Exam 3 Review

Flashcards: Language and Cognition

Flashcard 1

Q: What are the key features of language?
A:

• Communicative

• Referential and Meaningful

• Structured

• Creative

Flashcard 2

Q: What is the "visual word form area" in the brain?
A: A region that emerges from cortical repurposing originally evolved for object and face processing, aiding in word recognition.

Flashcard 3

Q: What is the Spreading Activation Model?
A: It suggests that words in our mental lexicon become activated and easily accessed because they are linked with words or concepts currently in mind.

Flashcard 4

Q: What is "semantic priming"?
A: A phenomenon where exposure to one word (e.g., "doctor") makes it easier to recognize a related word (e.g., "nurse") versus an unrelated word (e.g., "butter").

Flashcard 5

Q: What is the difference between semantics and syntax in language?
A:

• Semantics: Meaning of words and sentences

• Syntax: Rules governing sentence structure

Flashcard 6

Q: What is "productivity" in language?
A: The ability to create an infinite number of sentences using a limited set of words and rules.

Flashcard 7

Q: What is recursion in language?
A: The ability to embed phrases within phrases, enabling infinite complexity in sentence construction.

Flashcard 8

Q: What does Noam Chomsky's theory of language acquisition propose?
A: Language acquisition is driven by an innate mechanism (the Language Acquisition Device) and is not solely learned from environmental stimuli.

Flashcard 9

Q: What is the "poverty of the stimulus" argument in Chomsky's theory?
A: Children often do not receive enough negative feedback (or "corrective" input) to account for their ability to learn complex language structures.

Flashcard 10

Q: What is "transformational grammar"?
A: A theory proposing that there are rules for transforming mental representations into grammatically structured verbal output (and vice versa).

Flashcard 11

Q: What is the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis?
A: The hypothesis that language shapes thought, influencing the way people perceive and understand the world.

Flashcard 12

Q: What is the difference between the "strong" and "weak" forms of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis?
A:

• Strong: Language determines what people can think.

• Weak: Language influences but does not determine thought.

Flashcards: Judgment and Decision Making

Flashcard 13

Q: What is the difference between System 1 and System 2 thinking?
A:

• System 1: Fast, automatic, intuitive thinking.

• System 2: Slow, deliberate, and analytical thinking.

Flashcard 14

Q: What is the "conjunction fallacy"?
A: The error of assuming that specific conditions are more probable than general ones.

Flashcard 15

Q: What is the "representativeness heuristic"?
A: A mental shortcut where people judge probabilities based on how much one event resembles another, rather than using statistical logic.

Flashcard 16

Q: What is "anchoring and adjustment"?
A: A cognitive bias where people rely too heavily on the first piece of information they receive (the "anchor") and adjust insufficiently from that point.

Flashcard 17

Q: What is "loss aversion"?
A: The tendency to prefer avoiding losses rather than acquiring equivalent gains, making losses psychologically more impactful than gains.

Flashcard 18

Q: What is "prospect theory"?
A: A theory that explains how people make decisions involving risk, showing that they are more sensitive to potential losses than to gains.

Flashcard 19

Q: What is the "sunk cost effect"?
A: The tendency to continue an endeavor once an investment of time, effort, or money has been made, even if it's no longer rational to continue.

Flashcards: Reasoning and Problem Solving

Flashcard 20

Q: What is "delay discounting"?
A: The tendency to value immediate rewards more than future ones, often leading to impulsive decisions.

Flashcard 21

Q: What is the difference between "deductive" and "inductive" reasoning?
A:

• Deductive reasoning: Drawing specific conclusions from general premises.

• Inductive reasoning: Drawing general conclusions from specific observations.

Flashcard 22

Q: What is the "modus ponens" in deductive reasoning?
A: If "P → Q" is true, and "P" is true, then "Q" must also be true.

Flashcard 23

Q: What is "Bayesian reasoning"?
A: A method of reasoning based on probabilities, using prior evidence to update the likelihood of a hypothesis being true.

Flashcard 24

Q: What are the three key components of Bayes’ Rule?
A:

• Posterior probability: The probability of a hypothesis given new evidence.

• Prior probability: The probability of a hypothesis before new evidence is considered.

• Likelihood: The probability of observing the evidence given the hypothesis is true.

Flashcard 25

Q: What is the "recognition heuristic"?
A: A mental shortcut where people rely on whether they recognize an option to make a decision, assuming that more familiar options are better.

Flashcard 26

Q: What is the "native language magnet effect"?
A: The phenomenon where infants' brains become specialized to perceive the phonetic sounds of their native language, making them more sensitive to those sounds and less sensitive to others.

Flashcard 27

Q: What are "morphemes" in language?
A: The smallest units of meaning in a language, such as prefixes, suffixes, or entire words.

Flashcard 28

Q: What is the difference between content and functional morphemes?
A:

• Content morphemes: Carry the core meaning of a word (e.g., "dog," "jump").

• Functional morphemes: Serve grammatical purposes (e.g., "the," "and," "in").

Flashcards: Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis and Language Impact on Thought

Flashcard 29

Q: How does the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis influence how we think?
A: Language can guide and influence thought by highlighting specific categories, distinctions, or concepts. For example, language can make us focus on different aspects of an event depending on how it is phrased (e.g., agentive language in English vs. non-agentive language in Spanish).

