Myers’ Psychology for AP* David G. Myers *AP is a trademark registered and/or owned by the College Board, which was not involved in the production of, and does not endorse, this product. PowerPoint Presentation Slides by Kent Korek Germantown High School Worth Publishers, © 2010

Unit 7B: Cognition: Thinking, Problem Solving, Creativity, and Language

Unit Overview Thinking Language Thinking and Language Click on the any of the above hyperlinks to go to that section in the presentation.

Introduction Cognition (thinking)Cognition Cognitive psychologists - Remember: they study our mental activities (thinking, remembering, etc.) and how this influences our behavior

Thinking

Concepts Concepts - task: list all the different concepts that are represented in this classroom; narrow down all the objects into simplest concept!Concepts –Category hierarchies –prototypeprototype

Solving Problems… Strategies Algorithms - HOW WOULD WE SOLVE THIS anagram SIFTIULECFID?Algorithms –Step-by-step Heuristic - when we use past learning as a shortcut to finding a solution; useful…but can lead to errorHeuristic Ex. How is racial profiling an example? (see “limits of human intuition) Insight

Solving Problems Creativity Creativity Strernberg’s five components –Expertise –Imaginative thinking skills –A venturesome personality –Intrinsic motivation –A creative environment

RIDDLE A hunter sees a bear one mile due south. He shoots and misses, and the bear runs off. The hunter walks the one mile south to where the bear had been, then one mile due east, then one mile due north – at which point the hunter is standing again at exactly the same spot from which the gun had been fired. WHAT COLOUR WAS THE BEAR?

SOLUTION Only the north pole satisfies the requirement. The bear is a polar bear and is therefore WHITE This is an example of BREAKING “mental set” – our tendency to approach solving a problem in ways that have worked in the past

Solving Problems Obstacles to Problem Solving Confirmation bias Fixation –Mental setMental set –Functional fixednessFunctional fixedness

Solving Problems Obstacles to Problem Solving Confirmation bias Fixation –Mental setMental set –Functional fixednessFunctional fixedness

Making Decisions and Forming Judgments Using and Misusing Heuristics The Representative Heuristic –We judge people this way… Explain!!

Making Decisions and Forming Judgments Using and Misusing Heuristics The Availability Heuristic

Availability Heuristics We use it to judge the likelihood or probability of something We would judge the probability of an event by the ease to which we could think of similar events – think of the prevalence of school shootings!!! – After seeing many news stories of home foreclosures, people may judge that the likelihood of this event is greater. This may be true because it is easier to think of examples of this event.

Availability Heuristics……. More examples: People who read more case studies of successful businesses may judge the probability of running a successful business to be greater. After seeing several news reports about car thefts, you might make a judgment that vehicle theft is much more common than it really is in your area.

Making Decisions and Forming Judgments Overconfidence Overconfidence –Before your test on this chapter, predict your score on the multiple choice….will you be “overconfident”? –This phenomenon is seen in many areas of psychology….Groupthink and the belief that everyone is in agreement with the “leader” –It does have VALUE – that’s why we rely on heuristics, overconfidence, belief perseverance…helps us make decisions

Making Decisions and Forming Judgments The Belief Perseverance Phenomenon Belief perseverance-Belief perseverance –Consider the opposite

Making Decisions and Forming Judgments The Perils and Powers of Intuition Intuition –Unconscious intuition –The “chicken sexer” – they rely on “procedural memory” –This is often implicit –People have a difficult time explaining how they perform a skill

Intuition and its limits A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost? A man bought a horse for $60. and sold it for $70. Then he bought the same horse back for $80. and again sold it, for $90. How much money did he make in the horse business? Jack is looking at Anne but Anne is looking at George. Jack is married but George is not. Is a married person looking at an unmarried person? Yes, No, or Cannot be determined???

Making Decisions and Forming Judgments The Effects of Framing Framing –Framing experiments We can be seduced by the way products are “framed” – buy more when 25% off even though we end up spending more b/c we will buy more Overeat “low fat” foods – the amount of fat we consume is the same in either case

Language

Language Introduction Language

Language Structure Phonemes Phoneme – smallest distinctive soundPhoneme –English about 40 phonemes See “Phoneme Chart” ap psyc Cognition –Learning another language’s phonemes –SEE “A special pre-primer”

Language Structure Morphemes Morpheme – all about “meaning”Morpheme –Includes prefixes and suffixes –EXAMPLES follow……………

Unladylike The word unladylike consists of three morphemes and four syllables. Morpheme breaks: un- 'not' lady '(well behaved) female adult human' -like 'having the characteristics of' None of these morphemes can be broken up any more without losing all sense of meaning. Lady cannot be broken up into "la" and "dy," even though "la" and "dy" are separate syllables. Note that each syllable has no meaning on its own. Dogs The word dogs consists of two morphemes and one syllable: dog, and -s, a plural marker on nouns Note that a morpheme like "-s" can just be a single phoneme and does not have to be a whole syllable. Technique The word technique consists of only one morpheme having two syllables. Even though the word has two syllables, it is a single morpheme because it cannot be broken down into smaller meaningful parts.

