AP psych unit 6: language and thought

cognition

cognition

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

concept

a mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people

prototype

a mental image or best example of a category. Matching new items to a prototype provides a quick and easy method for sorting items into categories

creativity

the ability to produce new and valuable ideas

convergent thinking

narrowing the available problem solutions to determine the single best solution

divergent thinking

expanding the number of possible problem solutions; creative thinking that diverges in different directions

algorithm

a methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem. Contrasts with the usually speedier - but also more error-prone - use of heuristics

heuristic

a simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgements and solve problems efficiently; usually speedier but also more error-prone than an algorithm

insight

a sudden realization of a problem's solution; contrasts with strategy-based solutions

confirmation bias

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

fixation

in cognition, the inability to see a problem from a new perspective; an obstacle to problem solving

mental set

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

intuition

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

representativeness heuristic

judging a situation based on how similar the aspects are to the prototypes you hold

overconfidence

the tendency to be more confident than correct - to overestimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgements

framing

the way an issue is posed; how an issue is worded can significantly affect decisions and judgements

belief perseverance

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

language

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

phoneme

in a language, the smallest distinctive sound unit

morpheme

in language, the smallest unit that carries meanings; may be words or a part of a word

grammar

in a language, a system of rules that enables us to communicate with and understand others

babbling stage

beginning around 4 months, the stage of speech development in which an infant spontaneously utters various sounds at first unrelated to the household language. Not true speech production

holophrastic stage

the stage in speech development, from about age 1 to 2, during which a child speaks mostly in single words. aka the one-word stage

telegraphic stage

beginning around 18 months, marked by a vocabulary spurt. Speech contains mostly nouns and verbs but follows the rules of syntax

aphasia

impairment of language, usually caused by left hemisphere damage either to Broca's area or to Wernicke's area

Broca's area

helps control language expression - an area of the frontal lobe, usually in the left hemisphere, that directs the muscle movements involved in speech

Wernicke's area

a brain area involved in language comprehension and expression; usually in the left temporal lobe

linguistic determinism

the strong form of Whorf's hypothesis - that language controls the way we think and interpret the world around us

linguistic influence

the weaker form of "linguistic relativity" - the idea that language affects thought

availabity heuristic

judge a situation based on examples of similar situations that initially come to mind

metacognition

keeping track of and evaluating our mental processes

assimilation

interpreting our new experiences in terms of our existing schemas

accomodation

adapting our current schemas to incorporate new information

executive functions

cognitive skills that work together, enabling us to generate, organize, plan and implement goal directed behavior

nudge

framing choice in a way that encourages people to make beneficial decisions

additive strategies

all possible options are weighed or given a score, then compared to each other to make a decision. Often used when there’s relatively few options

elimination by aspects

evaluate each individual item based on a set of criteria you have established. If an item doesn’t fulfill the criteria, eliminate it. Your list of alternatives becomes shorter until there’s only one option

expected utility

used for analyzing situations where we must make a decision with an unknown outcome. We choose the options which will result in the highest probability of a positive outcome

subjective utility

the attractiveness of an option is based on the individual perceptions of the decision maker. Each person places different values on different outcomes

overextension

a result of the telegraphic stage, terms are applied too widely

underextension

a result of the telegraphic stage, terms are applied too narrowly

overregularization

a result of the telegraphic stage, rules are applied too broadly

social learning theory

states that if babies are reinforced, they continue saying a word, and if they’re punished, they stop. Developed by BF Skinner, a behaviorist

nativist theory

we have a language acquisition device and kids have an innate knowledge of basic grammar. Developed by Noam Chomsky

fast mapping theory

kids form an idea of a new word’s meaning after hearing it once or twice. May explain the rate at which kid’s acquire new vocab

evolutionary advantages

human language may be a result of evolutionary processes because it lets us acquire information about the word secondhand. Developed by Pinker and Bloom

interactionist/emergentist perspective

unites the behavorist and nativist theories by social interaction with our environments leads to the mergence of language based neural pathways

syntax

the order of words in a language

semantics

how we get meaning from morphemes, words, and sentences