1. ©John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2008 Carpenter/Huffman:Visualizing Psychology
Note to Instructor: Internet connection is required to access media assets. No connection? Request a CD/DVD for Wiley owned CyberPsych assets.
The following Media-Enriched PowerPoint slides include the core concepts and key terms of Chapter 8 in Visualizing Psychology. Before presenting these slides, delete all instructor information slides by pressing “delete” on your keyboard.
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2. Note to Instructor (Continued): Media-Rich Assets
WWW Links are dispersed throughout the PowerPoint slides where appropriate and are indicated by this icon:
CyberPsych: Animations are Wiley owned and placed throughout this presentation. The animations are indicated by this icon:
CyberPsych: Psychology in the News Video Clips are also Wiley owned and placed throughout this presentation. The video clips are indicated by this icon:
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3. ©John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2008 Carpenter/Huffman:Visualizing Psychology
Note to Instructor (Continued):
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To further personalize and enrich your presentation, check the Visualizing Psychology Instructor Companion Site at for supplemental figures, tables, key terms, etc.
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4. ©John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2008 Carpenter/Huffman:Visualizing Psychology
Note to Instructor (Continued):
Each topic on the Lecture Outline slide (#6) has been linked for your convenience. When in “presentation mode,” simply click on the topic and you will link directly to the slide(s) of interest.
Finally, the last slide of each topic includes a “home” icon , which will return you to the original Lecture Outline slide. This feature enables you to present chapter topics in any order. Ease of navigation and flexibility in presentation are key elements of an enriched PowerPoint presentation. Enjoy!
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5. Visualizing Psychology by Siri Carpenter & Karen Huffman
PowerPoint  Lecture Notes Presentation
Chapter 8: Thinking,
Language, and Intelligence
Siri Carpenter, Yale University
Karen Huffman, Palomar College
©John Wiley & Sons, Inc Carpenter/Huffman:Visualizing Psychology

6. ©John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2008 Carpenter/Huffman:Visualizing Psychology
Lecture Overview
Thinking
Language
Intelligence
The Intelligence Controversy
©John Wiley & Sons, Inc Carpenter/Huffman:Visualizing Psychology

7. ©John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2008 Carpenter/Huffman:Visualizing Psychology
Chapter Introduction
Thinking, language, and intelligence are often studied under the larger topic of cognition (mental activities involved in acquiring, storing, retrieving, and using knowledge).
©John Wiley & Sons, Inc Carpenter/Huffman:Visualizing Psychology

8. ©John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2008 Carpenter/Huffman:Visualizing Psychology
Thinking
Cognitive building blocks
Thinking processes are distributed throughout the brain, especially the frontal lobe.
©John Wiley & Sons, Inc Carpenter/Huffman:Visualizing Psychology

9. Thinking—Cognitive Building Blocks
Mental Image: mental representation of a previously stored sensory experience, including visual, auditory, etc.
©John Wiley & Sons, Inc Carpenter/Huffman:Visualizing Psychology

10. Thinking—Cognitive Building Blocks (Concepts)
Concepts: mental representation of a group or category that shares similar characteristics
How do we learn concepts?
a. Artificial concepts--formed by logical, specific rules
b. Natural concepts/prototypes--formed by everyday life experiences
c. Hierarchies--group concepts into subcategories within broader categories
©John Wiley & Sons, Inc Carpenter/Huffman:Visualizing Psychology

11. ©John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2008 Carpenter/Huffman:Visualizing Psychology
Pause and Reflect: Check & Review
How is this child learning the concept of “footsteps”? Is it an artificial concept, a natural concept, or a hierarchy?
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12. Thinking—Cognitive Building Blocks An Example of Prototypes
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13. Thinking—Cognitive Building Blocks An Example of Hierarchies
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14. Thinking—Problem Solving
Step 1: Preparation—identifying, separating, and defining
Step 2: Production—generating possible solutions (hypotheses) by using algorithms and heuristics
Step 3: Evaluation—judging hypotheses in Step 2 against the criteria in Step 1
©John Wiley & Sons, Inc Carpenter/Huffman:Visualizing Psychology

15. Thinking – Problem Solving (Continued)
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16. Thinking—Five Key Barriers to Problem Solving
1. Mental Set: persistence in using strategies that have worked in the past
Using no more than four lines, can you connect all nine dots without lifting your pencil from the paper?
©John Wiley & Sons, Inc Carpenter/Huffman:Visualizing Psychology

17. Thinking—Five Key Barriers to Problem Solving (Mental Sets Continued)
To overcome a mental set you must “think outside the box”— literally!
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18. Thinking—Five Key Barriers to Problem Solving
Functional Fixedness: thinking of an object as only functioning in its usual way
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19. Thinking—Five Key Barriers to Problem Solving
Confirmation Bias: preferring information that confirms preexisting positions or beliefs, while ignoring contradictory evidence
Availability Heuristic: judging the likelihood of an event based on how readily available other instances are in memory
©John Wiley & Sons, Inc Carpenter/Huffman:Visualizing Psychology

20. Thinking—Five Key Barriers to Problem Solving
Representativeness Heuristic: estimating the probability of something based on how well the circumstances match (or represent) a previous prototype
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21. Pause and Reflect: Check & Review
Overestimating the dangers of flying is an example of the availability heuristic or the representativeness heuristic?
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22. ©John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2008 Carpenter/Huffman:Visualizing Psychology
Thinking—Creativity
Creativity :ability to produce valued outcomes in a novel way
Three elements of creativity:
Originality
Fluency
Flexibility
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23. ©John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2008 Carpenter/Huffman:Visualizing Psychology

24. ©John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2008 Carpenter/Huffman:Visualizing Psychology
Thinking—Creativity
Divergent Thinking: ability to produce many alternatives or ideas; linked to creativity (e.g., reordering the letters “grevenidt” to form many new words)
Convergent Thinking: attempting to find one correct answer; linked to conventional, non-creative thinking (e.g., = ?)
©John Wiley & Sons, Inc Carpenter/Huffman:Visualizing Psychology