How People Think

7.1 Mental Imagery

• Thinking (Cognition): mental activity that goes on in the brain when a person is organizing and attempting to understand information and communicating information to others

• Mental Images: mental representations that stand for objects or events and have a picture-like quality

7.2 Concepts and Prototypes

• Concepts: ideas that represent a class or category of objects, events, or activities

• Prototype: an example of a concept that closely matches the defining characteristics of the concept

7.3 Problem-Solving and Decision-Making Strategies

• Problem Solving: process of cognition that occurs when a goal must be reached by thinking and behaving in certain ways

• Decision Making: process of cognition that involves identifying, evaluating, and choosing among several alternatives

• Trial and Error (mechanical solution): problem-solving method in which one possible solution after another is tried until a successful one is found

• Algorithms: very specific, step-by-step procedures for solving certain types of problems

• Heuristic: an educated guess based on prior experiences that help narrow down the possible solutions for a problem. Also known as a “rule of thumb”

• Representativeness Heuristic: assumption that any object (or person) sharing characteristics with the members of a particular category is also a member of that category

• Availability Heuristic: estimating the frequency or likelihood of an event based on how easy it is to recall relevant information from memory or how easy it is for us to think of related examples

7.4 Problems with Problem Solving and Decision Making

• Functional Fixedness: a block to problem-solving that comes from thinking about objects in terms of only their typical functions

• Mental Set: the tendency for people to persist in using problem-solving patterns that have worked for them in the past

• Confirmation Bias: the tendency to search for evidence that fits one’s beliefs while ignoring any evidence that does not fit those beliefs

7.5 Creativity

• Creativity: the process of solving problems by combining ideas or behavior in new ways

• Convergent Thinking: type of thinking in which a problem is seen as having only one answer, and all lines of thinking will eventually lead to that single answer, using previous knowledge and logic

• Divergent Thinking: type of thinking in which a person starts from one point and comes up with many different ideas or possibilities based on that point

Intelligence

7.6 Theories of Intelligence

• Intelligence: the ability to learn from one’s experiences, acquire knowledge, and use resources effectively in adapting to new situations or solving problems

• G Factor: the ability to reason and solve problems, or general intelligence

• S Factor: the ability to excel in certain areas, or specific intelligence

• Triarchic Theory of Intelligence: Sternberg’s theory that there are three kinds of intelligence: analytical, creative, and practical

• Analytical Intelligence: the ability to break problems down into component parts, or analysis, for problem solving****

• Creative Intelligence: the ability to deal with new and different concepts and to come up with new ways of solving problems

• Practical Intelligence: the ability to use information to get along in life and become successful

7.7 Measuring Intelligence

• Intelligence Quotient (IQ): a number representing a measure of intelligence, resulting from the division of one’s mental age by one’s chronological age and then multiplying that quotient by 100

7.8 Test Construction: Good Test, Bad Test?

• Reliability: the tendency of a test to produce the same scores, again and again, each time it is given to the same people

• Validity: the degree to which a test actually measures what it’s supposed to measure

• Deviation IQ Scores: a type of intelligence measure that assumes that IQ is normally distributed around a mean of 100 with a standard deviation of about 15

7.9 Individual Difference in Intelligence

• Intellectual Disability (Intellectual Developmental Disorder): condition in which a person’s behavioral and cognitive skills exist at an earlier developmental stage than the skills of others who are the same chronological age; may also be referred to as developmentally delayed. This condition was formerly known as mental retardation

• Gifted: the 2 percent of the population falling on the upper end of the normal curve and typically possessing an IQ of 130 or above

• Emotional Intelligence: the awareness of and ability to manage one’s own emotions to facilitate thinking and attain goals, as well as the ability to understand emotions in others

7.10 The Nature/Nurture Issue Regarding Intelligence

• Heritability: degree to which the changes in some trait within a population can be considered to be due to genetic influences; the extent individual genetic differences affect individual differences in observed behavior; in IQ, proportion of change in IQ within a population that is caused by hereditary factors

• Stereotype Threat: condition in which being made aware of a negative performance stereotype interferes with the performance of someone that considers himself or Watch herself part of that group

Language

7.11 The Levels of Language Analysis

• Language: a system for combining symbols (such as words) so that an unlimited number of meaningful statements can be made for the purpose of communicating with others

• Grammar: the system of rules governing the structure and use of a language

• Phonemes: the basic units of sound in a language

• Morphemes: the smallest units of meaning within a language

• Syntax: the system of rules for combining words and phrases to form grammatically correct sentences

• Semantics: the rules for determining the meaning of words and sentences

• Pragmatics: aspects of language involving the practical ways of communicating with others, or the social “niceties” of language

7.12 Development of Language

• Child Directed Speech: the way adults and older children talk to infants and very young children, with higher-pitched, repetitious, sing-song speech patterns

7.13 The Relationship Between Language and Thought

• Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis: the theory that thought processes and concepts are controlled by language

• Cognitive Universalism: theory that concepts are universal and influence the development of language

7.14 Animal Studies in Language

• Animals have their own language and multiple experiments have been done on this, for example, studies involving honeybees and their ‘dance’, dogs and growling, and dolphins.