Myers’ PSYCHOLOGY

(6th Ed)

Chapter 10

Thinking and Language

James A. McCubbin, PhDClemson University

Worth Publishers

Let’s get started….

Thinking

Cognition mental activities associated with the acquisition,

storage, retrieval and use of knowledge.Cognitive Psychology

the study of these mental activitiesconcept formationproblem solvingdecision makingjudgement formation

study of both logical and illogical thinking

ThinkingConcept

mental grouping of similar objects, events, or people that share common characteristics or qualitiesaddress

• country, city, street, house• zip codes

Prototype Objects or events that best represent a category

matching new items to prototype provides quick, easy method for including items in a category (prototypical bird: robin or sparrow vs. penguin)

Thinking – Problem Solving

Algorithm Step by step, methodical, logical rules

or procedures that guarantee solving a particular problem; every possible solution explored

contrasts with usually speedier – but more error-prone use of heuristics

Thinking

Heuristic “Rule-of-thumb”, short-cut strategy

that often allows us to make judgements and solve problems efficiently

Usually speedier, more error-prone than algorithms

No guarantee solution will be reached Often we’re unaware of using heuristics

Thinking

Unscramble this:

S P L O Y O C H Y G

Algorithm Try all 907,208 letter combinations

Heuristic Throw out all the YY letter combinations Other heuristics? Trial and error?

ThinkingInsight

sudden and often novel realization of the solution to a problem. A-ha! or Eureka! moment, when the answer literally pops into your mind

contrasts with strategy-based solutions Ex: What word goes with pine, crab and sauce? Wolfgang Kohler’s experiment on insight by a

chimpanzee

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPz6uvIbWZE

Obstacles to Problem Solving

Confirmation Bias tendency to selectively search for information

that confirms one’s preconceptions even when there’s strong evidence it’s wrong.

Ex: after having bought a piece of clothing, we will look for the same clothing in a more expensive store to confirm that we have bought ours at a bargain.

Fixation inability to see a problem from a new perspective

The Matchstick Problem

How would you arrange six matches to form four equilateral triangles?

The Candle-Mounting Problem

Using these materials, how would you mount the candle on a bulletin board?

ThinkingMental Set – a fixation

tendency to persist with old patterns for problem solving even when they are not successful

a mindset of what has worked before, will work again, predisposes how we think.

Ex: What’s next in this pattern: O,T,T,F,?,?,?

Thinking

Functional Fixedness - a fixation tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual, customary functions

impediment to problem solving

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The Matchstick Problem

Solution to the matchstick problem

The Candle-Mounting Problem

Solving this problem requires recognizing that a box need not always serve as a container

Decision Making Representativeness Heuristic

rule of thumb for 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 Gambler's Fallacy: Belief that the probability of an item

changes based on previous attempts when in reality, the probability remains the same. If a coin was flipped 10 times, and each time it landed with the "heads" side facing up, someone relying on gambler's fallacy would believe the odds of it being heads the 11th time would be very low. In reality, however, the probability has not changed. The chances of a coin being heads or tails is 50% no matter how many times the coin is flipped.

Heuristics

Availability Heuristic estimating the likelihood of events

based on how easily examples of the event come to mind, often seen or heard in media

if instances come readily to mind (perhaps because of their vividness), we presume such events are common

Ex: shark attacks, terrorism, kidnapping

Thinking

Overconfidence tendency to be more confident

than correct tendency to overestimate the

accuracy of one’s beliefs and judgements

knack for explaining away failures

ThinkingFraming

the way an issue is presented how an issue is framed can

significantly affect decisions and judgements

Ex: What is the best way to market ground beef-as 25% fat or 75% lean?

Thinking

Belief Bias the tendency for one’s preexisting beliefs to

distort logical reasoning. Ex: Santa Claus sometimes by making invalid conclusions

seem valid, or valid conclusions seem invalidBelief Perseverance

clinging to one’s initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited

LanguageLanguage

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

Phoneme (distinctive sound unit) in a spoken language, the smallest distinctive

unit of sound that affects meaning. There are about 40 phonemes in English language; they have no meaning on their own; a basic unit of sound.

