Ch.9 Language & Learning Vocab/Terms

➤Language

System for communicating with others using signals that are combined according to rules of grammar and that convey meaning

Phonemes

smallest distinctive sound units in language

Morphemes

smallest language unit that carry meaning.

Behaviorist explanations

language is learned through operant conditioning and imitation

Nativist explanations

language is innate; more evidence converges on this theory. biological

Interactionist explanations

social interactions play a crucial role in language.

Overgeneralization

The application of a grammatical rule in cases where it doesn't apply

Ex: “I eated”

Overextension

is an error in early word use in which a child uses a single word to label multiple different things in a manner that is inconsistent with adult usage

Ex: calling every four legged animal a dog

Part of brain that controls expression and language

Broca’s area, left frontal lobe

Part of the brain that controls language reception —involved in language comprehension;

Wernicke’s area , left temporal lobe 

Dunning-Kruger Effect

 a cognitive bias in which people assess their cognitive ability as greater than it is.

heuristic

simpler problem solving strategy that is usually speedier than an algorithm but is also more error prone.

Availability heuristic

a mental shortcut that involves judging the possibility of an event on the basis of how easily the event can be recalled from memory

Representativeness Heuristic

 a mental shortcut that involves estimating the likelihood of events in terms of how well they seem to represent, or match, particular prototypes; which can lead us to ignore relevant information