Intro to Psychology Applications and Processes - Chapter 8: Language, thought, and creativity

Language

Symbols that convey meaning, plus rules for combining those symbols, that can be used to generate an infinite variety of messages.

The critical properties of Language

The essential characteristics of language, which include being:

• symbolic

• semantic

• generative

• structured.

Phonemes

The smallest speech units in a language that can be perceptually distinguished

Phonemes (con’t)

There are approximately $100$ possible phonemes, with English using about $40$.

Morphemes

The smallest units of meaning in a language,

e.g. root words, prefixes, and suffixes;

Morphemes (con’t)

The English language has approximately $50,000$ morphemes

Semantics

The area of language concerned with the understanding and meaning of words and word combinations.

Syntax

A system of rules that specify how words can be combined into phrases and sentences.

Critical period

A limited time span in the development of an organism, when it is optimal for certain capacities to emerge because the organism is especially responsive to certain experiences.

Milestones in language development

• 6 months - babbling begins to resemble their surrounding language

• 8 months - Recognize and store common word forms

• 1 year - first word

Milestones in language development (con’t)

• By 8 months, infants begin to recognize and store common words.

• 10 - 13 months, most children begin to utter sounds that correspond to words

Milestones in language development (III)

• 18–24 months - vocabulary spurt

• End of 2nd year - combine words

• End of 3rd year - complex ideas, plural, past tense

Fast mapping

The process by which children map a word onto an underlying concept after only one exposure, typically occurring during the vocabulary spurt at $18$ to $24$ months.

i.e. Children often add words like tank, board, and tape to their vocabularies after their first encounter with objects that illustrate these concepts

Overextension

A common language error in children using a word to describe a wider set of objects or actions than it is meant to.

e.g. A child might use the word ball for anything round—oranges, apples, even the moon.

Underextension

A language error occurring when a child incorrectly uses a word to describe a narrower set of objects or actions than it is intended to.

e.g. A child might use the word doll to refer only to a single, favourite doll.

Telegraphic speech

Consists of mainly of content words; less critical words like articles and prepositions are omitted.

e.g. A child might say, “Give doll” rather than “Please give me the doll.”

Mean length of utterance (MLU)

The average length of a child's spoken statements, measured in morphemes.

Overregularization

Errors that occur when grammatical rules are incorrectly generalized to irregular cases where they do not apply.

e.g. “The girl goed home” or “I hitted the ball.”

Overregularization (con’t)

Demonstrates that children are working actively to master the rules of language

Metalinguistic awareness

The ability to reflect on the use of language, typically displayed around age $6$ .

e.g. The usage of phrases such as “We were packed in the room like sardines.”

Bilingualism

The acquisition of two languages that use different sounds, vocabulary, and grammatical rules.

Bilingualism (con’t)

Is quite common in Europe and many other regions, and nearly half of the world’s population grows up bilingual

What goes into the learning of a second language?

The learning of a second language is affected by many factors, including the nature of one’s attitude toward the learning situation and one’s level of interest in the other groups’ language

Disadvantages of bilingualism

Slight disadvantages in language processing speed and verbal fluency

Advantages of bilingualism

• Slight advantage in terms of cognitive flexibility, analytical reasoning, selective attention, and metalinguistic awareness

• Bilingual people also develop executive control earlier and have improved social skills and protection against age-related cognitive decline

The speed of language development and bilingualism

Evidence suggests that bilingual and monolingual children are largely similar in the course and rate of their language development

Behaviourist theories

Skinner argued that children learn language the same way they learn everything else: through imitation, reinforcement, and other established principles of conditioning.

Behaviourist theories (con’t)

Behaviourists assert that by controlling reinforcement, parents encourage their children to learn the correct meaning and pronunciation of words

e.g. As children grow older, parents may insist on closer and closer approximations of the word water before supplying the requested drink.

