1. Thinking & Language

2. Cognition (Thinking)
mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering and communicating

3. Concepts mental groupings of similar objects, events, and people
Hierarchies – creating subdivisions of concepts
Prototypes – best example of a concept

4. Solving problems
Algorithm – logical, methodical step-by-step procedure likely to solve a problem
Heuristics – fast “rules of thumb” that may lead to correct answer
but can often lead to mistakes
Insight – “aha phenomena” where answer suddenly appears without an apparent strategy
Activity in the right temporal lobe

5. Obstacles for Solving Problems
Confirmation bias – only look at what confirms our ideas
Wason (1960, 1981) – math rule & avoiding new info.
Fixation – inability to see a problem from a new perspective
Mental set – stay with what works ex. Matchsticks
Functional fixedness – can’t find alternate uses “thinking outside the box”

6. Making decisions & forming judgments
Misusing heuristics
Tversky & Kahneman (1974) – availability vs. representativeness
Representative heuristics – truck driver vs. prof. example
Availability heuristics – memories that are easily accessible seem to be more likely to occur frequently

7. Making decisions & forming judgments
Overconfidence – overestimating correctness of beliefs & judgments
Ex. Time needed to get assignments done
Overconfidence related to relative happiness
Framing decisions – how an issue is posed
Can significantly affect decisions & judgments
How does this relate to context effects & priming?

8. Belief bias
Belief perseverance – hold beliefs despite evidence to the contrary
Intuition – can be extremely powerful and useful, but must be checked
*Look at table 10.1 for a simple table of intuition’s strengths and weaknesses

10. our words and how we combine them
Language
our words and how we combine them

11. Language structure Consonants are more important than vowels
Phonemes – basic set of sounds in a language (869 diff. phonemes in human language)
Consonants are more important than vowels
Morphemes – smallest unit that carries meaning
Ex. Prefixes, suffixes, pronouns, words

12. Language structure
Grammar – set of rules of how to arrange morphemes into logical intelligible arrangements
Semantics – set of rules used to derive meaning from morphemes, words and sentences
Syntax – rules used to determine word order

13. Language development When we get language In fantis (not speaking)
receptive language (understanding lang.)
productive language (using lang.)
Babbling stage – not imitation of adult sounds
One-word stage – often one syllable and inflection carries meaning
Often around 12 months

14. Language development
Two-word stage – word pairs ex. Noun-verb or noun-adjective
Normally before second birthday
Telegraphic speech
Complex structure

15. Skinner vs. Chomsky Skinner = nurture
association, imitation & reinforcement
Chomsky – universal grammar = nature (w/ good nurturing)
Lang. acquisition device
Surface structure versus deep structure (syntax diff.s)
Hardware inborn, software learned

16. Cognitive Psychologists
Statistical learning
analyze the likelihood of syllables happening together
Critical periods
up until age 7 pretty good at getting lang.
after that ability gradually declines

17. The summary Chicken & Egg argument
Thinking & Language
The summary
Chicken & Egg argument

18. Which Comes First Language influences thinking
Linguistic determinism (Whorf, 1956) – language determines what we think
Language also teaches culture
Use of pronouns influences our mental concept
Immersion study in Canada

19. Which Comes First Thinking in images Procedural memory often in images
Mental rehearsal has been shown to affect performance
Cyclical process of language and thought

20. Animal thinking & language
Does Fido think and speak?

21. Animals, Cognition, & Language
Do animals think
Concepts, insight, use of tools, cultural innovations, theory of mind (reasoning, self-recognition, empathy, imitation)
Do animals exhibit language
Animals do exhibit comprehension & communication
React to their own sounds and human sounds