Myers & DeWall Psychology Chapter 9: Thinking and Language (11th Edition)

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 including items into categories (as when comparing feathered creatures to a prototypical bird, such as a robin).

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 judgments and solve problems efficiently; usually speedier but also more error-prone than algorithms.

Insight

A sudden and often novel realization of 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.

Mental set

A tendency to approach a problem in a 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.

Availability heuristic

Estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; if instances come readily to mind (perhaps because of their vividness), we presume such events are common.

Overconfidence

The tendency to be more confident than correct - to overestimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgments.

Belief perseverance

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

Framing

The way an issue is posed; how an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and judgments.

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.

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 a language, the smallest unit that carries meaning; may be a word or a part of a word (such as a prefix).

Grammar

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

Semantics

In a language, the set of rules for deriving meaning from sounds.

Syntax

In a language, the set of rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences.

Babbling stage

Beginning at about 4 months, the stage of speech development in which the infant spontaneously utters various sounds at first unrelated to the household language.

One-word stage

The stage in speech development, from about age 1 to 2, during which a child speaks mostly in single words.

Two-word stage

beginning about age 2, the stage in speech development during which a child speaks mostly two-word statements.

Telegraphic speech

early speech stage in which a child speaks like a telegram - 'go car' - using mostly nouns and verbs.

Aphasia

Impairment of language, usually caused by left hemisphere damage either to Broca's area (impairing speaking) or to Wernicke's area (impairing understanding).

Broca's area

Controls language expression - an area of the frontal lobe, usually in left hemisphere, that directs muscle movements invloved in speech.

Wernicke's area

Controls language reception - a brain area involved in language comprehension and expression;usually in the left temporal lobe.

Linguistic determinism

Whorf's hypothesis that language determines the way we think.