Language Acquisition Device (LAD)

An innate mechanism or process that facilitates the learning of language, proposed by Noam Chomsky in the

Nativist theory

It’s unreasonable to expect that children learn language by imitation since there are an infinite number of sentences in a language

Linguistic relativity

The hypothesis that one’s language determines the nature of one’s thought.

Problem solving

Active efforts to discover what must be done to achieve a goal that is not readily attainable.

Interactionist Theory

The theory that biology and experience interact to influence language development, including social exchanges that mould skills.

Problems of inducing structure

A class of problems where people must discover the relations among the parts, such as series completion and analogy problems.

Problems of arrangement

A class of problems where parts must be arranged in a way that satisfies some criterion, like anagrams or the string problem.

Problems of transformation

A class of problems requiring a sequence of transformations to reach a specific goal,

e.g. the hobbits and orcs or water jar problems.

Functional fixedness

A barrier to effective problem solving where individuals perceive an item only in terms of its most common use, due to overlooking obscure, little-noticed features of problems.

e.g. People may only see a screwdriver as something that tightens and prys stuff open, and may not see it as a weight

Irrelevant information

Information that isn’t useful to solving the problem

Mental set

The tendency to persist in using problem-solving strategies that have worked in the past.

Heuristics

Mental shortcuts or "rules of thumb" used in problem solving, such as forming subgoals or searching for analogies.

Heuristics (con’t)

Are useful, but don’t guarantee success

Unnecessary constraints

Constraints imposed not by the problem, but by the problem solver

Trial and error

Trying possible solutions and discarding those that are in error until one works.

Trial and error (con’t)

Can be effective when there are relatively few possible solutions to be tried out, but can be impractical when the number of possible manoeuvres is large

The special process view

Asserts that insights arise from sudden restructurings of problems that occur at an unconscious level

The business as usual view

Asserts that insights arise from normal, step-by-step, analytical thinking that occurs at a conscious level

The integrated view

Asserts that both sudden, unconscious restructuring and gradual, conscious analytical thinking can contribute to the emergence of insights

The search for analogies

If one can spot an analogy (similarity) between problems, you may be able to use the solution to a previous problem to solve a current one.

Subgoals

Intermediate steps toward a solution; a problem is partly solved when a subgoal is reached

Representation of a problem

How one envisions a problem

e.g. Many problems can be represented in a variety of ways, such as verbally, mathematically, or spatially

Incubation

Taking a break from a problem during which the solution may occur unexpectedly later.

Incubation duration

Incubation periods may be measured in minutes, hours, or days depending on the problem

Why might taking a break from solving a problem be effective?

One may find that you see the problem in a different light and new solutions may spring to mind.

Decision making

Evaluating alternatives and making choices among them

Choice overload

When people feel overwhelmed by decisions involving a large array of options.

Choice mindset

A “tendency to think about or interpret behavior as a matter of choice”

Holistic cognitive style

A cognitive style common in Eastern cultures that focuses on context and the whole picture rather than individual parts.

Analytic cognitive style

A cognitive style common in Western cultures that focuses on focal objects and their properties rather than the background.

Sunk costs fallacy

Individuals continue a behaviour because they have already invested time, money, and energy in the action or decision, not because the continuation of the behaviour itself is rational

Availability heuristic

Basing the estimated probability of an event on the ease with which relevant instances come to mind.

e.g. One may estimate the divorce rate by recalling the number of divorces among your friends’ parents.

Representativeness heuristic

Basing the estimated probability of an event on how similar it is to the typical prototype of that event.

e.g. When people flip a coin, they’d expect a combination of heads or tails instead of all tails

Tendency to ignore base rates

When people don’t take into account facts and/or statistics when coming to conclusions

Conjunction fallacy

An error that occurs when people estimate that the odds of two uncertain events happening together are greater than the odds of either event happening alone.

Simon’s theory of bounded rationality

Herbert Simon’s theory that humans have a limited ability to process multiple alternatives and often make irrational or suboptimal decisions.

