Chapter 8 Language and Thought

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Table of Contents Do mental concepts drive the acquisition of language or does language help us form mental concepts?

Table of Contents I. Key Concepts Metacognition – thinking/awareness of one’s own thought Metamemory – awareness of one’s own memory Calibration – accuracy of metacognition Illusion of knowing – overconfidence about one’s knowledge/understanding Dual coding theory – theory that words can be stored in verbal code or imagery or both

Table of Contents STOP and THINK!!! QUICK… write the first five words that come to mind when you think of the word “Bachelor”

Table of Contents II. Concepts Mental Images –Symbolic distance effect mental comparisons are made along some relevant dimension – speed of processing is inversely related to the “distance” between the items on that dimension –Example: Forming Concepts –Defining attribute/core characteristics possessed by ALL members of that category –Prototype category members most representative of that category (like a stereotype)

Table of Contents Concepts con’t Scheme/schemata –organized cluster of knowledge based on prior experience that helps us to interpret and act on the world Organization of concepts Superordinate category Basic Level Subordinate Category

Table of Contents III. Language: Turning Thoughts into Words Language - symbols that convey meaning, plus rules for combining those symbols, that can be used to generate an infinite variety of messages Properties of Language –Symbolic (words represent objects, actions, events, ideas) –Semantic (meaningful) –Generative (infinite) –Structured (has a rule system) Critical period - an optimal time for developing a particular skill, ex: language –According to some studies, birth to six years is the optimal time for language development

Table of Contents The Hierarchical Structure of Language Phonemes = smallest speech units w/o meaning –100 possible, English – about 40 Morphemes = smallest unit of speech w/ meaning –50,000 in English, root words, prefixes, suffixes Semantics = meaning of words and word combinations –Objects and actions to which words refer Syntax = a system of rules for arranging words into grammatically sensible sentences –Different rules for different languages Grammar – a system of rules in a language that enables us to communicate with and understand others

Table of Contents Language Development: Milestones Initial vocalizations similar across languages –Crying, cooing, babbling The Three Stages of Language Acquisition 1. Babbling Stage – –stage of speech development in which the infant spontaneously utters various sounds at first unrelated to the household language –3-4 months –pre-linguistic stage (vocalization, not language) –Phonemes –babbling sounds begin to resemble surrounding language (10 mos.)

Table of Contents Milestones continued 2. One –word Stage –stage in speech development during which a child speaks mostly in single words –1- 2 years (1 year – first word) –Linguistic stage –Use phonemes to make morphemes –Holophrastic speech (use of one word to communicate an entire meaning – Ex: –receptive vs. expressive language – children understand more than they say –vocabulary of 50 words by age 2 (10,000 by 6) –similar cross-culturally – words for parents

Table of Contents One word stage continued – months – vocabulary spurt Fast mapping - process by which children map a word onto an underlying concept after only one exposure Overextensions - occur when a child incorrectly uses a word to describe a wider set of objects or actions than it is meant to Underextensions - occur when a child incorrectly uses a word to describe a narrower set of objects or actions than it is meant to

Table of Contents Milestones Continued 3. Two- Word Stage –stage in speech development during which a child speaks in mostly two-word statements –End of second year ( 2-3 years) –Telegraphic speech - child speaks like a telegram, using mostly nouns and verbs and omitting “auxiliary” words –Grammar emerges –Mean Length of Utterance (MLU) – researcher measure –Overregularization - generalizing grammatical rules incorrectly to irregular cases where they do not apply

Table of Contents Summary of Language Development Month (approximate) Stage Babbles many speech sounds. Babbling reveals households language. One-word stage. Two-world, telegraphic speech. Language develops rapidly into complete sentences.

Table of Contents Bilingualism: Learning More Than One Language Research findings: –Smaller vocabularies in one language, combined vocabularies average –Higher scores for middle-class bilingual subjects on cognitive flexibility, analytical reasoning, selective attention, and metalinguistic awareness –Slight disadvantage in terms of language processing speed –Second languages more easily acquired early in life –Greater acculturation facilitates acquisition

Table of Contents Do animals have language?

Table of Contents Animal Thinking & Language con’t Dolphins, sea lions, parrots, chimpanzees –Vocal apparatus issue –American Sign Language Allen and Beatrice Gardner (1969) –Chimpanzee - Washoe –160 word vocabulary Sue Savage-Rumbaugh –Bonobo chimpanzee - Kanzi –Receptive language – 72% of 660 requests

Table of Contents Theories of Language Acquisition Three Major School of Thought –Behavioral –Nativist –Interactionist 1. Behaviorist –Skinner learning of specific verbal responses through conditioning

Table of Contents Theories of Language Acquisition con’t 2. Nativist –Chomsky learning the rules of language through a biological prewiring Language Acquisition Device (LAD)

Table of Contents Percentage able to discriminate Hindi t’s Hindi- speaking adults 6-8 months 8-10 months months English- speaking adults Infants from English-speaking homes Did you know… we are all born to recognize speech sounds from all the world’s languages?

