Intro to Psychology sem 1 part 2 '26

What is are the three types of theories about language development?

1) behaviorist; language is learned through operant conditioning

2) nativist; capacity to acquire language is innate

3) interactionist; nativism + social interactions necessary for learning a language

What is Motherese and how does it support the interactionist theory of language development?

• Motherese; creation of languages by deaf children

• interplay of nativism (innate capacity to acquire language) and experience (growing up in an isolated deaf culture)

At what life stage is learning a language significantly harder?

after puberty sets in

What is universal grammar, which language development theory is it a part of and who studied it?

• universal grammar; a collection of processes that facilitate language learning

• nativist theory

• Noam Chomsky

What is the difference in aphasia and location between Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area?

• Broca’s; problems with speech production (telegraphic speech) (damaged left frontal lobe)

• Wernicke’s; problems with speech understanding (damaged superior temporal lobe)

When repeating a word, what brain structures are necessary to accomplish this?

• thalamus

• primary auditory cortex

• Wernicke’s area

• arcuate fasciculus (connects B and W area’s)

• Broca’s area

• motor cortex

Aphasia

difficulty in producing or comprehending language

What are some theories of concepts and categories?

What is the difference between the rational ideal and the irrational reality of decision making?

• rational ideal; making a decision based on the probability and value of something happening (logical)

• irrational reality; decision making is influenced by heuristics, framing effects and biases (‘‘unlogical’’ (subjective))

What are the causes of decision making errors?

What is the difference between the Means-Ends analysis and the analogical problem-solving approach?

Belief bias

What is the difference between a phoneme and a morpheme?

• phoneme; group of phones (physical sounds), has no meaning (c)

• morpheme; unit that has meaning (cat, or s in cats)

What are 2 types of morpheme’s

• content; has meaning (cat)

• functional; used for grammar (for)

What are the three types of language rules?

• phonological; how to combine phonemes into words

• morphological; how to combine morphemes into words

• syntatic; how to combine words into phrases or sentences

Telegraphic speech

2 word sentences, e.g ‘dog barks’, without functional morphemes

What are five key cognitive functions?

What are the milestones of language development?

• 0-4 months; difference between phonemes

• 4-6 months; babbling

• 10-12 months; first words

• around 24 months; telegraphic speech

• 4-5 years; overregularisation errors (e.g. runned ipo run)

What is evidence for and against the linguistic relativity hypothesis?

• linguistic relativity hypothesis; language influences how we think about things

• evidence for; closed off tribes have different names for colors and see them differently

• evidence against; people with aphasia think the same as people without aphasia

What is the difference between the prototype and exemplar theories of concepts?

• prototype theory; classifying new stimulus (dog) by comparing it to the best example of stimuli category (german shepherd)

• exemplar theory; classifying new stimulus by comparing in to all the members of a category (all dogs)

What is a category-specific deficit and what is the cause of it?

• category- specific deficit; not being able to recognize exemplars from a certain category (e.g. living things)

• brain damage in area related to that category, because brain is hardwired to classify objects into categories

Which hemisphere sides and brain regions are linked to forming prototypes and recognizing exemplars?

• forming prototypes; left hemisphere and visual cortex

• recognizing exemplars; right hemisphere and prefrontal cortex

Prospect theory

What factors lead to or inhibit creativity and insight?

What is the difference between truth and validity in reasoning?

Belief biases

Illusions of truth

What is the difference between the illusion of explanatory depth in the lab and in everyday life?

linguistic relativity hypothesis

Whta is the difference between the prototype theory and the exemplar theory?

Rational choice theory

making a decision based on value and probability of something happening

What is the difference between

What is the difference between an conjunction fallacy and a sunk-cost fallacy?

• conjuction fallacy; (unlogically) thinking that two events are more likely to occur together than either individual event (e.g. bc of stereotypes)

• sunk-cost fallacy; making an (unlogical) decision based on what you have invested into a situation (e.g. going to a $100 concert even if it rains)

• Both are errors in judgement making based on irrelevant information

Framing effects

the way something is framed influences someone’s assignment of value to it (e.g. 70% effectiveness of drug vs 30% risk rate of drug)

Optimism bias

thinking that positive experiences are more likely to happen and negative experiences are less like to happen

What is a heuristic and what are two types of it?

• heuristic; quick mental shortcut (can be usefull, but also produces biases)

• availibility; likelyhood of something is based on what easily comes to mind (e.g. plane vs car crashes)

• representativeness; likelyhood of something is based on comparison with prototype of it (e.g. thinking someone is a ravenclaw bc they like reading, even if there are more gryffindoors)

Analogical problem solving

functional fixedness

syllogistic reasoning

How does the prenatal enviroment influence fetal development?

• teratogens (e.g. fetal alcohol syndrome)

• insufficient nutrition (e.g. IUGR (growth restriction))

• auditory information (babies cry with their mother tongue intonation)

What are the 5 types of development and what do they entail?

How does sexuality emerge during adolesence?

What are three concepts that change during adulthood?

What are the three prenatal stages of development?

1) germinal; zygote, till 2 weeks after conception

2) embryonic, embryo, till 8 weeks after conception

3) fetal; fetus, till birth

Why is it beneficial for people to be born with underdeveloped brains?

• smaller head fits through the birth canal

• brain can develop unique capacities that a specific enviroment requires

Teratogen

substance that passes from mother to unborn child and impairs development (e.g. tobacco or alcohol)

What are the 4 stages of Piaget’s theory of cognitive development and what do they entail?

1) sensorimotor; thinking = doing, no object permanence

2) pre-operational; thinking about things, egocentrism and centration

3) concrete operational; thinking about actions, decentration and conservation

4) formal operational; thinking about thought

What is the difference between egocentrism and theory of mind?

• egocentrism; others see the world as I do

What are the four attachment styles?

What is the difference between Piaget’s and Kohlberg’s theories of the development of moral reasoning?

What are the two principles of motor development?

• cephalocaudal; the tendency for motor skills to emerge in sequence from the head to the feet

• proximodistal; the tendency for motor skills to emerge in sequence from the center to the periphery

Assimilation vs accomodation of a schema

• schema; theory about how the world works

• assimilation; making a schema bc of an experience

• accomodation; adapting a schema bc of new experiences

Centration vs decentration

• centration; attention is focused on one observation

• decentration; relationship between observations can be made

Object permanence

understanding that an object is still there, even if it is not perceived

Conservation

an amount stays the same no matter what form it is in (e.g. with squished clay or liguid in a taller glas)

Temperament

Internal working model

What are the three Kohlberg’s stages of moral development?