PSYC102: CH8 - Thinking, Reasoning, & Language

Thinking

Any mental activity or processing of information, including learning, remembering, perceiving, communicating, believing, and deciding

Representative Heuristic

Involves judging the probability of an event by its similarity to a prototype

• Ex. A quiet withdrawn person being a librarian

• Ignore base rates

Availability Heuristic

Estimates the likelihood of an occurrence are based on the ease with which examples of the occurrence comes to our minds

Hindsight Bias

Tendency to overestimate how well we could have predicted something after it has already occured

Confirmation Bias

The tendency to seek out evidence that supports our beliefs and deny, dismiss, ignore, or distort evidence that contradicts them

Top-Down Processing

Context and higher-level knowledge influence lower level processes

Concepts

Knowledge and ideas about a set of objects, actions, and characteristics that share core properties

Decision Making

The process of selecting among a set of possible alternatives

Framing

The way information is presented activates different information in the LTM, which influences decisions

Problem Solving

Generating a cognitive strategy to accomplish a goal

Algorithms

Step-by-step procedures used to solve a problem

Mental Sets

Phenomenon of being stuck in a specific problem solving strategy, which inhibits our ability to generate alternative strategies

Language

A largely arbitrary system of communication that combines symbols in rule-based ways to create meaning

Phonemes

The basic units of sound in language /c/ /a/ /t/

Morphemes

Smallest units of meaning in a language

• Incoming (“in” “come” “ing”)

Syntax

Set of rules for arranging words to form sentences

Extralinguistic information

Information that is not part of a language itself, but plays an important role in how we understand it

Linguistic Determinism

All thought is represented verbally, therefore language determines thinking

Linguistic Relativity

Language can shape our thinking, but is not absolute in determining our thoughts