Thinking, Reasoning, and Language Flashcards
What is thinking?
- Any mental activity or processing of information
* Includes learning, remembering, perceiving, communicating, believing, and deciding
What is higher order cognition?
- Decision making and problem solving
- More complex thoughts
- Requires taking basic aspects of cognition and integrating them into a plan of action
What is cognitive economy?
- How our brains simplify information to reduce mental effort
- Keeps information we need for decision making to a minimum
- Oversimplifying can get us into trouble
What are heuristics?
- Mental shortcut
* May have enhanced survival
What is thin slicing?
• Ability to exact useful information from small bits of behaviour
What is cognitive bias?
• Systematic error in thinking
What is representatives heuristics?
- Heuristic that involves judging the probability of an event by its superficial similarity to a prototype
- Basically, based on how prevalent that event has been in past experience
What is the challenge to the representatives heuristic?
Failure to consider basic rate information, which is how common a behaviour or characteristic is in general
What is the availability heuristic?
• Heuristic that involves estimating the likelihood of an occurrence based on the ease with which it comes to our minds
• We use what is “available” in our memory
o What we have been told about this previously
• It’s what makes us bad at estimating stats/calories etc.
Which heuristic is caused by our failure to consider how common a behaviour or characteristic is in general?
Representative heuristic
Which heuristic makes us bad at estimating statistics and calories?
Availability heuristic
What is hindsight bias?
- Tendency to overestimate how well we could have predicted something after it has already occurred
- Hindsight is 20/20
- “It would have worked better if…”
What is confirmation bias?
• Tendency to seek out evidence that supports our hypothesis of beliefs and to deny, dismiss, or distort evidence that doesn’t
What is bottom-up processing?
o Brain processes information it receives and constructs memory from it slowly, building understanding through experience
What is top-down processing?
• Filling in gaps of missing information using our experiences and background knowledge
What are examples of top-down processing?
Perception, chunking, concepts, schemas
What is perception as it relates to thinking?
• Adding raw input to knowledge and experience
What is chunking?
Memory aid organizing information into meaningful groupings, allowing us to extend the span of short term memory
What are concepts?
- Our knowledge and ideas about a set of objects, actions, and characteristics that share core properties
- Ex is we know what properties motorbikes share
What are schemas?
- Memory of how certain actions, objects, and ideas relate to each other
- Helps us mentally organize events like how to go grocery shopping
What is decision making?
• Process of selecting among a set of possible alternatives
What is paralysis by analysis?
o Confusion caused by listing all pros and cons of an emotional decision
• When it comes to emotional preferences, thinking too much causes problems
What is decision management?
o Attempts to bring scientific evidence to business to avoid bias
What is framing?
o The way a question is formulated that can influence the decisions people make
What is neuroeconomics?
o Interested in how the brain works while making financial decisions
o Recently moved to help diagnosis and characterize psychological disorders
What is problem solving?
• Generating a cognitive strategy to accomplish a goal
What are some approaches to problem solving?
Heuristics, algorithms, breaking down steps, analogies
What is an algorithm?
- Step by step learned procedure that is used to solve a problem
- Handy when steps to get to the solution are the same each time
- Ensures we do all the steps
- Pretty inflexible
What is an analogy?
- Reasoning from related examples
* Solves problems with similar structures
What is salience to surface similarity and how does this create an obstacle for solving a problem?
- Salience is how attention-grabbing the thing is
- Means we tend to focus on superficial properties of a problem
- Ignoring surface features and focusing on underlying reasoning to solve problems can be challenging
What are mental sets and how does this create an obstacle for solving a problem?
- Phenomenon of becoming stuck in a specific problem-solving strategy, inhibiting our ability to generate alternatives
- Trouble thinking outside the box because what’s in the box has worked before
What are functional fixedness and how does this create an obstacle for solving a problem?
- Difficulty conceptualizing that an object typically used for one purpose can be used for another
- Become fixated on the conventional use
What is the computer model of the mind?
- Many thought of the mind as a computer, run an algorithm and spit out an answer
- Some things are much easier for us than a computer, such as speech
- We can view situations with context a computer is unable to do
What is the embodiment model of the mind?
