Https://. Thinking and Language Chapter 9.

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Thinking and Language

Chapter 9


Thinking

Cognition refers to all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating

The Thinker, Rodin


Thinking

Problem Solving

Some problems we solve by trail-and-error, and others by using algorithms—methodical, step by step procedures that guarantee a solution.

However, algorithms are time-consuming, and thus we often use heuristics—sample thinking strategies that allow us to solve problems efficiently. Heuristics are usually speedier but more error prone.

Credit: B2M Productions/Digital Vision/Getty Images

Obstacles to Problem Solving

Confirmation bias–our tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore contradictory evidence.


The Matchstick Problem: How would you arrange six matches to form four equilateral triangles?

Fixation – our inability to see a problem from a new perspective, employing a different mental set.


Fixation – our inability to see a problem from a new perspective, employing a different mental set.


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

Functional Fixedness – our tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual functions.


Functional Fixedness – our tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual functions.

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Thinking

Making Decisions and Forming Judgments

Using and Misusing Heuristics

Amos Tversky Daniel Kahneman

Courtesy of Greymayer Award, U. of Louisville


If you meet a slim, short, man who wears glasses and likes poetry, what do you think his profession would be?

An Ivy league professor of Classics or a truck driver?

The Representativeness Heuristic – judging the likelihood of things in terms of how well they seem to represent, or match, particular prototypes.


How many Ivy league schools are there? 10

How many Classics professors are at each school? 4

Of those 40, what proportion are short and slim? Half

Of those 20, what proportion read poetry? Half

or 10



How many truck drivers are there? 400,000

Of those 400,000, what proportion are short and slim? 1 in 5

Of those 80k, what proportion read poetry? 1 in 1,000

or 80



Hypothetically…

How many members of (minority) Ethnic Group X are there in the U.S. population? 1.5 million

Of those 1.5 million, what percentage have strong anti-American sentiment? 1/20, or 5%

or 75,000



Hypothetically…

How many members of (majority) Ethnic Group Y are there in the U.S. population? 100,000,000 million

Of those 100 million, what percentage have strong anti-American sentiment? 1/200, or .5%

or 500,000



Hypothetically…

How many members of Ethnic Group Y are there in the U.S. population? 100,000,000 million

Of those 100 million, what percentage have strong anti-American sentiment? 1/200, or .5%

or 500,000


Randomly chosen person from (majority) Ethnic Group Y is 6.7 times more likely to have strong anti-American sentiment than person from (minority) Ethnic Group X!


The Availability Heuristic – estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; that is, how readily they come to mind. For example, although flying is much safer than driving, many people insist on driving.

Credit: Anynobody


The Availability Heuristic – estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; that is, how readily they come to mind.


The Availability Heuristic – estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; that is, how readily they come to mind.

Despite the rarity of dying from a terrorist attack, many Americans list it as the top priority for our government

Overconfidence

The Soviets were overconfident in invading Afghanistan in the 1970s.

The Americans were overconfident in invading Vietnam in the 1960s.

Our use of intuitive heuristics (representative and availability) and our eagerness to confirm the beliefs we already hold (confirmation bias) combine to create overconfidence—a tendency to overestimate the accuracy of our knowledge and judgments. This can create problems, big and small.

Overconfidence

Our use of intuitive heuristics (representative and availability) and our eagerness to confirm the beliefs we already hold (confirmation bias) combine to create overconfidence—a tendency to overestimate the accuracy of our knowledge and judgments. This can create problems, big and small.

The Belief Perseverance Phenomenon

Participants read about supposedly new research findings—one supporting use of the death penalty as a deterrent, and the other refuting it. Participants were most impressed with the study that confirmed their own beliefs about the death penalty.

Belief Perseverance – our tendency to cling to our initial concepts even after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited.

Credit: CA Corrections

Effects of Framing

The way a message is presented can have striking effects: In one study, 9 of 10 college students rated condoms as effective against HIV if they were described as having a “95 percent success rate”…

Framing – the way an issue is posed; how an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and judgments.

Effects of Framing

But only 4 of 10 students rated condoms as effective against HIV if they were described as having a “5 percent” failure rate.

The bottom-line: The message matters in shaping people’s decisions and judgments.

Framing – the way an issue is posed; how an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and judgments.


Language

Language refers to our spoken, written, or signed words and the ways we combine them as we think and communicate—“the jewel in the crown of cognition.”

