LANGUAGE & THOUGHT

Important Terms/People

  • cognitive miser: we seek to conserve our cognitive resources; we don’t like to think too hard

  • inductive reasoning: where we are drawing general conclusions from specific evidence

  • deductive reasoning: where we go from general statements to understand specific conclusions

  • syntax vs grammar:

    • syntax: the rules for how we put words together in order to create meaningful thought

    • grammar: more general, general rules pertaining to a specific language; focus on the structure

  • genie: one of the more well-known case studies, suffered horrific abuse and had not learned how to speak by the age of 8 yrs

    • able to learn language in a way that made it easier for her to communicate w others

  • home sign: deaf children born in hearing households; deaf children create home sign which is their own sign language in order to communicate w those around them

    • shows that there is something that seems more innate in how we communicate even when there are strong barriers that make it difficult to do so

Language

  • rules: in order for something to be recognized as a language, there have to be rules

    • symbolic: have to be able to use sounds, words, pictures to represent non-tangible or abstract concepts

    • generative: take building blocks of a language and combine them into an infinite number of words and messages

    • structured: rules with how you are combining in order for it to contain meaning between two speakers of a same language

      • if one is missing, less likely to be looked at as a language

  • semantics: how we understand meanings of words in a language

    • denotation: the dictionary definition of a word

    • connotation: personal interpretation of a word

Language Acquisition Theories

  • sociocultural: focus on observational learning, through interactions with those around us, we pick up on language

  • behaviorist: came from observational or operant conditioning

  • nativist (chomsky): humans have a natural inclination towards language, we have innate skill when it comes to language rather than needing experience

    • language acquisition device: said we have this: a biologic directive that facilitates speech

  • interactionist:

Language Components

  • phonemes: smallest units of speech

  • morphemes: smallest units of meaning

  • receptive vocabulary: words you understand

  • productive vocabulary: words that you use

  • telegraphic speech: language that children use when they first begin speaking, subject speech (ex. mommy see, baby draw)

Language Errors

  • overextension: using a word more than you should be using it,

  • under extension: using a word more conservatively as they should, putting too many rules on when they should use a word

  • overregularization: where they apply regular grammar rules to irregular examples (mouses instead of mice)

Cognition Barriers

  • field dependence: where we focus on the context of a problem or situation

  • field independence: ignore the context of a problem or situation and focusing more on singular objects or singular properties

  • irrelevant information: have a tendency to focus on irrelevant information when coming up with answers or solutions

  • mental sets: continued use of a strategy that worked previously even when it is no longer relevant

  • functional fixedness: inability to see uses for an object outside its typical use

  • unnecessary constraints: occurs when individuals assume that there are rules that don’t actually exist

  • anticipated regret: we will do a lot in order to not feel regret, when making decisions about an assumed reaction or decision

Cognition Errors

  • theory of bounded rationality: people are only rational to a certain degree

  • conjunction fallacy: when you think two items are more likely to occur together than either is individual

  • recognition heuristic:

  • hindsight bias: where once we know the outcome we believe we already believed in that outcome

  • affect heuristic: tend to make decisions on emotional or gut feelings rather than rational thought

  • alternative outcomes effect: assume past outcomes have an influence on a future random event

  • anchoring heuristic: when asked to give a number response, we tend to anchor ourselves or respond similarly to those who responded before us

  • availability heuristic: based on the likelihood of events based on how easily examples of instances of them come to mind; things we can’t think of as easily we choose to believe the easier

  • confirmation bias: tendency to remember or process information that supports us and ignore or forget information that goes against us

  • overconfidence: humans have way more confidence in themselves than they should

  • ostrich bias: tendency to ignore negative information and focus on positive information (more about emotional information)