- Reflects physically interactive nature of our knowledge and experience
- Knowledge organized and accessed in a manner that enables us to simulate actual experiences
- Sensory areas become activated when people think about objects, actions, and events
What is language and what does it allow for?
- Largely arbitrary system of communication that combines symbols (such as words or gestures) in rule-based ways to create meaning
- Communicating info that enables us or others to accomplish a goal
- Allows expression of thoughts about social interaction
What are the features of languages and how do they relate to going out for dinner?
Phonemes - ingredients
Morphemes – Menu Items
Syntax – Putting Together a Meal
Extralinguistic Information – Overall Dining Experience
Language Dialects – Regional and Cultural Differences in Dining Habits
What are phonemes?
- Sounds of language
- Categories our vocal apparatus produces
- Probably around 100 in total around the world with each language using a subset of them
- English uses between 40-45
What are morphemes?
- Smallest unit of meaningful speech
- Created by stringing phonemes together
- Convey information about semantics (meaning derived from words and sentences)
- Most are words but also includes prefixes and suffixes
What is syntax?
• Grammatical rules governing how we compose words into meaningful strings
• Includes morphological markers
o Grammatical elements that modify words by adding sounds to them that change their meaning (for example adding -ed, or -ing)
• Idealized form of language that is more formal, real-world use may differ
What is extralinguistic information?
- Elements of communication that are not part of the content of language but crucial to interpreting its meaning
- Includes facial expression, posture, gestures, tone of voice etc.
- Allows for inclusion of context to the words that are spoken
What is a language dialect?
- Dialect is a language variation in the same language used by a group of people who share geographic proximity or ethnic background
- May differ in accent, slang, words used, or things like dropping r’s
What is sound symbolism?
o Certain speech sounds seem associated with particular meanings
o Research says language is not completely arbitrary as the words for mother and father are very similar around the world
o May indicate connections between auditory and other sensory systems in the brain that influence language
What is babbling?
o Intentional vocalization that lacks specific meaning
o Helps babies experiment with phonemes
When do children begin to say their first word?
About 12 months
What is the one-word stage?
o Early period of language development when children use single-word phrases to convey an entire thought
What type of language does the average 2 year old produce?
- By age 2, most can produce several hundred words
- By age 2, simple two-word combinations but syntax generally accurate
- Within several months go to 3- or 4-word combinations and produce morphological markers
What are morphological markers?
o Grammatical elements that modify words by adding sounds to them that change their meaning (for example adding -ed, or -ing)
What are similarities of sign language to spoken language?
- Many sign languages spoken in different countries and deaf communities
- Has its own phonemes, words, syntax, and extralinguistic information
- Same areas of brain involved in processing spoken languages become active in signers
- Babies learning to sign learn them in the same way as spoken language and even babble with their hands before learning words and beginning to string them into longer sentences
What is bilingualism?
• Proficient and fluent and speaking and comprehending two distinct languages
What is metalinguistics and is it increased or decreased in bilingual children?
o Awareness of how language is structure and used
o Increased in bilingual children
What is executive control process and is it enhanced or depressed in bilingual children?
o Brain’s ability to oversee and organize most other brain functions
o Enhanced in bilingual children
What is the difference in brain scans of bilingual children and those that learned a second language as an adult?
• Children show brain activation in same place for both languages, when learned as adults, the languages activate different places
What is language deprivation?
• Children deprived of social interaction and language that have been rescued and exposed to language only show rudimentary ability to communicate
o May be due to severe emotional and physical neglect of their experience
What is homesign?
- System of signs invented by deaf children of hearing parents who receive no language input
- If they are not exposed to a language model, such as ASL, they do not develop full-blown language
- Shows that both nature and nurture involved in language
What are critical periods as it applies to language learning?
o Windows of time in development during which an organism must learn an ability if it’s going to learn it at all
Research shows its before 7 years of age
What is a sensitive period for language learning?
o Period during which people are more receptive to learning and can acquire new knowledge more easily including language
What is the less is more hypothesis as it applies to language?
