Chapter 8 Language & Thinking

Language Communication: the sending and receiving of information Language: the primary mode of communication among humans A systematic way of communicating information using symbols and rules for combining them Speech: oral expression of language Approximately 5,000 spoken languages exist today.

Broca’s & Wernicke’s Areas

Do Animals Use Language? Since 1930s, numerous attempts have been made to teach language to a few select species. The most appropriate conclusion to draw: Nonhuman species show no capacity to produce language on their own, but Certain species can be taught to produce languagelike communication.

Infants Born Prepared to Learn Language Language acquisition – learning vs. inborn capacities Behaviorism’s language theory People speak as they do because they have been reinforced for doing so. Behaviorists assumed children were relatively passive. The problem with this theory is that it does not fit the evidence. Operant conditioning principles do not play the primary role in language development.

Infants Born Prepared to Learn Language The nativist perspective: Language development proceeds according to an inborn program. Language Acquisition Device (Noam Chomsky): humans are born with specialized brain structures (Language Acquisition Device) that facilitates the learning of language. Interactionist perspectives: Propose environmental and biological factors interact together to affect the course of language development. Social interactionist perspective strongly influenced by Lev Vygotsky’s writings

Infants Born Prepared to Learn Language Assessing the three perspectives on language acquisition: General consensus: Behaviorists place too much emphasis on conditioning principles. Nativists don’t give enough credit to environmental influences. Interactionist approaches may offer best possible solution.

The Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis Does language determine thought? Benjamin Lee Whorf’s linguistic relativity hypothesis Proposed that the structure of language determines the structure of thought (without a word to describe an experience, you cannot think about it). However, research indicates that just because a language lacks terms for stimuli does not mean that language users cannot perceive features of the stimuli. The answer is no. Most psychologists believe in a weaker version of Whorf’s hypothesis—that language can influence thinking.

Thinking Thinking—cognition The mental activity of knowing The processes through which knowledge is acquired The processes through which problems are solved

Concept Formation Concept: a mental grouping of objects, ideas, or events that share common properties Concepts enable people to store memories in an organized fashion. Categorization is the process of forming concepts. We form some concepts by identifying defining features. Problem with forming concepts by definition is that many familiar concepts have uncertain or fuzzy boundaries.

Concept Formation Thus, categorizing has less to do with features that define all members of a concept and has more to do with features that characterize the typical member of a concept. The most representative members of a concept are known as prototypes.

When Is It a “Cup,” and When Is It a “Bowl”?

Fuzzy Boundaries Determine whether something belongs to a group by comparing it with the prototype. Objects accepted and rejected define the boundaries of the group or concept. This is different for different people.

Problem-Solving Strategies Common problem-solving strategies: Trial and error: trying one possible solution after another until one works Algorithm: following a specific rule or step-by-step procedure that inevitably produces the correct solution Heuristic: following a general rule of thumb to reduce the number of possible solutions Insight: sudden realization of how a problem can be solved

“Internal” Obstacles Can Impede Problem Solving Confirmation bias: the tendency to seek information that supports our beliefs, while ignoring disconfirming information Mental set: the tendency to continue using solutions that have worked in the past, even though a better alternative may exist Functional fixedness: the tendency to think of objects as functioning in fixed and unchanging ways and ignoring other less obvious ways in which they might be used

The Candle Problem

Decision-Making Heuristics Representativeness heuristic: the tendency to make decisions based on how closely an alternative matches (or represents) a particular prototype Availability heuristic: the tendency to judge the frequency or probability of an event in terms of how easy it is to think of examples of that event

Decision-Making Heuristics Five conditions most likely to lead to heuristic use: People don’t have time to engage in systematic analysis. People are overloaded with information. People consider issues to be not very important. People have little information to use in making a decision. Something about the situation primes a given heuristic.