Ex: by changing the beginning phoneme, the word hat becomes cat

Language

Consonant phonemes contain more information that do vowel phonemes:

The treth ef thes stetement shed be evedent frem thes breef demenstretien.

LanguageMorpheme (meaning)

in a language, the smallest unit that carries and has meaning. All words have one morpheme; elementary units of meaning, approx. 100,000 in English

may be a word or a part of a word (such as a prefix, suffix, stem or root)

Ex: when speaking of more than one bat, we add the morpheme “s”. The word “working” has two morphemes; “work “and “ing”. Can be small words like “a” and “but”.

Language Semantics

the set of rules by which we derive meaning from morphemes, words, and sentences in a given language; also, the study of meaning in language. Adding “–ed” to a verb means the sentence happened in the past. My last Psych test was a piece of cake.

Syntax the set of rules that determine how words are ordered to make

phrases and sentences in a particular language, Ex: where verbs are placed in a sentence, adjectives come before nouns in English, “white house”. I to store ran or I ran to the store?

Grammar a system of rules in a particular language that enables us to

communicate with and understand others. How various signs and symbols with in a language are arranged. I go to the store and bought milk. Anna and Matt is going skiing.

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 ableto discriminateHindi t’s

Hindi-speaking

adults

6-8 months

8-10months

10-12months

English-speaking

adultsInfants from English-speaking homes

Language Babbling Stage

beginning at 3 - 4 months, experimentation with phonemes

appears to be innate, even deaf children babble the stage of speech development in which the infant

spontaneously utters various sounds at first unrelated to the household language, repetition of syllables Ex:“mamamama”

One-Word Stage from about age 1 to 2 the stage in speech development during which a child

speaks mostly in single words, usually nouns and verbs. Ex: “doggie” or “dolly”

LanguageTwo-Word Stage

Beginning 18 months – 2 yrs. the stage in speech development when a child

speaks mostly two-word statements, vocabulary expands rapidly now. Ex: “More milk.”

Telegraphic Speech early speech stage when the child speaks like a

telegram – “Doggie kiss Jeff.” – using mostly nouns and verbs and omits “auxiliary” words.

Subject verb object sequence.

Language

Summary of Language Development

Months of age(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 intocomplete sentences.

Language

B. F. Skinner – Children learn language through the principles of operant conditioning. Through association (the sights of things and the sounds of language), imitation (words and syntax modeled by others) and reinforcement (with smiles and hugs when children say something right).

Parents selectively reinforce and shape babbling sounds into words. Children receive attention and affection and are rewarded for making word sounds.

Language Noam Chomsky – Nativist Theory of Language- children

learn language at such a rapid rate that they must have a language acquisition device which gives children the innate ability to process speech and understand the fundamental relationships among words and the regularities of speech. We are biologically prepared to learn language, there is a universal grammar.

Critical Period to learn speech – if exposed to language at this time, language learning will take place, if the critical period is missed language acquisition may be very difficult if not impossible. Ex. Genie and other feral children.

Genes design the mechanisms for a language, and experience fills them as it modifies the brain

Language

Genes

Environmentspoken language

heard

BrainMechanisms for

understanding andproducing language

BehaviorMastery of

native language

provides input to

design

Language

New language learning gets harder with age

100

90

80

70

60

50Native 3-7 8-10 11-15 17-39

Percentage correct ongrammar test

Age at school

LanguageLinguistic Relativity or Determinism

Benjamin Whorf - language determines or influences the way we think, different languages impose different concepts of reality

Hopi Indian language has no past tense for verbs, therefore, Whorf says they do not think about the past.

Japanese language has many words for interpersonal emotions such as sympathy, are they more in tuned to relationships?

Are these societies collectivists or individualists?

And we’re done….