Table of Contents Theories of Language Acquisition con’t 3. Interactionist –Cognitive, social communication, and emergentist theories –Brunner – supported Chomsky, but added the LASS (language acquisition support system)

Table of Contents IV. The Cognitive Revolution 19th Century focus on the mind –Introspection (Wundt) – yielded unreliable results Behaviorist focus on overt responses –Critics argue this is an incomplete picture of human functioning Breakthrough for Cognitive Psychology – ( 1956 conference: emphasis on empirical study) –Simon and Newell – computer program simulating human problem solving –Chomsky – new model of language –Miller – memory (7 plus or minus 2 capacity of STM)

Table of Contents Problem Solving: Types of Problems Three basic classes (Greeno 1978) –Problems of inducing structure Series completion and analogy problems –Problems of arrangement String problem and Anagrams –Often solved through insight –Problems of transformation Hobbits and orcs problem Water jar problem

Table of Contents Effective Problem Solving Well defined vs. ill defined problems –Well defined = the initial state, the goal state, and the constraints are clearly specified –“Real world” tends to be ill defined (one or more above elements are missing or incomplete) Barriers to effective problem solving: –including Irrelevant Information –Functional Fixedness - the tendency to perceive an item only in terms of its most common use –Mental Set - when people persist in using problem-solving strategies that have worked in the past –assuming Unnecessary Constraints

Table of Contents Approaches to Problem Solving Algorithms –Systematic trial-and-error –Guaranteed solution Heuristics –Shortcuts –No guaranteed solution Forming subgoals Working backward Searching for analogies Changing the representation of a problem

Table of Contents Culture & Cognitive Style w/Problem Solving Field dependence –relying on external frames of reference Field independence –relying on internal frames of reference Culture’s Influence –Western cultures inspire field independence/ analytic cognitive styles –Cultural influence based in ecological (survival) demands foster field dependence/ holistic cognitive styles

Table of Contents Decision Making: Evaluating Alternatives and Making Choices Theory of bounded rationality (Simon 1957) – human decision making strategies are simplistic and often yield irrational results. Making Choices –Additive strategies - rating the attributes of each alternative and selecting the alternative with most desirable attributes (i.e. making a list of pros and cons) –Elimination by aspects -gradually eliminating unattractive alternatives, we tend to use this when given a lot of choices (i.e. four possible dates to the prom – you start by throwing out the “boring” date) –Making “Risky Decisions” Expected value – what will you gain? Subjective utility – what is it personally worth? Subjective probability – what are the chances I think it will happen?

Table of Contents Heuristics in Judging Probabilities The availability heuristic – estimating the probability of an event on the ease with which relevant instances come to mind –i.e. thinking the prevalence the insanity please is high because you can recall cases in the news) The representativeness heuristic – estimating the probability of an event on how similar it is to the typical prototype of that event The tendency to ignore base rates The conjunction fallacy - occurs when people estimate that the odds of two uncertain events happening together are greater than the odds of either event happening alone (Influenced by the representativeness heuristic.)

Table of Contents Understanding Pitfalls in Reasoning About Decisions The gambler’s fallacy - odds of a chance event increase if the event hasn’t occurred recently. – i.e. The law of small numbers - assume that results based on small samples are representative of the population. –i.e. Overestimating the improbable - people tend to greatly overestimate the likelihood of dramatic, vivid, but infrequent, events that receive heavy media coverage. –i.e.

Table of Contents Pitfalls continued Confirmation bias – tendency to seek information that supports one’s decisions and beliefs, while ignoring disconfirming information –i.e. Belief perseverance - tendency to hang onto beliefs in the face of contradictory evidence –i.e. The overconfidence effect - tendency for people to put too much faith in their estimates, beliefs, and decisions, even when they should know better Framing - how decision issues are posed or how choices are structured – think of leading questions for eye witnesses (may influence people)

Table of Contents Evolutionary Analyses: Flaws in Decision Making and Fast and Frugal Heuristics Cosmides and Tooby (1996) –Unrealistic standard of rationality –Decision making evolved to handle real-world adaptive problems –Problem solving research based on contrived, artificial problems Gigerenzer (2000) –Quick and dirty heuristics –Less than perfect but adaptive