1. Myers’ EXPLORING PSYCHOLOGY (6th Ed) Chapter 9 Thinking, Language, and Intelligence James A. McCubbin, PhD Clemson University Worth Publishers

2. Thinking  Cognition  mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating  Cognitive Psychologists  study these mental activities  concept formation  problem solving  decision making  judgment formation

3. Thinking  Concept  mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people  Prototype  mental image or best example of a category  matching new items to the prototype provides a quick and easy method for including items in a category (as when comparing feathered creatures to a prototypical bird, such as a robin)

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

5. Thinking  Heuristic  simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently  usually speedier than algorithms  more error-prone than algorithms

6. Thinking Unscramble S P L O Y O C H Y G  Algorithm  all 907,208 combinations  Heuristic  throw out all YY combinations  other heuristics?

7. Thinking  Insight  sudden and often novel realization of the solution to a problem  contrasts with strategy-based solutions  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

8. The Matchstick Problem  How would you arrange six matches to form four equilateral triangles?

9. The Candle-Mounting Problem  Using these materials, how would you mount the candle on a bulletin board?

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

11. The Matchstick Problem  Solution to the matchstick problem

12. The Candle-Mounting Problem  Solving this problem requires recognizing that a box need not always serve as a container

13. Heuristics  Representativeness Heuristic  judging the likelihood of things in terms of how well they seem to represent, or match, particular prototypes  may lead one to ignore other relevant information

14. Heuristics  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  Example: airplane crash

15. Thinking  Overconfidence  tendency to be more confident than correct  tendency to overestimate the accuracy of one’s beliefs and judgments

16. 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?  Belief Perseverance  clinging to one’s initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited

17. Language  Language  our spoken, written, or gestured works and the way we combine them to communicate meaning

18. Language  We are all born to recognize speech sounds from all the world’s languages 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Percentage able to discriminate Hindi t’s Hindi- speaking adults 6-8 months 8-10 months 10-12 months English- speaking adults Infants from English-speaking homes

19. Language  Babbling 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

20. Language  Two-Word Stage  beginning about age 2  the stage in speech development during which a child speaks in 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

21. Language Summary of Language Development Month (approximate) Stage 4 10 12 24 24+ Babbles many speech sounds. Babbling reveals households language. One-word stage. Two-world, telegraphic speech. Language develops rapidly into complete sentences.

22. Language  Genes design the mechanisms for a language, and experience activates them as it modifies the brain

23. Language  New language learning gets harder with age 100 90 80 70 60 50 Native3-78-1011-1517-39 Percentage correct on grammar test Age at school

24. Language  Linguistic Determinism  Whorf”s hypothesis that language determines the way we think

25. Language  The interplay of thought and language

26. Animal Thinking and Language  Gestured Communication

27. Animal Thinking and Language  Is this really language?

28. Origins of Intelligence Testing  Intelligence  ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations

29. Origins of Intelligence Testing  Mental Age  a measure of intelligence test performance devised by Binet  chronological age that most typically corresponds to a given level of performance  child who does as well as the average 8-year-old is said to have a mental age of 8

30. Origins of Intelligence Testing  Stanford-Binet  the widely used American revision of Binet’s original intelligence test  revised by Terman at Stanford University

31. Origins of Intelligence Testing  Intelligence Quotient (IQ)  defined originally the ratio of mental age (ma) to chronological age (ca) multiplied by 100  IQ = ma/ca x 100  on contemporary tests, the average performance for a given age is assigned a score of 100

32. What is Intelligence?  Factor Analysis  statistical procedure that identifies clusters of related items (called factors) on a test  used to identify different dimensions of performance that underlie one’s total score  General Intelligence (g)  factor that Spearman and others believed underlies specific mental abilities  measured by every task on an intelligence test

33. Are There Multiple Intelligences?  Savant Syndrome  condition in which a person otherwise limited in mental ability has an exceptional specific skill  computation  drawing

34. Are There Multiple Intelligences?  Social Intelligence  the know-how involved in comprehending social situations and managing oneself successfully  Emotional Intelligence  ability to perceive, express, understand, and regulate emotions

35. Intelligence and Creativity  Creativity  the ability to produce novel and valuable ideas  expertise  imaginative thinking skills  venturesome personality  intrinsic motivation  creative environment

36. Assessing Intelligence  Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)  most widely used intelligence test  subtests  verbal  performance (nonverbal)

37. Assessing Intelligence  Aptitude Test  a test designed to predict a person’s future performance  aptitude is the capacity to learn  Achievement Test  a test designed to assess what a person has learned

38. Assessing Intelligence  Standardization  defining meaningful scores by comparison with the performance of a pretested “standardization group”  Normal Curve  the symmetrical bell-shaped curve that describes the distribution of many physical and psychological attributes  most scores fall near the average, and fewer and fewer scores lie near the extremes

39. The Normal Curve

40. Assessing Intelligence  Reliability  the extent to which a test yields consistent results  assessed by consistency of scores on:  two halves of the test  alternate forms of the test  retesting  Validity  the extent to which a test measures or predicts what it is supposed to

41. Assessing Intelligence  Content Validity  the extent to which a test samples the behavior that is of interest  driving test that samples driving tasks  Criterion  behavior (such as college grades) that a test (such as the SAT) is designed to predict  the measure used in defining whether the test has predictive validity

42. Assessing Intelligence  Predictive Validity  success with which a test predicts the behavior it is designed to predict  assessed by computing the correlation between test scores and the criterion behavior  also called criterion-related validity

43. The Dynamics of Intelligence  Mental Retardation  a condition of limited mental ability  indicated by an intelligence score below 70  produces difficulty in adapting to the demands of life  varies from mild to profound  Down Syndrome  retardation and associated physical disorders caused by an extra chromosome in one’s genetic makeup

44. The Dynamics of Intelligence

45. Genetic Influences  The most genetically similar people have the most similar scores

46. Genetic Influences  Heritability  the proportion of variation among individuals that we can attribute to genes  variability depends on range of populations and environments studied

47. Genetic Influences

48. Environmental Influences  The Schooling Effect

49. Group Differences  The Mental Rotation Test Which two of the other circles contain a configuration of blocks identical to the one in the circle at the left? StandardResponses

50. Group Differences  Stereotype Threat  A self-confirming concern that one will be evaluated based on a negative stereotype