Psychology - language

Thinking and Language

Cognition

Mental activities in acquiring, processing, storing, and using information

Concepts

Mental categories organizing similar objects, events, ideas

Prototype

Best/typical example of a category

Generalization

Applying what is known about one example or situation to others

Cognitive economy

organizing information efficiently instead of learning every detail separately

Concrete thinking

focuses on literal, observal information

Abstract thinking

focuses on ideas, patterns, concepts

Interference

conclusion drawn from information

Confirmation bias

favoring information that supports what you already believe

Self fulfilling prophecy

expectation influencing behavior in a way that helps make expectation come true

Heuristics

shortcut making judgement faster but leads to errors

Representativeness heuristic

judging likelihood by how much something resembles a typical example/prototype

availability heristic

judging likelihood by how easily something comes to mind

framing

information is presented influences how people interpret or choose

Linguistic relative

language influence how people think and perceive world

linguistic determinism

stronger claim that language determines or limits thought

Newspeak

Controlled language in Orwell’s 1984 designed to restrict expression and thought

Doublespeak

language disguising or distrort meaning, making something sound better or less direct

Chomsky’s universal grammar

idea that humans have inborn capacity/structure supporting language learning