Language

• Mental Representations: include images, ideas, concepts, and principles

• Language: a system of symbols and rules for combining these symbols in ways that can generate an infinite number of possible messages and meanings

• Psycholinguistics:  is the scientific study of the psychological aspects of language

• Grammar: is the set of rules that dictates how symbols can be combined to create meaningful units of communication

• Syntax: the rules that govern the order of words

• Generativity: means that the symbols of language can be combined to generate an infinite number of messages that have novel meaning

• Displacement: refers to the fact that language allows us to communicate about events and objects that are not physically present

• Surface Structure: consists of the symbols that are used and their order

• Deep Structure: refers to the underlying meaning of the combined symbols

• Morphemes: the smallest units of meaning in a language

• Bottom-up Processing:  individual elements of a stimulus are analyzed and then combined to form a unified perception

• Top-Down Processing: sensory information is interpreted in light of existing knowledge, concepts, ideas, and expectations

• Speech Segmentation: perceiving where each word within a spoken sentence begins and ends

• Pragmatics: a knowledge of the practical aspects of using language

• Bilinualism: the regular use of two languages

• Phonological awareness:  to refer to this overall awareness of the sound structure of one’s language

Thinking

• Proposition thought: expresses a proposition, or statement

• Motoric Thought: relates to mental representation of motor movements

• Propositions: statements that express ideas

• Concepts: basic units of semantic memory- mental categoties into which we place objects, activities, abstractions, and events that have essential features in common

• Deductive Reasoning: we reason from the top down, that is, from general principles to a conclusion about a specific case

• Belief Bias: is the tendency to abandon logical rules in favor of our own personal beliefs

• Framing:  refers to the idea that the same information, problem, or options can be structured and presented in different ways

• Mental Set: the tendency to stick to solutions that have worked in the past

• Algorithms:  are formulas or precise sequences of procedures that automatically generate solutions

• Heuristics: are general problem-solving strategies, similar to mental rules-of-thumb, that we apply to certain classes of situations

• Means-ends analysis: involves identifying differences between the present situation and a desired goal, and then making changes that reduce these differences

• Subgoal analysis:  formulating subgoals, or intermediate steps, toward a solution

• Representativeness Heuristic: we think about how closely something fi ts our prototype for that particular concept, or class, and therefore how likely it is to be a member of that class

• Confirmation bias: tending to look for evidence that will confirm what they currently believe rather than looking for evidence that could disconfirm their beliefs

• Overconfidence: the tendency to overestimate one’s correctness in factual knowledge, beliefs, and decisions

• Creativity: is the ability to produce something that is both new and valuable

• Divergent Thinking: the generation of novel ideas that depart from the norm

• Functional Fixedness: the tendency to be so fixed in their perception of the proper function of an object or procedure that they are blinded to new ways of using it

• Incubation: processing a problem, presumably at a subconscious level, while doing some other activity

• Schema: a is a mental framework, an organized pattern of thought about some aspect of the world

• Wisdom: is a system of rich, expert knowledge about fundamental matters of life

• Mental Image: is a representation of a stimulus that originates inside your brain, rather than from external sensory input