Chapter 8 Quick Notes PDF

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PSCY 298 Chapter 8 Quick Notes Language: turning thoughts into words -

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Cognition refers to the mental process involved in acquiring knowledge Languages are symbolic, semantic, generative, and structured. Human languages are structured hierarchically - At the bottom of the hierarchy are basic sounds units, called phonemes. - At the next level are morphemes, the smallest unit of meaning. Syntax is a system of rules that specify how words can be arranged into sentences The initial vocalizations by infants are similar across languages, but their babbling gradually begins to resemble the sounds from their surrounding language. Children typically utter their first words around their 1st birthday. Vocabulary growth is slow at first, but a vocabulary spurt often begins at around 18 to 24 months. Toddlers often make errors, such as overextensions and underextensions. - An overextension occurs when a child incorrectly uses a word to describe a wider set of objects or actions than it's meant to. i.e. using the word ball for anything round like oranges or apples. - Underextensions occur when a child incorrectly uses a word to describe a narrow are set of objects or actions than it is meant to. i.e. when doll only refers to a specific doll and not other dolls. Most children begin to combine words by the end of their second year. There early sentences are telegraphic, in that they omit many nonessential words. i.e. give doll instead of please give me the doll Overregularization is occur when grammatical rules are in current correctly generalised to irregular cases where they do not apply. i.e. the girl goed home. Metalinguistic awareness is the ability to reflect on the use of language. Research does not support the assumption that bilingualism has a negative effect on language development or on cognitive development. The learning of a second language is facilitated by starting at a younger age Efforts to teach chimpanzee's American Sign Language where impressive, but doubts were raised about whether the chimps learn the rules of language. Sue Savage-Rumbaugh’s work with Kanzie suggest that some animals are capable of some genuine language acquisition. Many theories believe that humans’ special talent for languages the product of natural selection. According to Skinner another behaviorist, children require language through imitation and reinforcement. Nativist theories assert that humans have an innate capacity to learn language rules. - Today, theorists are moving towards interactionists perspectives, which emphasise the role of both biology an experience. The theory of linguistic relativity asserts that language determines thought, the suggesting that people from different cultures may think about the world somewhat differently. The evidence supports only a weak version of the linguistic relativity hypothesis

Problem Solving: in search of solutions -

in studying problem solving, psychologists have differentiated among several types of problems. In problems that require inducing structure, the problem solver must discover the relationships among the parts of a problem. Transformation problems require that the problem solver carry out a sequence of transformations moves in order to reach a specific goal. Arrangement problems required the problem solver to arrange the parts in a way that satisfies a general goal. - Insight is the sudden discovery of the correct solution following incorrect attempts Common barriers to problem solving include functional fixedness, mental state, getting bogged down in new relevant information, and placing unnecessary constraints on one’s solutions. - Functional fixedness is the tendency to perceive an item only in terms of its most common use - A mental set exists when people persist in using problem solving strategies that have worked in the past

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Effective problem solving requires specifying all the constraints governing a problem without assuming any constraints that don’t exist Problem space refers to the set of possible pathways to a solution considered by the problem server. Trial and error involves trying possible solutions and discarding those that are in error. An algorithm is a procedure for trying all possible alternatives in searching for a solution to a problem. A variety of strategies or heuristics (guiding principle or “rule of thumb”) are used for solving problems. Helpful heuristics in problem solving include forming subgoals, working backward, searching for analogies, and changing the representation of a problem - When people form sub goals, they try breaking the problem into several parts. - Sometimes it is useful to start at the goal state and work backwards toward the initial state. - Other general strategies include searching for analogies between new problems and old problems, changing the representation of problems and taking a break from working on the problem. Incubation effect occurs when new solutions surface for a previously unsolved problem after s period of not consciously thinking about the problem. Some cultures encourage a field dependant cognitive style, whereas others foster more field independence. People who are field independent tend to analyse and restructure problems more than those who are field dependant. Research suggests that eastern cultures exhibit a more holistic cognitive style whereas western culture is displaying more analytic cognitive style.

Decision Making: Choices and Chances -

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Simon's theory of bounded rationality suggest that human decision strategies are simplistic and often yield irrational result. An additive decision model is used when people make decisions by rating the attributes of an alternative and selecting the alternative that has the highest some of ratings. When elimination by aspects is used, people gradually eliminate alternatives whose attributes failed to satisfy some minimum criteria. To some extent, people adapt their decision-making strategy to the situation, moving towards similar strategies when choices become complex. In making decisions, people tend to pursue information that is not likely to alter their decisions. Models of how people make risky decision focus on the expected value or subjective utility of various outcomes and the objective or subjective probability that these outcomes will occur. People use representativeness and availability heuristics in estimating probabilities. - For instance, in availability heuristics, it's easier to think of words that begin with a certain letter than words that contain that letter at some other point. Hence, people should tend to respond that there are more words starting with the letter K then words having a K in the 3rd position. - The representativeness heuristic involves spacing the estimated probability of an event on how similar it is to the typical prototype of that event. People also show a tendency to ignore base rates and fall prey to the conjunction fallacy. - Steve is a very shy, withdrawn, and helpful person. Do you think Steve's is still sales person or librarian . Using the representativeness heuristic, subjects tend to guess that Steve is a librarian because he resembles their prototype of a librarian. In reality this is not a good guess because it ignores the base rates of librarians and salespeople in the population. - The conjunction fallacy occurs when people estimate that the odds of two uncertain events happening together a greater than the odds of either event happening alone. Imagine that you're going to meet a man who is inarticulate, ambitious, power hungry wheel dealer. Do you think it's more likely that he's a University professor or University professor who is a politician? People tend to guess that it's a University professor who is also a politician. The probability of being in the subcategory cannot be higher than the probability of being in the broader category. Is logically impossible.

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The field of behavioral economics examine the ways in which economic decisions make departs from the rationality assumed by many trap traditional models of economics. It has been significantly influenced by the work of psychologists on topics such as heuristics. Evolutionarily psychologist maintained that many errors and biases in human reasoning are greatly reduced when problems are presented in ways that resemble the type of input humans would have process in ancestry old times.

Personal Application -

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The heuristics that people use in decision making can lead to various flaws in reasoning. For instance, the use of representativeness heuristic contributes to the gambler's fallacy and faith in small numbers. The availability heuristic underlies the tendency to overestimate the improbable. People tend to cling to their beliefs in spite of contradictory evidence, in part because they exhibit information bias the tendency to seek only information that supports one's view. People generally fail to appreciate these shortcomings, which leads to overconfidence effect. Evidence suggests that the more confident you feel about a prediction the more likely it is that you are overconfident. In evaluating choices, it is wise to understand the decisions can be influenced by the language in which they are framed and by the fact that losses seemed to loom larger than gains by of the same size.

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