Unit 8 Pt 2: Thinking And Language Flashcards
Convergent thinking
Type of thinking that is directed towards a single solution
Convergent thinking example
2+4
Divergent thinking
Type of thinking where there are many alternatives, ideas or solutions
Divergent thinking example
How humans reduce climate change?
Matacognition
Thinking about thinking
Metacognition example
Choosing between preexisting strategies to make decisions
Cognition
Mental activities associated with processing, interpreting, understanding, and communicating information
Cognitive psychology studies
Concept formation
Problem solving
Decision making
Judgement formation
For classification/efficiency purposes humans create
Concepts
Concepts
Mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people
Concepts are often organized into
Hierarchies
Types of concepts
Superordinate concept
Basic concepts
Subordinate concepts
Superordinate concept is
Most broad
Superordinate concept example
Food (broad)
Basic concepts is
Specific in between
Basic concepts example
Bread (specific in between)
Subordinate concepts is
The most specific
Subordinate concepts
Rye (type of grain- most specific)
Humans usually form concepts by creating a
Prototype
Prototype
Mental image or best example fo a category
A prototype allows us to incorporate items
Easily
An item’s failure to match prototype leads to
Trouble classifying it
An item’s failure to match prototype leads to trouble classifying it; like
Is a platypus a mammal or not?
Methods of problem solving: trial and error
Guess and check
Methods of problem solving: algorithm
Methodical, logical pattern or procedure that guarantees solving of a particular problem
Algorithm looks at all possible combination or
Has a SPECIFIC FORMULA to solve the problem
Maths falls into what Method of problem solving?
Algorithm
Methods of problem solving: heuristics in simple words
Mental shortcut
Methods of problem solving: heuristics
Mental shortcut, rule of thumb strategies which allow us to solve problems efficiently and quickly
What problem solving strategies are most frequently used?
Heuristics
Heuristics example
What shortcuts do I use when deciding what shirt to buy?
Gender, size, prize, etc.
Disadvantage of algorithm
Usually slower
Advantage of heuristics
Faster
Algorithm vs heuristics: unscramble
SPLOYOCHYG
Algorithms go through all 907,208 combinations
Heuristics would take out YY, etc
Methods of problem solving: insight
Sudden realization of how to solve a problem without a real strategy involved
Insight: light bulb goes off
When you get an idea
Insight example
The riddles we did in class (didn’t get it at first but then did)
Kohler’s Chimpanzee study illustrates
Insight
Obstacles to Problem solving: Confirmation bias
Human tendency to search for information that confirms your perceptions and ignores information that goes against your initial beliefs.
Obstacles to Problem solving: Fixation
Refers to the INABILITY to see a problem from a NEW PERSPECTIVE
Fixation example
How would you arrange the match sticks into lateral triangles?
Mental set
Tendency to approach a particular problem in a particular way
Mental set can lead to
Fixation
Metal set is impacted by
Previous experiment on how we perceive and approach problems
Mental set method
You usually use strategies that have been successful in the past at solving problems even though it may not be most efficient strategy for the new problem
Functional fixedness
Tendency to think of objects only in terms of their usual functions
Functional fixedness can be overcomed with
Divergent thinking
Functional fixedness example
Matchbox, bulletin board candle
Inability to see that a dime can be used as a tool like a screwdriver
Functional fixedness
Representative heuristic
MENTAL SHORTCUT for judging the likelihood of things in terms of how well they seen to match our prototypes
Representative heuristic may lead to
Us making incorrect assumptions
Representative heuristic example
New student, Kim might be assumed as a girl because of her name
Availability heuristic
MENTAL SHORTCUT where we judge the likelihood of an event based on how readily the event comes to mind
What type of things can effect the availability of things in our memory?
Media, people
Availability heuristic: how readily the event comes to mind
What pops into my head first?
Availability heuristic
Americans finding Middle East and Africa to be dangerous
Availability heuristic can lead us to irrationally
Fear things which are likely
People are tend to be more fearful of the dangers of airplane travel than of traveling in an automobile
Availability heuristic
People are tend to be more fearful of being raped by a stranger even though it is more likely they will be raped by someone they know
Availability heuristic
Barnum effect: Common psychological phenomenon whereby individuals give high accuracy ratings to descriptions of their personality that supposedly are tailored specifically to them that are in fact
Vague and general enough to a wide range of people
Barnum effect helps explain
People’s trust of: horoscopes, fortune telling, etc
Barnum effect example
Personality test and results to be very general but people believed it
Problem solving reasoning types
Deductive and inductive reasoning
Deductive reasoning
Process of logic where a conclusion is reached based on previously known premises
Socrates is a man
All men are mortal
Socrates is mortal
Deductive reasoning
Deductive reasoning logic
Logic goes from general to specific
Inductive reasoning
Type of logic where we make inferences based on evidence we have seen
Reasoning that is heuristic Iike
Inductive reasoning
Strong induction is more prone to
Error
Strong induction example
All observed crows are black.