- Children learn better because they have more limited information about language, so they learn gradually from the ground up
- Adults and older children try to impose more organization and structure on their learning making it more challenging to learn a new language
What is the theory of learning language through imitation and what shows that this cannot be the whole story?
o Babies hear language and learn to use the language as adults use it
o Language is generative allowing us to create infinite number of sentences so it cannot be only imitation
What is the nativist account of language acquisition?
• Suggests that children are born with some basic knowledge of how language works
• Precise rules learned through exposure
• Strongest nature view
• Language acquisition device
o Language organ in the brain that houses language rules
o Preprogrammed to enable children to use language
• Difficult to falsify
What is the social pragmatics account of language acquisition?
- Proposes that children infer what words and sentences mean from context and social interactions
- Use actions, expressions, gestures, and other behaviours to infer context
- Children can learn word meaning as early as 24 months
- Weakness is it assumes infants understand a great deal about how other people are thinking
What is the general cognitive processing account of language acquisition?
- Proposes children’s ability to learn language results from general skills that children apply across a variety of activities
- All they need is ability to perceive, learn, and recognize patterns
- Weakness is children learn language better than adults, but adults are better at learning things
- Another weakness is left temporal lobe are more active in language processing than other cognitive activities
What is cryptophasia and what likely explains it?
- Secret language between twins
- Result of phonological impairment and other forms of language delay prevalent among twins
- Twin pairs tend to make similar phonological errors, so while it is completely incomprehensible to others, it is more understandable to each other
What does nonhuman animal communication include?
• Includes vocals, scents, and visual displays
When do animals most often communicate?
Mating and violence
How is honeybee communication different than most other animal species?
• The waggle dance of honeybees can communicate where to find food
How did our attempts to teach human language to nonhuman animals go?
- Tried to teach chimps language but their vocal apparatus does not allow the range and coordination needed
- Bonobos learned better but still couldn’t master syntax rules
- African grey parrots can learn some language and even some syntax but learned through repetition rather than observation
What was John. B Watson’s theory about the relation between language and thought?
- Founder of behaviourism
- Believed that thinking is a form of internal speech
- Believed thinking is subvocal talking – moving the vocal tract as if talking, but below hearing level
- Since rejected as it implies children don’t think at all until they’ve mastered language
What is the linguistic determinism theory on the relation between language and thought?
- View that all thought is represented verbally and that, as a result, our language defines our thinking
- It’s just as likely that language reflects peoples thinking, not the other way around
- Correlation between number of words and number of distinctions doesn’t mean the words produced distinctions that wouldn’t have otherwise been there
What are the weaknesses to the linguistic determinism theory on the relation between language and thought?
o Children can perform complex cognitive tasks long before they can talk about them
o Neuroimaging shows that although language areas often become activated when engaging in certain cognitive tasks, such as reading, they are not activated during others, such as spatial tasks or visual imagery
What is the linguistic relativity theory on the relation between language and thought?
- View that characteristics of language shape our thought process
- Several studies suggest language can affect thinking
- Some studies also showed that language sometimes doesn’t influence thought
- Different terms to describe colours across languages, some don’t even have words for colors at al but are able to distinguish colours
- Most language and culture information are all correlational rather than experimental
What is the Stroop test and what does it prove?
- Need to say colour, not the word that is written
- Stroop test shows reading is automatic and hard to inhibit
- Children learning to read do better as they can turn off their attention to the words and pay attention to only the ink colour
What is whole word recognition?
- Reading strategy that involves identifying common words based on their appearance without having to sound it out
- Used for vast majority of words
What is phonetic decomposition?
- Also called phonics
- Reading strategy that involves sounding out words by drawing correspondences between printed letters and sounds
- Used for new words, especially when just learning to read
- Leads to better reading and more effective to get and keep children reading as a teaching strategy
What is the speed-accuracy trade off?
