Psychology: From Inquiry To Understanding Chapter 8

Thinking

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

Cognitive Bias

Systematic error in thinking

Representative Heuristic

Heuristic that involves judging the probability of an event by its superficial similarity to a prototype

Base Rate

How common a characteristic or behavior is in the general population

Availability Heuristic

Heuristic that involves estimating the likelihood of an occurrence based on the ease with which it comes to our minds

Hindsight Bias

Our tendency to overestimate how well we could have predicted something after it has already occurred

Concept

Our 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 a question is formulated that can influence the decisions people make

Problem Solving

Generating a cognitive strategy to accomplish a goal

Algorithm

Step-by-step learned procedure used to solve a problem

Mental Set

Phenomenon of becoming stuck in a specific problem-solving strategy, inhibiting our ability to generate alternatives

Functional Fixedness

Difficulty conceptualizing that an object typically used for one purpose can be used for another

Language

Large arbitrary system of communication that combines symbols (words and gestures) in rule based ways to create meaning

Phoneme

Category of sounds our vocal apparatus produces

Morpheme

Smallest meaningful unit of speech

Syntax

Grammatical rules that govern how words are composed into meaningful strings

Extralinguistic Information

Elements of communication that aren't part of the content of language but are critical to interpreting its meaning

Semantics

Meaning derived from words and sentences

Dialect

Language variation used by a group of people who share geographic proximity or ethnic background

Babbling

Intentional vocalization that lacks specific meaning

One-Word Stage

Early period of language development when children use single-word phrases to convey an entire thought

Homesign

System of signs invented by children who are deaf and born of hearing parents and therefore receive no language input

Sign Language

Language developed by members of a deaf community that uses visual rather than auditory communication

Bilingual

Proficient and fluent at speaking and comprehending two distinct languages

Metalinguistic

Awareness of how language is structured and used

Generative

Allowing an infinite number of unique sentences to be created by combining words in novel ways

Nativist

Account of language acquisition that suggests children are born with some basic knowledge of how language works

Language Acquisition Device

Hypothetical organ in the brain in which nativist believe knowledge of syntax resides

Social Pragmatics

Account of language acquisition that proposes that children infer what words and sentences mean from context and social interactions

Linguistic Determinism

View that all thought is represented verbally and that as a result our language defines our thinking

Linguistic Relativity

View that characteristics of language shape our thought processes

Whole Word Recognition

Reading strategy that involves identifying common words based on their appearance without having to sound them out

Phonetic Decomposition

Reading strategy that involves sounding out words by drawing correspondences between printed letters and sounds