UNIT 9 - THINKING & LANGUAGE 12.4.12.pptx

(1)

UNIT 9: THINKING & LANGUAGE

Thinking

• _{Cognition – the mental}

activities associated with thinking, knowing,

remembering, and communicating

• _{Concepts – a mental}

grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people (Ex: chair, bird, ball, anger)

Thinking

• _{We organize concepts into}

category hierarchies. (Ex: a city is divided into

neighborhoods, then blocks)

• _{We form concepts by}

definitions (3-sided figures are triangles) and by

(2)

UNIT 9: THINKING & LANGUAGE

Thinking

• Prototype – a mental image or best example of a category.

– _{The more closely something}

matches our prototype of a concept, the more readily we recognize it as an example of the concept (Ex. – birds)

– Once we place an item in a

category, our memory later shifts toward the category prototype (Ex. – 70% male face is

remembered later as being even “more male”)

Thinking

• _{People whose heart attack}

symptoms (shortness of breath, exhaustion, dull weight in chest) don’t match their prototype

(3)

UNIT 9: THINKING & LANGUAGE

Solving Problems

• _{Algorithm – a methodical,}

logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem; slower, but ensures a correct

answer

• _{Heuristic – a simple thinking}

strategy that often allows us to make judgments and

(4)

UNIT 9: THINKING & LANGUAGE

• _{Insight – a sudden and often}

novel realization of the solution to a problem; it contrasts with strategy-based solutions

– _{Typically preceded by frontal}

lobe activity

– _{Accompanied by a burst of}

activity in the right temporal lobe

Obstacles to Problem Solving

• _{Confirmation Bias – a}

tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort

contradictory evidence

(5)

UNIT 9: THINKING & LANGUAGE

• _{WMDs held by Saddam}

Hussein in Iraq?

– Sources denying such weapons were deemed “either lying or not

knowledgeable about Iraq’s problems”

– Sources reporting ongoing WMD activities were seen as providing valuable

information

• _{Fixation – the inability to}

see a problem from a new perspective, by employing a different mental set (Ex – matchstick problem)

– _{Take 6 matchsticks and form 4}

equilateral triangles from them.

– _{Mental set and functional}

(6)

UNIT 9: THINKING & LANGUAGE

• _{Mental set – a tendency to}

approach a problem in one particular way, often a way that has been successful in the past

– _{With matchstick problem,}

only arranging them using 2 dimensions

– _{O-T-T-F-?-? (1, 2, 3, 4, ?, ?)} – _{J-F-M-A-?-? (Months)}

• _{Functional fixedness – the}

tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual functions; an impediment to problem solving

– _{Candle-mounting problem:}

(7)

UNIT 9: THINKING & LANGUAGE

Making Decisions/Forming Judgments • _{Representativeness}

heuristic – judging the

likelihood of things in terms of how well they seem to represent, or match,

particular prototypes; may lead us to ignore other

relevant information

• _{EX in text page 374…truck}

driver or Ivy League prof?

Making Decisions/Forming Judgments • Availability heuristic –

estimating the likelihood of events based on their

availability in memory; if

instances come readily to mind (vivid stories), we presume

such events are common

– _{Casinos signal small wins with}

bells and lights to make winning seem very available

– _{Ethnicity of a recent terrorist in}

(8)

UNIT 9: THINKING & LANGUAGE

Making Decisions/Forming Judgments • _{Availability Heuristic}

(cont’d) – because of readily available images of extreme events, we come to fear

events that are rare

– _{Flying – events of 9/11} – _{Swimming in ocean – Jaws} – _{Children walking alone –}

images of abducted or brutalized children

Making Decisions/Forming Judgments • _{“If I look at the mass I will}

never act. If I look at the one, I will.”

– Mother Teresa

• _{If we reason that our impact}

(9)

UNIT 9: THINKING & LANGUAGE

Overconfidence

• _{Overconfidence – the}

tendency to be more

confident than correct; to overestimate the accuracy of our beliefs and

judgments

– Lyndon Johnson waged war with North Vietnam

– George W. Bush waged war with Iraq

Overconfidence

• _{Overconfidence (cont’d)} – Stockbrokers – some are

confident telling their client to buy one particular stock, when others are just as

confident telling their client to sell the same stock; they can’t both be correct

(10)

UNIT 9: THINKING & LANGUAGE

Overconfidence

• _{Overconfidence had}

adaptive value. People who are overconfident:

– Live more happily

– Make tough decisions more easily

– Appear more credible than those who lack

self-confidence

Belief Perseverance

• _{Belief Perseverance –}

clinging to one’s initial

conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited

– _{Showing a group of Pro- and}

(11)

UNIT 9: THINKING & LANGUAGE

Belief Perseverance

• _{Considering the Opposite –}

way of looking at evidence that helps control our

biased assumptions

– _{Once we form beliefs and}

justify them, it takes very strong evidence to overturn them

Perils and Powers of Intuition

• _{Intuition – an effortless,}

immediate, automatic feeling or thought, as contrasted with explicit, conscious reasoning

– _{Enables us to react quickly}

and usually adaptively

– _{When making big decisions, it}

may be best to “sleep on it” and let our mind

(12)

UNIT 9: THINKING & LANGUAGE

Intuition

• _{“Intuition is analysis frozen}

into habit.”

