2. Unit 7B: Cognition: Thinking, Problem Solving, Creativity, and Language

3. Cognitive psychologists:
Introduction
Cognition:
mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating.
Cognitive psychologists:
Study logical & illogical ways in which we create concepts, solve problems, make decisions and form judgments.

4. Nuclear War!!!
Repopulation of the earth will begin with those survivors chosen by YOU.
Look closely at:
Health, experience, age, sex and intelligence
INDIVIDUALLY:
7 people to stay and why?
5 people to go and why?
GROUP:
Debate the people you have chosen
Group consensus

5. 150+: Genius (Ms. T!!!)
: Very Superior Intelligence
: Superior Intelligence
: Above Average Intelligence
85-115: Average Intelligence
70-85: Below Average Intelligence
55-70: Borderline Deficiency
Below 55: Mental Deficiency

6. James Stanley
Janie Stanley
Wanda Brice
Bill Waters
Michelle Patterson
Ray Wilson
Gerald White
Martha Gray
William Gray
John Davis
Marjorie Blaylock
Fred Fredrick

8. Thinking Concepts Prototype
Mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people
Category hierarchies
Prototype
Mental image that incorporates all the features we associate with a category
Matching new items to a prototype provides a quick and easy method for sorting items into categories

20. Thinking Concepts Prototype
Mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people
Category hierarchies
Prototype
Mental image that incorporates all the features we associate with a category
Matching new items to a prototype provides a quick and easy method for sorting items into categories

21. Solving Problems

22. Strategies 1. Algorithms Step-by-step process
Methodical, logical rule or procedure
Guarantees a solution

23. SPLOYOCHYG Find another word using all the letters listed above…
Try each letter in each position
Generate and examine 907,200 results

24. 2. Heuristic
More simple
Allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently
Speedier
More error-prone than algorithms.

25. 3. Insight
Sudden and often novel realization of the solution
Contrasts with strategy-based solutions
A-Ha! moment

26. Creativity Ability to produce novel and valuable ideas
Strernberg’s 5 components
1. Expertise
2. Imaginative thinking skills
3. A venturesome personality
4. Intrinsic motivation
5. A creative environment

27. Creativity Sternberg’s 5 components 1. Expertise
Well-developed base of knowledge, furnishes ideas, images and phrases we use as mental building blocks.
More blocks = more chances to use in a novel way.

28. Creativity Sternberg’s 5 components 2. Imaginative thinking skills
Provide the ability to see things in novel ways
Recognize patterns
Make connections
Ex: Funny cartoons!

30. Creativity Sternberg’s 5 components 3. A venturesome personality
Seeks new experiences
Tolerates ambiguity and risk
Perseveres in overcoming obstacles
Ex: Thomas Edison

31. Creativity Sternberg’s 5 components 4. Intrinsic motivation
Being driven more by interest, satisfaction and challenge than by external pressures
Ex: Isaac Newton

32. Creativity Sternberg’s 5 components 5. A creative environment
Sparks, supports and refines creative ideas!
Mentors
Relationships

33. Obstacles to Solving Problems

34. Mary’s father has 5 children. 4 are named: Nana, Nene, Nini, & Nono
So what is the 5th child’s name?

35. Confirmation bias
Search for information that supports our preconceptions
Ignore or distort contradictory evidence

36. Fixation Mental set Functional fixedness
Inability to see a problem from a new perspective
Employ a different mental set.
Mental set
To approach a problem in 1 particular way
Successful in the past.
Functional fixedness
Think of things in terms of their usual functions
An impediment to problem solving

39. A hunter sees a bear 1 mile due south
A hunter sees a bear 1 mile due south. He shoots and misses, and the bear runs off. The hunter walks the 1 mile south to where the bear had been, then 1 mile due east, then 1 mile due north… at which point the hunter is standing again at exactly the same spot from which the gun had been fired.
Question: What color was the bear?

40. Where on the globe is the hunter?
Where can one go, successively, 1 mile due south, then 1 mile due east, then 1 mile due north, and end up at the same place one started?

41. THE NORTH POLE…
The bear is a WHITE Polar Bear!

46. Making Decisions and Forming Judgments

47. The Representative Heuristic
Judging the likelihood of things in terms of how well they seem to represent, or match, particular prototypes
May lead us to ignore other relevant information.

48. Q: How many Ivy League Universities are there
Q: How many Ivy League Universities are there? A: About 10 Q: How many classical professors at each? A: Maybe 4 Q: 40 Ivy League classics professors… what fraction of these are old and slim? A: Let’s say half Q: And of these 20, how many like to read poetry? A: Let’s say half: 10 professors

49. Q: How many truck drivers fit the description
Q: How many truck drivers fit the description? A: Maybe 400,000 Q: What fraction are old and slim? A: Perhaps 1 out of 8 Q: Of these 50,000, what % like to read poetry? A: Hum, maybe 1 in 100…. A-Ha! I get it, that still leaves 500 old, slim poetry-reading truck drivers! Q: Yep! So even if your stereotype is accepted, the odds are 50 to 1 that this person is a truck driver.