System 1

According to Kahneman, a system of thought that is fast, effortless, and automatic.

System 1 (con’t)

Is involved when we read words on a billboard, detect hostility in someone’s voice, answer math questions, etc

System 2

According to Kahneman, a system of thought that is slow, elaborate, effortful, and controlled.

i.e. The thinking from which we derive our sense of choice, deliberation, concentration, and personal agency.

System 2 is used

When we look for a person in a crowd at a Pearl Jam concert who is wearing a black polo shirt, when we fill out our income tax forms, etc

Confirmation bias

The tendency to seek information that supports one's decisions and beliefs while ignoring disconfirming information.

Framing

How choices or questions are structured/posed, which can significantly influence the decisions people make.

e.g. Gas stations charging patrons more when they pay with a credit card, but presenting it as a discount when paying with cash

Behavioural economics

A field of study that examines the effects of humans’ actual (not idealized) decision-making processes on economic decisions.

Loss aversion

A pitfall in reasoning where individuals overemphasize the potential for loss compared to potential gains.

Risky decision making

Making choices under conditions of uncertainty due to people not knowing what’ll happen

Subjective utility

Represents what an outcome is personally worth to an individual.

e.g. buying a few lottery tickets may allow you to dream about becoming wealthy.

Fast and frugal heuristics

When people use quick-and-dirty heuristics that are less than perfect but t work well enough due to having to make decisions quickly with little information

Divergent thinking

A thought process used to generate many possible solutions from a single prompt by being creative, independent, and imaginative.

Convergent thinking

A thought process focused on selecting the single, best answer to a problem using logic, critical thinking, and standards to filter solutions.

Self-imposed mental barriers

Internal limitations that restrict creativity when solving difficult problems; Dr. Dastur advises students to avoid creating these.

Unusual Uses Test

An activity used to measure creativity by asking participants to generate as many original, surprising, and useful innovations as possible for a common object like a paperclip.

Jugaad

A Hindi word roughly meaning "hack," referring to simple work-arounds used to solve problems quickly, cheaply, and effectively with existing resources.

Prototypes

Simple and quick versions of a project used to test ideas and allow for improvements or redesigns.

Novelty

The quality of being new or unusual

Reinvention

A creative lesson from Richard Serra suggesting that if you reach your limits in one area, you should return to your original passions and start anew.

Remote Associates Test (RAT)

A creativity test involving finding a fourth word related to three given words; it relies heavily on knowledge of language-specific expressions and compound words.

Latent Inhibition (LI)

A person’s unconscious capacity to ignore stimuli that are unrewarded or irrelevant to their needs.

Cognitive flexibility

A component of creativity that increases when experiencing unusual stimuli, such as a virtual reality environment where the laws of gravity are violated.

Positive correlates of Creativity

Personality traits including Openness-to-Experience, Extraversion, cognitive flexibility, preference for complexity, and non-conformity.

Negative correlates of Creativity

Personality traits including Agreeableness and Conscientiousness.

Iteration

The creative principle of continuously improving a design based on feedback.

Principle 1 of creativity

Failure is okay as it means you tried

Principle 2 of creativity

Challenge assumptions and “think outside the box”

Principle 3 of creativity

Keep changing and improving the design based on feedback

Principle 4 of creativity

Aim for imaginative and crazy solutions

Principle 5 of creativity

Avoid criticism from yourself and others

Principle 6 of creativity

Novelty encourages creativity

Principle 7 of creativity

Prototype by creating a model and trying it out in the real world

Principle 8 of creativity

Be aware of your limitations, but don’t be afraid to convert your limitations into possibilities

Insight

The sudden discovery of the correct solution following incorrect attempts based primarily on trial and error

Insight (con’t)

When people suddenly discover the correct solution to a problem after struggling with it or a while.

Recognition heuristic

If one of two alternatives is recognized and the other is not, assume that the recognized alternative has the higher value.