THOUGHT, LANGUAGE, AND INTELLIGENCE Flashcards
Cognitive Psychology
- study of mental activities and how they work
Mental Representation
- building blocks of thought
- internal mental symbols that stand for some object, event, or state of affairs in the world
- allow people to think while there is a absence
Concepts (mental categories)
-groups similar events, people, objects
-allow us to use prior experience to understand and react to new encounters
Prototype
- the best of a concept
E.g Goldfish vs pufferfish
Hierarchies of Concepts
- Superordinate -abstract
-furniture - Basic
-chair - Subordinate -specific
-rocking chair
algorithm
- step by step procedure for a gaurenteed solution
insight
- a sudden, conscious change in a person’s understanding of some situation or problem
- involves unconscious cognitive work
mental set
- mental framework to access problems with previous experience
functional fixedness
- focusing on typical functions and failing to see alternate solutions
restructuring
- reorganizing ones solution to fix problem
Bounded Rationality
- idea that rational decision-making it constrained by limitated resource
Dual Processing Theory
The automatic system
-slower, more effortful
- rational outcomes
vs
The controlled system
-fast, effortless
-skipping over someones profile on hinge
Huerestics
- mental tools people use to make decisions and judgments
- mental shortcut
- allow efficient decision making
-ppl are unaware we use them
representativeness heuristic
-judging likelihood of something based on how well it represents a category
availability heuristic
-deciding how common or probable something is based on how easily it comes to mind
E.g. flood
affect heuristic
- tendency to use positive and negative affect we associate with objects/events to make decisions
- good for me bad for me\
- ventromedial frontal cortex
confirmation bias
- the tendency to look/weigh the evidence that confirms one’s preexisting beliefs than one that does not align
belief perserverance
- tendency to resist changing their beliefs even when faced with disconfirming evidence
loss aversion
- making choices that will minimize loss
“door in face” technique
- change one reference point
E.g presenting high price then lowering it
overconfidence bias
-overestimate accuracy of one’s judgement/ knowlwdge
hindsight bias
- overestimate the likleyhood one would have predicted that outcome in advance
- found in all ages
linguistic determinism hypothesis (benjamin lee)
different languages impose different ways of understanding the world that can constrain and shape our thinking
E.g different languages impose different ways of understanding the world that can constrain and shape our thinking. A: will not experience sadness
overregularization
- language error made by children
- adding “ed”
E.g cached two goose
language acquisition device (Chomsky)
-innate, biological mechanism that allows humans to acquire language naturally and rapidly during early childhood
- universal grammar
sensitive period
- a period where !language acquisition! can occur
- sensitive, learn from enviroment
-afterward, language acquisition will be limited
Intelligence
-to think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, reason, plan, solve problems, learn from experience, and acquire new knowledge.
3 approaches to Intelligence
- Psychometric Approach
- Multiple intelligences approach
- Information processing approach
factor analysis and general intelligence (g factor)
- analyzes a pattern of correlations to look for the common factors underlying the scores.
- tests in children adults
G factor
-general ability for mental tasks
(common sense?)
- TWO COMPONENTS
- fluid intelligence
-tackle new and unusual situations - crystalized intelligence
-accumulated knowledge
E.g language
Mental Age & IQ
- calculation by dividing a child s mental age by the chronological age then multiplying by 100
- above 100 perform older, under 100 = perform younger
achievement test
- tests how much ones’s learned over certain period of time
aptitude tests
- measure the potential to learn new skills
E.g. SAT
Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)
- test whether people have cognitive problems
- access general knowledge, vocab, comprehension
standardization
- is a process of making test scores more meaningful by defining them in relation to the performance of a pretested group
-compare with your other scores
-reliability (consistent results)
In a large-scale study comparing siblings across many families, a scientist finds that intelligence (as measured with a standardized test) appears to have a heritability of .38 after controlling for family wealth. How should she interpret this result?
-When looking at the population as a whole, 38 percent of the variation in score differences is explained by differences in genes.
Self-Fufilling prophecy (Pygmalion effect)
-is a cycle by which others’ beliefs or our own can affect behaviour in ways that bring the belief “to life” and make it true
-fixed mindset and that intelligence can’t be changed
In both human and animal studies, which statement best describes the relationship between intelligence test scores and the environment in which the subject develops?
Enrichment improves scores, whereas impoverishment diminishes them.
Pygmalion effect (positive and negative)
A.
- the student becomes more confident w the help of his teacher
- motivated
B.
- Student becomes discouraged
gives up
- is not challenged
Sternberg’s definition of intelligence (3 major types)
- Analytical intelligence
- Creative intelligence
- Practical intelligence
What three criteria must an intelligence test meet in order to be useful?
- Standardization, reliability, and validity
What happens to IQ scores of related individuals as they age? Why?
They become more similar through age because:
1. Genetics determines intellectual potential, which takes time to develop
2. Genetics shapes the environments that people select for themselves
Environment enrichment and intellectual development
Enriching environments lead to faster intellectual development, and impoverished is associated with slower