- The faster we read the more we miss
* Average person reads about 200-300 words per minute, over 400 words per minute and comprehension falls
Serge and Erica are both taking part in an experiment about reading and reaction-time. Serge speaks and reads French fluently, and is learning to read and speak English. Erica speaks and reads English fluently, and is learning how to speak and read French. The first set of trials are all in English, and require the participants to read a series of fairly long words (like elephant and laundromat) before deciding whether the words represent something alive, or something inanimate. The second set of trials are Stroop Task trials, where words are printed in various colours of ink and participants are asked to either read the words or indicate what colour they are. In this set of trials, some lists are presented in French and some are presented in English. Which of the following factors will be MOST important in determining how easily they learn a new language?
a) Gender
b) Nationality
c) What language is being learned
d) Age
Age
Serge and Erica are both taking part in an experiment about reading and reaction-time. Serge speaks and reads French fluently, and is learning to read and speak English. Erica speaks and reads English fluently, and is learning how to speak and read French. The first set of trials are all in English, and require the participants to read a series of fairly long words (like elephant and laundromat) before deciding whether the words represent something alive, or something inanimate. The second set of trials are Stroop Task trials, where words are printed in various colours of ink and participants are asked to either read the words or indicate what colour they are. In this set of trials, some lists are presented in French and some are presented in English. If the task were changed so that the first set of trials also had different coloured ink used, how would that affect the results?
It would affect neither of them.
Suppose that you knew the correct signs for words “read” and “book” but were not fluent in American Sign Language (ASL). Why might it be difficult for you to communicate the sentence, “Read this book.”?
You would be unable to form a proper sentence because of your unfamiliarity with ASL syntax.
Serge and Erica are both taking part in an experiment about reading and reaction-time. Serge speaks and reads French fluently, and is learning to read and speak English. Erica speaks and reads English fluently, and is learning how to speak and read French. The first set of trials are all in English, and require the participants to read a series of fairly long words (like elephant and laundromat) before deciding whether the words represent something alive, or something inanimate. The second set of trials are Stroop Task trials, where words are printed in various colours of ink and participants are asked to either read the words or indicate what colour they are. In this set of trials, some lists are presented in French and some are presented in English. For the Stroop Task items, what would be most likely to cause Serge to make a mistake?
Identifying the colours of the French colour words.
Serge and Erica are both taking part in an experiment about reading and reaction-time. Serge speaks and reads French fluently, and is learning to read and speak English. Erica speaks and reads English fluently, and is learning how to speak and read French. The first set of trials are all in English, and require the participants to read a series of fairly long words (like elephant and laundromat) before deciding whether the words represent something alive, or something inanimate. The second set of trials are Stroop Task trials, where words are printed in various colours of ink and participants are asked to either read the words or indicate what colour they are. In this set of trials, some lists are presented in French and some are presented in English. When Serge and Erica complete the first set of trials, why would Erica likely respond more quickly to each trial?
A) She will use phonetic decomposition to read the words quickly.
B) She will use whole-word recognition to respond quickly to each item.
C) She will have an advantage because she speaks English fluently.
D) She will have a better conceptual grasp of the instructions.
B
When we use heuristics and other mental short-cuts to save time and energy in decision-making, what term is used for that process?
cognitive economy
When Jerome was in the middle of his midterm exam, he was very uncertain about his answers. After seeing his score—an A—he subsequently told his friends that he never doubted that he would get a good mark. This demonstrates the influence of __________ on our judgments.
hindsight bias
Although it offers compelling explanations for language development, the most significant shortcoming of the nativist account is
that it is unfalsifiable.
How do honeybees communicate the location of food sources?
visual display
Which of the following individuals would be most likely to learn a second language more easily than the others?
A) 27-year-old Zeke, who speaks Italian and is trying to learn Russian.
B) 14-year-old Carlos, who is trying to learn English and has only spoken Spanish until that point.
C) Nine-year-old Chantelle, who speaks French and needs to learn Japanese because her family is moving to Japan.
D) Five-year-old Luca, who is an English speaker being taught German as a second language.
D
Which of the following is true with respect to the brain areas associated with spoken and signed language?
A) Sign language is associated with activation of Wernicke’s area but not Broca’s area.
B) Sign language is associated with use of brain areas that concern visual and spatial processing only.