Therefore
All crows are black
Weak induction example
I always hang pictures on nails
Therefore
All pictures hang from nails
Inductive reasoning logic
Logic goes from specific instances to make generalizations
Belief bias
The way pre-existing beliefs an distort logical reasoning; can make invalid conclusions seem valid, or valid conclusions seem invalid
Decisions impacted by context
Belief bias
Belief bias example
Democrats support free speech
Dictators are not democrats
Conclusion: dictators do Not support free speech
Framing
Way an issue is posed; how a question is worded
Framing example
Way to market ground beef: 25% fat OR 75% lean
Framing impact
Can impact our memory of events.. Loftus’s eyewitness experiments
Belief perseverance
Once we have decided that we believe something, we will tend to keep on believing it, even in the face of discomforting evidence
Belief perseverance
Ma’s stupid superstition
Language
Our spoken written, or gestured words and how they are combined to communicate
Smallest distinctive sound unit
Phonemes
Smallest unit that carries MEANING; may be a word or part of a word (like prefix)
Morphemes
How many morphemes is in the word “previewed”?
3
How many morphemes is in the word “blessings?”
3
A system of rules that enables us to communicate with and understand others
Grammar
Grammar includes
Semantics and syntax
Semantics
The study of meaning; rules for how we get MEANING from morphemes, words, and sentences in a given language
Way to remember semantics
Semantic encoding- meaning
Semantics determine
The deep structure of language
Syntax
The rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences in a given language.
Rule for the order to put words in
Syntax
Semantic examples
Adding -ed to the end of a word does what?
Adding -s to a noun does what?
Syntax examples
In English adjectives come before noun but the opposite is true in Spanish.
Pretty girl—> chica Bonita
Language summary: month 4
Babbles may speech sounds
Language summary: month 10
Babbling releases household language
Language summary: month 12
One word stage
Language summary: month 24
2 word, telegraphic speech
Language summary: month 24+
Language developed rapidly into complete sentences
Skinner’s theory of language
Behavioral
Chomsky’s theory of language
Biological
Skinner believes we learn language through
Radical behaviorism
Only tools for leaning language according to Skinner
Association
Imitation
Reinforcement
Association
Associate the sight of things with certain sounds of words
Imitation
Watch models speaking words and syntax and then we imitate them
Reinforcement
Given positive feedback and words of encouragement when spoken correctly
Chomsky believes our brains are
Hardwired with inborn universal grammar
According to Chomsky’s language is enabled by a
Language acquisition device
Language acquisition device
Humans are born with innate abilities to acquire language
Language acquisition device argued that
Although children do learn the language of their environment, the rate they acquire words and grammar without being taught is too astonishing to be explains purely from external learning principle
Support for Chomsky: children learn language too fast to
be fully explained just by the environment
Support for Chomsky: language is
Creative (we can create sentences we never heard from the environment)
Support for Chomsky: easier to learn language as a
Child than adult
Chomsky: children overgeneralize
(Overregulate) rules of language because of innate language acquisition device
Children overgeneralizing example
Say I “goed” instead of went
The video of kids learning non sense words
Surface structure
Part of language that is purely phonetic (based on sound.. what we hear or read)
Deep structure
Theoretical part of language that represents the underlying MEANING which accounts for how different surface structures can have same deep structure
Deep structure and surface structure example:
Tom ate cake vs cake was eaten by Tom
Both parts are each surface structures
Has one deep structure meaning
Experience modifies brain to learn
Native language
Language Relativity or Language Determinism
Benjamin Whorf’s idea that language determines the way we think
Language determinism/ relativity example
Hopi Indians had no past tense, it made it difficult to think about past events in their cultures.
No “ed”
All expectancy/set concepts are related to how our
Perception, prior experiences, and schemas for phenomenon affect our thinking patterns and problem solving abilities
When explaining set concepts, they have to
Identify source of our preconception
2 types of set/expectancy
1) perceptual set
2) mental set
Stereotyping, availability heuristic, representative heuristic, functional fixedness, conformation bias, hindsight bias, belief bias, framing, learned helplessness
Concepts that fall under category of mental set
Words in grammatically correct sentences
Syntax
