AP Psych: Language and Cognition

Language

  • Phoneme

    • smallest units of sound

  • Morpheme

    • smallest units of meaning

  • Babbling stage

    • stages of speech development in which the infant makes spontaneous sounds which has no meaning to it

    • One Word Stage

      • the stage that takes place during when a child is 1-2 years old, where they speak mostly in single words

    • Two Word Stage

      • the stage that takes place at around the age of 2, during when children speak in 2 word sentences

    • Overextension

      • Learning words, use the same word too much incorrectly

        • dog has 4 legs and so does cat, call cat “dog”

    • Overgeneralization

      • incorrect grammar usage

Language Acquisition

  • Chomsky→ Language Acquisition Device

    • humans born with inherent ability to learn language

    • all languages has grammar, a child can pick up on certain grammar

  • Whorf → Linguistic Determinism & Influence

    • The idea that language shapes how you think and see the world

    • Russians have different shadows of blue, faster at perceiving shades of blue

Pairs of Cognition

  • Convergent Thinking

    • Narrowing the available problem solutions to determine the single best solution

  • Divergent Thinking

    • Expanding the number of possible problem solutions, leading to different creative directions

  • Concept

    • Mental groupings of similar objects, events, ideas, or people

  • Prototype

    • A mental image designed to best represent a category

  • Algorithm

    • A methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a problem

  • Heuristic

    • a mental short-cut that is more error-prone than algorithms

  • Availability heuristic

    • Judging the likelihood of an event based off of vivid memories; can distort fear factor

  • Representativeness heuristic

    • judging the likelihood of an event to happen based off stereotypes

  • Mental Set

    • approaches problem in one particular way, often a way that has been successful in the past

  • Fixation

    • inability to see the problem from a new perspective

  • Sunk-cost Fallacy

    • We like to continue our original plan because of the time invested even when a new approach can save time.

  • Gambler’s Fallacy

    • When judging the outcome of future events, we tend to use past random events that were repeated