C) Both spoken and sign language show activation of the “language areas” of the brain, and sign language also relies on visual and spatial processing areas.
D) People who use sign language show much greater activation of visual and spatial processing areas than those who use spoken language alone.
C
News reports often emphasize events that are very rare, like plane crashes or winning the lottery, and that emphasis causes those events to be memorable and pop into our minds easily. Which cognitive bias would be worsened by this sort of media attention?
availability heuristic
Penny has begun to use words such as “daddy play” and “go kitty” to express herself. What age is Penny, if her development is typical?
approximately 2 years
To demonstrate the automaticity of language, participants performing the __________ task must suppress their attention to printed words to identify the colour of the ink.
Stroop
Fetuses can hear inside the womb _______________ of gestation.
by the fifth month
In which of the following circumstances would the person be least susceptible to interference on the Stroop task?
A) 33-year-old Nancy, who is illiterate
B) 15-year-old Saul, who spends more time reading comics than textbooks
C) 10-year-old Nathan, who is an avid reader for his age
D) 26-year-old Justine, who is doing her Ph.D. in linguistics
A
Early attempts to teach chimpanzees to talk were complete failures, primarily because of what?
chimpanzees lack the physical ability to produce spoken speech.
Which of the following is very difficult to explain, from a purely behaviourist view of language acquisition? A) Observational learning B) Generativity C) Social pragmatics D) Operant conditioning
B
Allan is a birdwatcher, and when he sees a new flying creature one day while on a walk, he does not need to discover that it flies, chirps, and eats worms and bugs to recognize that it is a bird. Allan is using __________ to help him achieve cognitive economy and categorize his world.
schemas
Syntax is
how words are combined into sentences.
General cognitive processing theories for the acquisition of language emphasize the importance of
our ability to perceive, learn, and recognize patterns.
Much of our language uses arbitrary symbols. What does this mean?
The word that represents an item could be anything.
Which of the following words would present the most difficulty when using phonetic decomposition to read? A) Sort B) Bat C) Livid D) Tight
D
The level of analysis of language that focuses on the smallest units of meaningful speech is called
morphemes.
Evidence from neuroeconomics studies suggests that we make better decisions when which brain areas are active?
areas associated with attentional control
What is cognitive economy?
- How our brains simplify information to reduce mental effort
- Keeps information we need for decision making to a minimum
- Oversimplifying can get us into trouble
What are heuristics?
- Mental shortcut
* May have enhanced survival
What is an anchoring bias?
- Tendency to treat the initial value that we perceive for something as an anchor we compare all other possible values
- Choosing based on previous decision
- We respond with something similar to previous value
What is representatives heuristics?
• Heuristic that involves judging the probability of an event by its superficial similarity to a prototype
• A stenotype, think about things in groups or categories
• Basically, based on how prevalent that event has been in past experience
• The challenge to this bias is failure to consider basic rate information
• Basic rate
o How common a behaviour or characteristic is in general
What is the availability heuristic?
• Heuristic that involves estimating the likelihood of an occurrence based on the ease with which it comes to our minds
• We use what is “available” in our memory
o What we have been told about this previously
• We treat it as common, relevant, or true
• It’s what makes us bad at estimating stats/calories etc.
What is base rate neglect?
- Because we don’t have perfect information about likelihood, we ignore statistical data in favor of gut reaction
- Can feed into confirmation bias or availability heuristic
What is conformation bias?
• Tendency to seek out evidence that supports our hypothesis of beliefs and to deny, dismiss, or distort evidence that doesn’t
What is the bandwagon effect?
- We go along with what is popular
- Going along with who we like that says it is good, why advertisers use celebrities
- We don’t test everything in our environment if others have already learned its not good
What is top down processing?
• Filling in gaps of missing information using our experiences and background knowledge
What is decision making?
• Choosing the best of available options
o Like picking which ice cream to grab
What is the paradox of choice? How can we avoid it?
• Too many choices or too much information it becomes difficult to make a choice
• We may question our choice or not be satisfied with it
• List can be narrowed by
o Top ten lists
o Filters
What is framing?