• _{Chicken sexers (who sort}

male/female chickens) can tell the sex at a glance, but cannot tell you exactly how they do it!

Framing

• _{Framing – the way an issue is}

posed; how an issue is

framed can significantly affect decisions and judgments

– EX – a surgeon tells patients that 90% survive a particular surgery

– EX – same surgeon tells

(13)

UNIT 9: THINKING & LANGUAGE

Framing

• _{We scare people when we}

frame risks as numbers, not percentages:

– 10 deaths in 10 million seems more dramatic than a rate of .000001 (we can actually better imagine 10 people dying in the first set of numbers)

Framing

• _{“Aid to the Needy” = FOR}

“Welfare” = AGAINST

• _{$150 coat marked down to}

$100 seems better than a similar coat simply costing $100

• _{75% lean ground beef}

(14)

UNIT 9: THINKING & LANGUAGE

Language

• Language – our spoken,

written, or signed words and the ways we combine them to communicate meaning

• _{Noam Chomsky (linguist) calls}

language the “human essence”

• _{Steven Pinker (cognitive}

scientist) calls language the “jewel in the crown of

cognition”

Language Structure

• _{Phonemes – in language,}

the smallest distinctive sound unit

– English language uses about 40 phonemes or sounds

– Generally consonant phonemes carry more meaning than vowel ones

• _{Easier to read words with}

(15)

UNIT 9: THINKING & LANGUAGE

• _{Morphemes – in a language,}

the smallest unit that

carries meaning; may be a word or a part of a word

– _{Few phonemes are also}

morphemes (I, a)

– _{Morphemes include prefixes}

and suffixes

• _{Grammar – in a language, a}

(16)

UNIT 9: THINKING & 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

– EX : adding –ed to a word means it happened in the past

• _{Syntax – the rules for}

(17)

UNIT 9: THINKING & LANGUAGE

Language Development

• _{Average HS graduate knows}

60,000 words

• _{We use only 150 words for}

about half of what we say

• _{Seldom do we form}

sentences in our mind before speaking them.

When Do We Learn Language?

• _{By 4 mos. babies can}

discriminate speech sounds

• _{Babies prefer to look at a}

face that matches a sound

• _{Receptive Language}_{is a}

baby’s ability to

(18)

UNIT 9: THINKING & LANGUAGE

• _{Productive language}_{is a}

baby’s ability to produce words (begins at 4 mos.)

• _{Babbling Stage – beg. at 4}

mos. when infant

spontaneously utters various sounds at first unrelated to the household language

– Babbling is NOT an imitation of adult speech

• _{One-Word Stage – the stage} from about age 1 to 2 during which a child speaks mostly in single words

• _{Two-Word Stage – beginning} about age 2, a child speaks mostly two-word statements • _{Telegraphic Speech – early}

(19)

UNIT 9: THINKING & LANGUAGE

• _{Summary of Language Development}

4 mos. = Babbles many speech sounds.

10 mos. = Babbling resembles household

language.

12 mos. = One-word stage.

24 mos. = Two-word stage.

(20)

UNIT 9: THINKING & LANGUAGE

Explaining Language Development

• _{B.F. Skinner’s Operant}

Learning: babies learn to talk in many of the same ways that animals learn to peck keys and press bars (operant conditioning)

– Association (sights/sounds)

– Imitation (words/syntax)

– Reinforcement (smiles/hugs)

• _{Noam Chomsky’s Inborn}

Universal Grammar: given adequate nurture, language will naturally occur; we come prewired with a language

acquisition device

– _{Says “universal grammar”}

underlies all human language

• All languages have nouns, verbs, subjects, objects, etc.

(21)

UNIT 9: THINKING & LANGUAGE

• _{Skinner – emphasis on}

learning helps explain how infants acquire their language as they interact with others (nurture)

• _{Chomsky – emphasis on}

built-in readbuilt-iness to learn grammar rules helps explain why

preschoolers acquire language so readily and grammar so well (nature)

• _{Childhood seems to}

represent a critical period

for mastering certain aspects of language

• _{Children who have not been}

exposed to either a spoken or signed language by about age 7 gradually lose their ability to master any

(22)

UNIT 9: THINKING & LANGUAGE

• _{When a young brain does}

not learn any language, its language-learning capacity never fully develops.

