria
Weakness of speech muscle caused by neuronal damage.
Cognitive universalism of language
By Heider
Concepts are universal and influence the development of language
Language acquisition stages
Babbling - 4 months
Holophrase - 1 y/o
Telegraphic speech - 2 y/o
Between 2 and 3 years, child’s vocabulary expands exponentially. Sentences increase in length and complexity.
By the age of 3, children begin to follow the rules of grammar without any instruction.
Overgeneralization or overregularization in which children apply grammatical rules without making appropriate exceptions.
