Thinking and Language

 Cognition: Mental process associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating.  Concept Definition and examples Hierarchies Definition vs. Prototype  Prototypical problems

 Algorithms Trial/error, other examples Benefits and hazards  Heuristics Representativeness, availability, and anchoring and adjustment will be discussed later. Benefits and hazards  Insight Examples The biology of insight

 Confirmation Bias Definition Examples  Fixation Mental Set  Examples Functional Fixedness  Examples

 The Return of Heuristics Representativeness Availability Anchoring and Adjustment  Overconfidence Relation to hindsight bias Belief bias  Belief Perseverance Charles Lord experiment Amos Tversky thought truckers hate poetry. Daniel Kahneman thinks words that start with R and K are more common.

 Implicit reasoning; effortless, immediate and automatic thoughts or feelings.  Dangers of intuitive thought Previous examples  Strengths of intuition Adaptive thinking  Intuition improves with experience See table 9.1 on page 380 for a complete list Balance intuition with explicit thought* *Not those explicit thoughts…

 Framing Effect: The idea that the way an issue is presented can impact the way it is perceived. Both frames must be logically equivalent  Tversky and Kahneman example: 72% A / 28% B 22% C / 78% D  Other examples Problem: The US is preparing for the outbreak of an Asian disease that is expected to kill 600. A) 200 saved B) 1/3 chance 600 saved, 2/3 chance no one is saved. OR C) 400 people will die D) 1/3 chance no one will die, 2/3 chance 600 will die..

 Language – spoken, written or signed words and the ways they are combined to communicate meaning.  Phonemes - The atom of language™ Examples  Morphemes - The cell of language™ Examples  Grammar – The mother of language’s mother™ Syntax Semantics Lenguege – speken, wretten er segned werds end the weys they ere cembened te cemmenecete meeneng.

 Brief overview  Receptive language Infants (0-2 yrs) Examples  Productive language Babbling One-word stage Two-word stage  Telegraphic speech  Syntactical development  A Basic Timeline ≈4 months  Discriminate sounds  Read lips  Babbling ≈7 months  Discriminate wordss ≈10 months  Babble in mother tongue ≈12 months  One-word stage ≈18 months  Learn 1 word per day ≈24 months  Two-word stage  Telegraphic speech

NURTURENATURE  B.F. Skinner Association Imitation Reinforcement “Verbal behavior evidently came into existence when…the vocal musculature became susceptible to operant conditioning.”  Noam Chomsky Language acquisition is too rapid to be purely experience.  LAD – Language Acquisition Device Universal grammar Similarities in development

 Babies are adept at analyzing speech. Saffran experiment Marcus experiment  Critical Period Examples Genie case study Development through the life span.

 Aphasia Broca’s (LFL) and Wernicke’s (LTL) areas Angular Gyrus (LPL) and reading aloud  Geschwind’s Theory OL  AG  WA  BA  MC  fMRI research Primary and secondary language examples  Parallel processing and language

 Benjamin Whorf and Linguistic Determinism Different languages impose different realities  Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis Language shapes and impacts how we think Examples  Sense of self  Piraha tribe  Berinmo tribe  Gender and language  Culture and language

 Visual and procedural thinking lies beyond linguistic control. Mirror neurons Mental practice  Outcome simulation “Imagine winning the lottery”  Process simulation “Imagine hard work and efficient work habits”

 Animals and Thought How we determine animal thinking Insight, tools, mathematics, culture  Animals and Language Communication vs. Language Apes and Sign Language  Examples and Criticism  Q: So, seriously, do animals use language? A: It depends upon what you mean by “language”.