Credit: M. & E. Bernheim/Woodfin Camp & Associates


Language

Language is arbitrary: sounds produced to resemble a word do not reflect the meaning of the word.

Credit: M. & E. Bernheim/Woodfin Camp & Associates


Language

Language Structure

Building Blocks of Language: What We Would Need to Create a Human

Language

Phonemes – the smallest distinctive sound unit in language, such as the b sound in “bag”.


Language

Morphemes – the smallest unit that carries meaning in language, including words such as “bag”, and parts of words, such as prefixes (e.g., anti for “against”).


Language

Grammar – a system of rules that enables us to communicate, including rules for deriving meaning from morphemes (semantics) such as adding “ed” to form the past tense (as in “bagged”), and rules for ordering words to form sentences (syntax) such as that adjectives come before nouns (as in “brown bag”).


Language

Language Development

Children learn their native languages much before learning to add 2+2. After age 1, we learn, on average, 3,500 words a year, amassing 60,000 words by the time we graduate from high school.

When Do We Learn Language?

Babbling – the stage of speech development in which the infant spontaneously utters various sounds, at first in a way unrelated to household language (e.g., ah-goo) and then in a way related (e.g., da)


One-word stage – the stage of speech development during which a child speaks mostly in single words (e.g., Doggy!, Fish!)


Two-word speech – the stage of speech development during which a child speaks mainly in two-word statements, as in the sort of telegram (or e-mail) that you may have sent your parents (SEND MONEY!).


The speaker – the stage of speech development in which a child begins uttering longer phrases.

Explaining Language Development

“Verbal behavior evidently came into existence when, through a critical step in the evolution of the human species, the vocal musculature became susceptible to operant conditioning.”

- B. F. Skinner

Credit: Silly Rabbit


“Not only is Skinner’s account wrong, but a behaviorist explanation cannot, in principle, ever account for language."

- Noam Chomsky


When a young brain does not learn any language, its language-learning capacity never fully develops.

As an alternative to Skinner’s account, Chomsky argued that we come into the world equipped with a language acquisition device—a neurological system, which when given adequate nurture, allows us to understand and produce language.


After the window for learning language closes, even learning a second language is more difficult. The older the age at which one emigrates to a new country, the harder it is to learn its language.

As an alternative to Skinner’s account, Chomsky argued that we come into the world equipped with a language acquisition device—a neurological system, which when given adequate nurture, allows us to understand and produce language.


Language

The Brain and Language

Many brain regions are involved in the two major aspects of language processing—understanding language and producing it.

We know about involvement of different brain regions in language processing from studies that use of neuroimaging techniques, and from clinical observation…

0%People with damage to Broca’s area have an inability to produce speech.

0%People with damage to Wernicke’s area have an inability to understand speech.


Language


There is some evidence that language at least influences thinking. For example, people express different profiles of personality traits depending on the language in which they take the test…

And expanding your vocabulary expands your ability to think – and the best way to do that is to read good writing.


Animal Thinking and Language

What Do Animals Think?

Credit: Worth Publishers

Over two decades, Kyoto University researcher Tetsuro Matsuzawa has studied chimps’ ability to remember and relate numbers. At left, Ai taps in an ascending order randomly displayed numbers.

Credit: Tetsuro Matsuzawa/Primate Research Inst., Kyoto U.

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

“Chaser”, trained by psychologists Alliston Reid and John Pilley, knows more than 1000 words—the largest tested memory of any animal.

Cultural transmission – On the western bank of one Ivory Coast river, a youngster watches as its mother uses a stone hammer to open a nut. On the river’s other side, a few miles away, chimps do not follow this custom.

Credit: Michael Nichols/National Geographic Image Collection


Animal Thinking and Language

Do Animals Exhibit Language?

The Case of Apes

Credit: Paul Fusco/Magnum Photos

The Case of Apes

1. Apes acquire their limited vocabularies with a great deal of difficulty, unlike children.

2. Chimps can make signs to receive a reward, just as a pigeon who pecks at the key receives a reward. However, pigeons have not learned a language.

3. Chimpanzees use signs meaningfully but lack human syntax.

Credit: Mila Zinkova

Chapter Review

What is cognition, and how do psychologists study it?

What are some basic ways that humans solve problems?

How do heuristics influence decision making?

How is language structured? How does language unfold with age?

Chapter Review

What is known about the brain and language processing?

How do animal and human communication systems differ?

Chapter Review

Question(s) from textbook on material not covered in class:

Thinking in Images

Https://. Thinking and Language Chapter 9.

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