• _{Those individuals who learn}

a second language early in life learn it best.

The Brain and Language

• _{Aphasia – an impaired use}

of language, usually caused by left hemisphere damage either to Broca’s area

(23)

UNIT 9: THINKING & LANGUAGE

• _{Broca’s area – controls}

language expression – an area of the frontal lobe, usually in the left

hemisphere, that directs the muscle movements involved in speech

– Paul Broca – French physician

– Damage to Broca’s area disrupts speaking

• _{Wernicke’s area – controls}

language reception – a brain area involved in language comprehension and

expression; usually in the left temporal lobe

– Carl Wernicke

(24)

UNIT 9: THINKING & LANGUAGE

• _{Angular Gyrus – brain area}

that is involved in reading aloud

– Damage to the angular gyrus allows a person to still speak and understand, but unable to read

• _{Brain Activity and…}

– Hearing words = auditory cortex and Wernicke’s area

– Seeing words = visual cortex and angular gyrus

– Speaking words = Broca’s area and the motor cortex

• _{The brain’s functioning is}

both specialized and

(25)

UNIT 9: THINKING & LANGUAGE

Languages Influence Thinking

• _{Linguistic determinism –}

Whorf’s (1956) hypothesis that language determines the way we think

– _{The Hopi culture has no past}

tense for their verbs

• A Hopi individual could not readily think about the past

• _{Maybe language doesn’t}

determine the way we think, but a person may think differently in different languages

– English has more words for self-focused emotions (anger)

– Japanese had more words for interpersonal emotions

(26)

UNIT 9: THINKING & LANGUAGE

• _{English speakers score}

higher than Spanish

speakers on measures of:

– Extraversion

– Agreeableness

– Conscientiousness

• _{We use our language to}

classify and remember colors and numbers

– A Piraha tribesman only has the numbers 1, 2, and many.

(27)

UNIT 9: THINKING & LANGUAGE

• _{When we use “he/she” in a}

statement we tend to

gender bias the statement; “they/their” are more

neutral

• _{Young children’s thinking}

expands hand in hand with their language; it pays to increase your word power

• _{Bilingual children are better}

at inhibiting attention to irrelevant information

– They unknowingly practice this when they “block out” one language to speak the other

• _{“To destroy a people,}

destroy their language.”

(28)

UNIT 9: THINKING & LANGUAGE

Thinking in Images

• _{Using nondeclarative}

(procedural) memory we create a mental picture of how we do something in our mind

• _{Chinese pianist who was}

imprisoned for 7 years

rehearsed each of his pieces of music in his mind.

• _{When we imagine doing an}

activity, the parts of our brain become active that are active while actually doing the activity.

– _{As a result, mental practice}

(29)

UNIT 9: THINKING & LANGUAGE

• _{Outcome simulation –}

imagining a final desired outcome (less effective)

• _{Process simulation –}

imagining the process and decision making that it will take to get to the final

desired outcome (more effective)

Animal Thinking and Language

• _{Animals are smarter than}

we often realize:

– Baboon’s recognize voices within 80-member troop

– Sheep recognize faces of other sheep

(30)

UNIT 9: THINKING & LANGUAGE

Animal Thinking and Language

• _{Apes display insight:}

– By using a short stick to pull a longer stick closer to them; then in turn using the longer stick to obtain food

• _{Apes display foresight:}

– By storing that longer stick to be used later to retrieve food

Animal Thinking and Language

• _{Forest-dwelling chimps have}

become natural tool users.

• _{A grey parrot named Alex}

could comprehend numbers up to 6 with limited abilities to add.

• _{Chimpanzees invent}

(31)

UNIT 9: THINKING & LANGUAGE

Animal Thinking & Language

• _{Great apes, dolphins, and}

elephants have demonstrated

self-awareness by recognizing themselves in a mirror

Do Animals Exhibit Language?

• _{Animals communicate}

• _{One border collie can fetch}

200 items by name

• _{Vervet monkeys warn each}

(32)

UNIT 9: THINKING & LANGUAGE

The Case of Apes

• _{Gardner & Gardner taught}

sign language to a

chimpanzee named Washoe (1965-2007)

• _{Skeptics caution that much}

of ape’s signing (sign lang.) is nothing more than aping their trainers’ signs and learning that certain

movements produce rewards

• _{Apes certainly lack syntax} • _{Humans alone possess}

language if by the term we mean verbal or signed

expression of complex grammar

• _{If language is defined as}

(33)

UNIT 9: THINKING & LANGUAGE

• _Primates:

– Exhibit insight

– Show family loyalty

– Communicate with one another

– Display altruism

– Transmit cultural patterns

– Comprehend syntax of human speech