Flashcard 30

Q: What did Fausey & Boroditsky (2011) find regarding language and memory?
A: English speakers are more likely than Spanish speakers to remember who committed an offense because English commonly uses agentive language (focusing on the doer), while Spanish uses less agentive constructions.

Flashcards: Judgment and Decision Making (continued)

Flashcard 31

Q: What is the "availability heuristic"?
A: A mental shortcut where people judge the likelihood of an event based on how easily examples come to mind.

Flashcard 32

Q: What is the "decoy effect"?
A: A phenomenon where consumers change their preference between two options when a third, less attractive option is added.

Flashcard 33

Q: What is the "deliberation-without-attention effect"?
A: The finding that people can make better decisions after a period of unconscious thought (without actively deliberating).

Flashcard 34

Q: What is the "take-the-best" heuristic?
A: A decision-making strategy where people choose the best option based on the most important cue available.

Flashcard 35

Q: What is "prospect theory" and how does it relate to risky choices?
A: A theory explaining how people make decisions involving risk, showing that they value potential losses more than potential gains, leading to risk-seeking behavior in loss situations and risk-averse behavior in gain situations.

Flashcard 36

Q: What is the "endowment effect"?
A: The phenomenon where people value items they own more highly than equivalent items they do not own.

Flashcard 37

Q: What is "status quo bias"?
A: The tendency to prefer things to stay the same, avoiding change even when alternatives might be better.

Flashcard 38

Q: What is the "optimal default"?
A: The tendency for people to choose the default option in decision-making, even if it is not the best option available.

Flashcards: Reasoning and Problem Solving (continued)

Flashcard 39

Q: What is the "confirmation bias"?
A: The tendency to search for, interpret, or remember information that confirms one’s preexisting beliefs, while ignoring information that contradicts them.

Flashcard 40

Q: What is "causal reasoning" and how do we determine causal direction?
A: Causal reasoning involves figuring out what causes what. The three factors that help determine causal direction are:

1. Causal launching: One event starts the sequence of another.

2. Covariation: The likelihood that two events occur together.

3. Temporal order: The order in which events happen (cause precedes effect).

Flashcard 41

Q: What is "Bayesian reasoning"?
A: A statistical method that helps make decisions based on updating the probability of a hypothesis as more evidence becomes available.

Flashcard 42

Q: What is the equation for Bayes' Rule?
A:
P(H/E)=(P(E/H)P(E))×P(H)P(H/E) = \left( \frac{P(E/H)}{P(E)} \right) \times P(H)P(H/E)=(P(E)P(E/H)​)×P(H)
Where:

• P(H/E)P(H/E)P(H/E) is the posterior probability (the probability of the hypothesis given the evidence)

• P(E/H)P(E/H)P(E/H) is the likelihood (the probability of the evidence given the hypothesis)

• P(E)P(E)P(E) is the prior probability (the probability of the evidence before considering the hypothesis)

• P(H)P(H)P(H) is the prior probability of the hypothesis.

Flashcard 43

Q: What is "posterior probability" in Bayesian reasoning?
A: The probability of a hypothesis being true after considering the evidence.

Flashcard 44

Q: What is the "recognition heuristic" in decision-making?
A: A mental shortcut where people rely on their ability to recognize one option over others, assuming the recognized option is more likely to be correct.

Flashcard 45

Q: What is "fluency heuristics"?
A: A decision-making strategy where people rely on how easily an option comes to mind to make a choice.

Flashcards: Self-Control and Problem Solving

Flashcard 46

Q: What is the "delay discounting" effect?
A: The tendency to devalue rewards or benefits that are delayed in time, preferring smaller, immediate rewards over larger, future ones.

Flashcard 47

Q: What role does self-control play in delay discounting?
A: Self-control is necessary to resist the temptation of immediate rewards in favor of larger, delayed rewards.

Flashcard 48

Q: How does self-control change across the lifespan?
A:

• Children: Struggle with self-control (e.g., marshmallow test).

• Adolescents: Show more impulsivity due to brain development.

• Older adults: May experience a decline in self-control due to changes in the frontal lobe.

Flashcard 49

Q: What is "conflict monitoring and resolution"?
A: Cognitive processes that detect and resolve conflicts between competing thoughts or actions, which are important for self-control and decision-making.

Flashcard 50

Q: What is "deductive reasoning"?
A: A form of logical reasoning where conclusions are drawn from general premises (e.g., if A > B, and B > C, then A > C).

Flashcard 51

Q: What is the "Lexical Decision Task"?
A: A task where participants are shown a string of letters and asked to decide if it forms a valid word or not. It measures the speed and accuracy of word recognition.

Q: What is the "Word Frequency Effect"?
A: A phenomenon where people recognize and respond to high-frequency words faster than low-frequency words, due to the frequency with which the word appears in language.

Flashcard 53

Q: What is "Affective Priming"?
A: A process where emotional reactions to one stimulus can influence responses to another stimulus. For example, priming with happy faces may make people respond faster to positive words.

Flashcard 54

Q: What is the "Research Focus on Color Perception"?
A: Studies examining how language may influence the way people perceive colors, including how different languages classify and label colors.

Flashcard 55

Q: What is the "Framing Effect"?
A: The way information is presented (framed) can significantly affect decision-making, even if the underlying information is the same. For example, people are more likely to choose a medical treatment if it is framed as having a 90% success rate rather than a 10% failure rate.