52. The Availability Heuristic
Estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory
If instances come readily to mind, we presume such events are common
Recency
Vividness
Distinctiveness

54. Overconfidence Tendency to be more confident than correct
Over-estimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgments.
Live more happily
Easier to make tough decisions
Seem more credible

55. Belief perseverance
Clinging to one’s initial conceptions after the basis on which they are formed has been discredited
Consider the opposite
Prejudice exists

56. Intuition An effortless, immediate, automatic feeling/thought
Smart Intuition: born of experience
Unconscious intuition
Intuition is Recognition

57. Framing The way an issue is presented
Can significantly affect decisions and judgments
Framing experiments
Preferred portion sizes
Being an organ donor & where you live
Saving for retirement

59. Language our spoken, written, or signed words
the ways we combine them to communicate meaning

60. Language Structures

61. Phonemes The smallest distinctive sound unit About 40 in English
Changes meaning
Learning another language’s phonemes

62. Morphemes Smallest unit that carries meaning
May be a word or a part of a word
Combination of 2 or more phonemes
I and s
Prefixes and suffixes

63. Grammar Rules that enables us to communicate and understand others
Semantics
we derive meaning from morphemes, words, and sentences in a given language
study of meaning
Syntax
rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences in a given language

64. Language Development

65. When Do We Learn Language?
Receptive language
Ability to comprehend speech
Productive language
Ability to produce words
Babbling stage
One-word stage
Two-word stage
Telegraphic speech

66. When Do We Learn Language?
Productive language
Babbling stage
about 4 months
Infant spontaneously utters various sounds
at first unrelated to the household language

67. When Do We Learn Language?
Productive language
One-word stage
About age 1 to 2
Child speaks mostly in single words
Family quick to understand

68. When Do We Learn Language?
Productive language
Two-word stage
About 2 years
Child speaks mostly two-word statements.

69. When Do We Learn Language?
Productive language
Telegraphic speech
early speech state in which a child speaks like a telegram – “go car”
using mostly nouns and verbs

70. Language Development When Do We Learn Language?

71. Language Development When Do We Learn Language?

72. Language Development When Do We Learn Language?

73. Language Development When Do We Learn Language?

74. Language Development When Do We Learn Language?

75. Language Development When Do We Learn Language?

76. Explaining Language Development
Skinner: Operant Learning
Learning principles
Association
Sight of things with sounds of words
Imitation
Words and syntax modeled by others
Reinforcement
Smiles and hugs

77. Explaining Language Development
Chomsky: Inborn Universal Grammar
Language acquisition device
Pre-wired
Universal grammar
Same grammatical building blocks
Nouns, verbs, subject, questions

78. Explaining Language Development
Statistical Learning and Critical Periods
Statistical learning
Statistically analyze which syllables
go together: “Hap-py-ba-by”
Critical (sensitive) period
Master certain aspects of language
Learns no language, language
learning capacity never fully develops
Window closes, 2nd language

79. Figure 7B.9 New language learning gets harder with age  Young children have a readiness to learn language. Ten years after coming to the United States, Asian immigrants took a grammar test. Although there is no sharply defined critical period for second language learning, those who arrived before age 8 understood American English grammar as well as native speakers did. Those who arrived later did not.
From Johnson & Newport, 1991
© 2011 by Worth Publishers

80. Thinking and Language

81. Language Influences Thinking
Whorf’s linguistic determinism
Words may not determine what we think, but they influence our thinking
Bilingual advantage
Increased word power

82. We think in images! Implicit memory
Turn the cold water on in your bathroom at home?
fMRI scans show brain internal stimulation
Watch something
Think or visualize
Imagine
Psychology students

83. The End

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Germantown High School
Germantown, WI 53022

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90. Definition Slides

91. Cognition
= the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating.

92. Concept
= a mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people.

93. Prototype
= a mental image or best example of a category. Matching new items to a prototype provides a quick and easy method for sorting items into categories (as when comparing feathered creatures to a prototypical bird, such as a robin).

94. Algorithm
= a methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem. Contrasts with the usually speedier – but also more error-prone – use of heuristics.

95. Heuristic
= a simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently; usually speedier but also more error-prone than algorithms.

96. Insight
= a sudden and often novel realization of the solution to a problem; it contrasts with strategy-based solutions.

97. Creativity
= the ability to produce novel and valuable ideas.

98. Confirmation Bias
= a tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence.

99. Fixation
= the inability to see a problem from a new perspective, by employing a different mental set.

100. Mental Set
= a tendency to approach a problem in one particular way, often a way that has been successful in the past.

101. Functional Fixedness
= the tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual functions; an impediment to problem solving.

102. Representativeness Heuristic
= judging the likelihood of things in terms of how well they seem to represent, or match, particular prototypes; may lead us to ignore other relevant information.

103. Availability Heuristic
= estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; if instances come readily to mind (perhaps because of their vividness), we presume such events are common

104. Overconfidence
= the tendency to be more confident that correct – to over-estimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgments.

105. Belief Perseverance
= clinging to one’s initial conceptions after the basis on which they are formed has been discredited.

106. Intuition
= an effortless, immediate, automatic feeling or thought, as contrasted with explicit, conscious reasoning.

107. Framing
= the way an issue is posed; how an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and judgments.

108. Language
= our spoken, written, or signed words and the ways we combine them to communicate meaning.

109. Phoneme
= in language, the smallest distinctive sound unit.

110. Morpheme
= in a language, the smallest unit that carries meaning; may be a word or a part of a word (such as a prefix).

111. Grammar
= in a language, a system of rules that enables us to communicate with and understand others.

112. Semantics
= the set of rules by which we derive meaning from morphemes, words, and sentences in a given language; also, the study of meaning.

113. Syntax
= the rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences in a given language.

114. Babbling Stage
= beginning at about 4 months, the stage of speech development in which the infant spontaneously utters various sounds at first unrelated to the household language.

115. One-word Stage
= the stage in speech development, from about age 1 to 2, during which a child speaks mostly in single words.

116. Two-word Stage
= beginning about age 2, the stage in speech development during which a child speaks mostly two-word statements.

117. Telegraphic Speech
= early speech state in which a child speaks like a telegram – “go car” – using mostly nouns and verbs.

118. Linguistic Determinism
= Whorf’s hypothesis that language determines the way we think.