Cognition and Language -- Ch 5

What is the information processing model

views the mind as a computer that receives data, stores it, analyzes it and sends out the according output

What is the first stage of piaget’s model

Sensorimotor stage

How long is the sensorimotor stage

birth till ~2 years

What happens in the sensorimotor stage

they primarily interact with the world through sensory input and moving around. Big in object permanence, circular reactions and stager anxiety

What is the most important part of the sensorimotor stage

Infants understand object permanence

what is circular reactions

intentionally repeating something that happened on accident or was interesting

what is stranger anxiety

strangers make the baby worried

What is after the sensorimotor stage

preoperational stage

how long does the preoperational stage last

2 - 7 years

what happens in the preoperational world

Children represent objects symboliclly with words and pictures, with only minimal logical thinking. Characterized by: ego-centrism, centration, lack of conservation and symbolic thought

What is ego-centrisim

difficulty imagining the world from the perspective of others

What is centration

a tendency to focus on a single property or parameter of an object to the exclusion others

How long does the concrete operational stage last

7 - 11 years

What happens in the concrete operational stage

More abstract reasoning, understanding conservation. Loss of egocentrism’s, easier to intake peoples perspectives

What is the formal operational stage

Ability to fully engage in abstract logic, can handle hypotheticals, reason abstractly and make nuanced moral judgements

what age does the formal operational stage start

11 - adulthood

What is schema

a cognitive framework that organizes information about things that one perceives from the outside world, with implications for the actions. (Walks like a duck, talks like a duck, is it a duck)

Fluid intelligence

problem-solving skills that can be applied to new situations without reliance on previous knowledge

crystallized intelligence

reflects the ability to deploy one’s knowledge and skills to solve problems

Dementia

cognitive decline and memory impediments interfere with a person’s ability to function in the world

What is Lev Vygotsky famous for

Emphasizing that the cognitive development by feedback, input, help from those around the child and their cultural differences can cause differences in development

trial and error is

trying different options and seeing what works

algorithm

problem solving technique that involves applying a fixed set of steps (if-then)

How is deductive reasoning a top down approach

applying general principles to a specific situation

how is inductive reasoning a bottom-up approach

when successive observations are extrapolated to identify general principles

intuition

gut sense of how to solve a problem

mental set

framework that we use for conceptualizing a problem and attempting to solve it

fixation

getting stuck in our old ways of thinking about things

functional fixedness

tendency to see objects as only having a certain function and having difficulty using it in different ways

Why is Karl Duncker so famous for Duncker’s candle problem

It demonstrated that people had a problem thinking outside of the box literally. No candle wax to fall, box can fix that but everyone sees the box as holding the pins

belief perspective

the tendency for people to maintain their beliefs (and sometime strengthen them) in the face of contradictory evidence. linked to overconfidence

cognitive biases

generally subconscious patterns of thought that skew our reasoning

confirmation biases

when we reason things in a way that supports a conclusion we already made or a belief we already had

hindsight bias

looking back on events as being highly predictable

causation bisa

tendency to infer cause and effect relationships that don’t exist; because one follows the other or they happen at the same time

heuristics

mental shortcuts that allow us to solve problems rapidly

how do heuristics and biases differ

heuristics solve problems and biases are cognitive patterns that can affect our process

representative heuristic

making decisions based on what we consider to be the prototypical example of a category

avaliability heuristic

reasoning the probability or likelihood of a certain event, but involves being influenced by examples of a certain phenomenon that come to mind quickly

med student’s disease

learning about all these nasty disesases and how to spot them and self diagnosing with every possible matching symptom

intellegence

parameter that is most commonly linked to cognition

Why is Charles Spearman important

created the g factor. aka recognized general intellegence

what is general intellegence

underlying capacity drives performance across multiple, seemingly-unrelated subjects

Why is Francis Galton important

he created the foundations of eugenics. (and everyone hated his guts)

Why is Alfred Binet cool

The creator of the whole IQ idea. The point was to help figure out which kids in school had cognitive deficiencies so they could be taught better.

What is the equation for IQ

child’s mental age divided by chronological age times 100

Why is IQ one of the most controversial things

cuz it can influence a ton of things: education oppurtunities, cultural and racial stuff. Basically people get mean when they think someone is smarter or dumber than them

What is the Flynn effect

the fact that IQ scores across many developed countries are increasing

What concept did Howard Garner come up with

theory of multiple intellengences

What were the 7 intelligences of Howard Gardner

musical, visual spatial, verbal-linguistic, logical-mathematical, bodily kinesthetic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal

interpersonal intelligence

how we relate to one another

intrapersonal intelligence

how we relate to ourselves and our emotions (EQ)

Phonetics

speech sounds that we producep

phonology

how we structure and organize speech sounds

semantics

specializes on the meaning (words, sound and sentences)

Pragmatics

importance of context and non-literal meaning

Why is BF Skinner cool

he made behaviorism

What is behaviorism

focusing only on observable behavior, and learning strictly in the sense of reward and punishment

what is the learning theory of language

language is a learned behavior

What did Noam Chomsky make

nativist theory of language acquisition (we are born with the ability to lean language)

whats up with Benjamin Lee Whorf and Edward Sapin

they realized that the grammatical categories of the languages and the vocabulary shape our cognition in a big way

What is another name for the Sapir Whorf hypothesis

linguistic relativity

what is linguistic determinism

the claim that language dictates thought

Aphasia

blanket term for the inability to communicate

Wenicke’s aphasia

those affected can speak fluently, but it doesn’t make sense and they have problems with comprehension (understanding what was said)

where is wernicke’s area

superior temporal lobe of the dominant lobe, normally the left.

what is wernike’s area good for

thought to hold the ability to understand language or make sense

fluent aphasia

can produce sentences easily

receptive aphasia

problems understanding language

broca’s aphasia

you can understand the spoken language without issue, but you can’t produce it easily

Where is broca’s area

frontal lobe of dominant hemisphere

what is another term for broca’s aphasia

non-fluent aphasia

how does info get from wernike’s area to broca’s area

arcuate fasciculus

what is conduction aphasia

difficulty repeating words. occurs when there’s damage to the arcuate fasciculus