• The way a question is formulated that can influence the decisions people make
What are some examples of different presentations that would change the framing of a choice?
o Positive or negative spin
80% success rate as opposed to 20% failure rate
o Emotional component
o Level of impact
How can the anchoring effect come into play with framing?
o For example: normally $500 but on sale for $99, looks great
o Reason they jump the prices before they discount it
What are algorithms?
- Step by step learned procedure that is used to solve a problem
- Handy when steps to get to the solution are the same each time
- Ensures we do all the steps
- Pretty inflexible
What obstacles to problem solving may algorithms cause?
Mental Sets
• Phenomenon of becoming stuck in a specific problem-solving strategy, inhibiting our ability to generate alternatives
• Trouble thinking outside the box because what’s in the box has worked before
Functional Fixedness
• Difficulty conceptualizing that an object typically used for one purpose can be used for another
• Become fixated on the conventional use
• Upcycling a canoe to a bookshelf goes against this
What are mental sets?
- Phenomenon of becoming stuck in a specific problem-solving strategy, inhibiting our ability to generate alternatives
- Trouble thinking outside the box because what’s in the box has worked before
What is functional fixedness?
- Difficulty conceptualizing that an object typically used for one purpose can be used for another
- Become fixated on the conventional use
- Upcycling a canoe to a bookshelf goes against this
What is language?
- Largely arbitrary system of communication that combines symbols (such as words or gestures) in rule-based ways to create meaning
- Communicating info that enables us or others to accomplish a goal
- Allows expression of thoughts about social interaction
- All language is communication but not all communication is language
What are phonemes?
- Sounds of language
- Categories our vocal apparatus produces
- Probably around 100 in total around the world with each language using a subset of them
- English uses between 40-45
What are morphemes?
• Smallest unit of meaningful speech
• Created by stringing phonemes together
• Convey information about semantics (meaning derived from words and sentences)
• Most are words but also includes prefixes and suffixes
• Includes morphological markers
o Grammatical elements that modify words by adding sounds to them that change their meaning (for example adding -ed, or -ing)
• Use -ology or -ist, or even multiples, such as psychologist, which is 3 morphemes
What are some examples of biological influence over children’s ability to learn language?
o Learn more than imitation and make mistakes that cannot be reproduced by imitation
o Able to learn subtle differences in phonemes and slang almost effortlessly
o Gene Fox P2
Important for language comprehension and speech
Damage causes language to not develop normally
Don’t find it in species that are not human
o Lots of other genes influence language development as well
What is babbling?
o Intentional vocalization that lacks specific meaning
o Helps babies experiment with phonemes
o Even deaf children babble even without auditory information coming in
What is telegraphic speech?
Leaves out lots of words but meaning is maintained
Like sending telegrams which cost money per word
Amazingly still syntactically accurate
Used in the two-word stage at age 2
As children begin to use 3-4 word phrases, they also begin to produce morphological markers. What is an example of an error made with these markers as they experiment with language?
Knowing “s” makes it plural, but adding it to words that don’t follow those rules, such as “pantses”
Is language nature or nurture?
Like many things, it’s an interaction of both
Which theory of language acquisition completely explains how well and how fast we learn language?
None of them
What is reading automaticity?
- Makes reading very efficient
- Even makes words obviously if they are written from left to right in a word search
- We can read faster than we can spell
What is whole word recognition?
- Reading strategy that involves identifying common words based on their appearance without having to sound it out
- Used for vast majority of words
What is phonetic decomposition?
- Also called phonics
- Reading strategy that involves sounding out words by drawing correspondences between printed letters and sounds
- Used for new words, especially when just learning to read
- Leads to better reading and more effective to get and keep children reading as a teaching strategy
What is the effortful process used by someone just learning to read?
phonetic decomposition
What is the relatively effortless way that fluent adults read language?
whole word recognition
What is the stroop test?
- Stroop test shows reading is automatic and hard to inhibit
- Need to say colour, not the word that is written
- Children learning to read do better as they can turn off their attention to the words and pay attention to only the ink colour
- Shows how mental shortcuts can cause problems