Language Structure Grammar Grammar – “the Rules”Grammar –Semantics – “meaning” rulesSemantics –Syntax – “combining words” rulesSyntax In what ways do YOU use grammar incorrectly??? –“everybody has their AP textbook in class” –“me and him are going to 7-11” –“Bad” can mean “good” or “bad” –“google” (noun) has become a verb

Language Development When Do We Learn Language? Receptive language - ability to comprehend Productive language – ability to produce words –Babbling stage – “bababa” or “gagagaBabbling stage –One-word stage – “shoe”, “Dada”One-word stage –Two-word stage – “Mummy’s bag”Two-word stage –Telegraphic speech – similar to early “telegraph” messagesTelegraphic speech

Language Development When Do We Learn Language?

Language Development Explaining Language Development Skinner: Operant Learning –Learning principles Association; Imitation; Reinforcement Infants produce spontaneous sounds Parents reinforce; infants repeats those sounds reinforced Children learn to speak grammatically in order to communicate their needs to others

Language Development Explaining Language Development Chomsky: Inborn Universal Grammar Operant does not explain how children learn grammar and rules Because children learn language so quickly they must be “pre-programmed for language” –Language acquisition device – an innate system which helps them interpret the language they hear; children listen for patterns… –Universal grammar – all languages have features in common….children have innate understanding of these universals which helps them

Language Development Explaining Language Development Statistical Learning and Critical Periods –Statistical learning SEE “Patricia Kuhl: The Linguistic Genius of Babies” TED TALK –Critical (sensitive) period

Thinking and Language

Language Influences Thinking Whorf’s linguistic determinism – See Youtube in “Cognition” filelinguistic determinism Bilingual advantage

Thinking in Images Implicit memory “procedural memory” We think in “images” ACTIVITY: “create a mental model (pg. 30)

The End

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Definition Slides

Cognition = the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating.

Concept = a mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people.

Prototype = a mental image or best example of a category. Matching new items to a prototype provides a quick and easy method for sorting items into categories (as when comparing feathered creatures to a prototypical bird, such as a robin).

Algorithm = a methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem. Contrasts with the usually speedier – but also more error-prone – use of heuristics.

Heuristic = a simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently; usually speedier but also more error-prone than algorithms.

Insight = a sudden and often novel realization of the solution to a problem; it contrasts with strategy-based solutions.

Creativity = the ability to produce novel and valuable ideas.

Confirmation Bias = a tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence.

Fixation = the inability to see a problem from a new perspective, by employing a different mental set.

Mental Set = a tendency to approach a problem in one particular way, often a way that has been successful in the past.

Functional Fixedness = the tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual functions; an impediment to problem solving.

Representativeness Heuristic = judging the likelihood of things in terms of how well they seem to represent, or match, particular prototypes; may lead us to ignore other relevant information.

Availability Heuristic = estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; if instances come readily to mind (perhaps because of their vividness), we presume such events are common

Overconfidence = the tendency to be more confident that correct – to over-estimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgments.

Belief Perseverance = clinging to one’s initial conceptions after the basis on which they are formed has been discredited.

Intuition = an effortless, immediate, automatic feeling or thought, as contrasted with explicit, conscious reasoning.

Framing = the way an issue is posed; how an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and judgments.

Language = our spoken, written, or signed words and the ways we combine them to communicate meaning.

Phoneme = in language, the smallest distinctive sound unit.

Morpheme = in a language, the smallest unit that carries meaning; may be a word or a part of a word (such as a prefix).

Grammar = in a language, a system of rules that enables us to communicate with and understand others.

Semantics = the set of rules by which we derive meaning from morphemes, words, and sentences in a given language; also, the study of meaning.

Syntax = the rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences in a given language.

Babbling Stage = beginning at about 4 months, the stage of speech development in which the infant spontaneously utters various sounds at first unrelated to the household language.

One-word Stage = the stage in speech development, from about age 1 to 2, during which a child speaks mostly in single words.

Two-word Stage = beginning about age 2, the stage in speech development during which a child speaks mostly two-word statements.

Telegraphic Speech = early speech state in which a child speaks like a telegram – “go car” – using mostly nouns and verbs.

Linguistic Determinism = Whorf’s hypothesis that language determines the way we think.