1. Thinking and Language
Chapter 10

2. Cognitive Psychology
This perspective looks at information processing. It includes memory, perception, thinking, problem solving, language, and intelligence.
Cognition – mental activity associated with processing, understanding, and communicating information

3. Cognitive Perspective: Assumptions
Nature and Nurture – the nature of the information processing system seems to be inborn.
Behavior cannot be fully understood without recourse to the internal mental processes, or mediators, that occur between input and output.
The way the info processing system works suggests that human behavior is rational and predictable. Mental processes can and should be studied scientifically. Human functioning can be likened to that of a machine.

4. Cognitive Perspective: Methods
Experiments
Descriptive
Triangulation
Loftus: Memory – case studies, observations and experiments
Verbal Protocol – people verbalize their thoughts processes as they solve a problem

5. Thinking Concept Prototype
Mental grouping of similar objects, events, or people
Address, zoo, fruit
Prototype
The best example of a category
Example: bird = robin; chair = ?

6. Problem Solving Three ways to solve problems Insight Algorithm
Methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem
Heuristic
Rule of thumb strategy that often allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently
Usually speedier, but more error-prone than algorithms
Heuristic errors

7. Problem Solving Insight
Sudden and often novel realization of the solution to a problem
Contrasts with strategy-based solutions

8. Problem Solving Obstacles to Problem Solving Confirmation Bias
Tendency to search for information that confirms one’s preconceptions
Fixation
Inability to see a problem from a new perspective
Impediment to problem solving

9. Thinking Framing The way an issue is posed
How an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and judgments
Example: What is the best way to market ground beef – as 25% fat or 75% lean?

10. Thinking Mental Set Tendency to approach a problem in a particular way
Especially a way that has been successful in the past but may or may not be helpful in solving a new problem

11. Thinking Functional Fixedness
tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual functions
impediment to problem solving

12. Thinking Overconfidence Tendency to be more confident than correct
Tendency to overestimate the accuracy of one’s beliefs and judgments

13. Thinking Belief bias Belief Perseverance
the tendency for one’s preexisting beliefs to distort logical reasoning
sometimes by making invalid conclusions seem valid, or valid conclusions seem invalid
Belief Perseverance
Clinging to one’s initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited

14. Thinking outside the box…
Convergent thinking – conventional thinking directed toward a single correct solution
Divergent thinking – thinking that produces many alternatives or ideas

15. Artificial Intelligence
designing and programming computer systems
to do intelligent things
to simulate human thought processes
intuitive reasoning
learning
understanding language

16. Building Blocks of Language
our spoken, written, or gestured words and the way we combine them to communicate meaning
Phoneme
in a spoken language, the smallest distinctive sound unit

17. Building Blocks of Language
Morpheme
In a language, the smallest unit that carries meaning
May be a word or a part of a word (such as a prefix)
Example: Cat
Grammar
A system of rules in a language that enables us to communicate with and understand others

19. Language Semantics Syntax
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
Example: White House

20. Stages of Language Babbling Stage One-Word Stage
beginning at 3 to 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
from about age 1 to 2
the stage in speech development during which a child speaks mostly in single words

21. Stages of Language Two-Word Stage Telegraphic Speech
beginning about age 2
the stage in speech development during which a child speaks mostly two-word statements
Telegraphic Speech
early speech stage in which the child speaks like a telegram – “go car” – using mostly nouns and verbs and omitting “auxiliary” words

22. Language Summary of Language Development Month (approximate) Stage 410 12 24
24+
Babbles many speech sounds.
Babbling reveals households
language.
One-word stage.
Two-word, telegraphic speech.
Language develops rapidly into
Complete sentences.

23. Language Biological Reasons Behaviorism Noam Chomsky (Nativist theory)
Lennenberg’s theory of critical period
Examples
Victor (France)
Genie (US)
Genes design the mechanisms for a language, and experience fills them as it modifies the brain
Behaviorism
Skinner and behaviorists say language is ________.

24. Language Linguistic Relativity
Benjamin Lee Whorf and Sapir’s hypothesis that language determines the way we think
Examples
Eskimoes

25. Animal Language? Direction of nectar source
The straight-line part of the dance points in the direction of a nectar source, relative to the sun
Signing Chimpanzees

26. Language = Nature & Nurture Interactionist theory = both