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

2. Unit Overview Thinking Language Thinking and Language Click on the any of the above hyperlinks to go to that section in the presentation.

3. Introduction Cognition (thinking)Cognition Cognitive psychologists

4. Thinking

5. Concepts –Category hierarchies –PrototypePrototype

16. Solving Problems Strategies Trial and error Algorithms –Step-by-step Heuristic Insight

17. Solving Problems Creativity Creativity Strernberg’s five components –Expertise –Imaginative thinking skills –A venturesome personality –Intrinsic motivation –A creative environment

18. Solving Problems Obstacles to Problem Solving Confirmation bias Fixation –Mental setMental set –Functional fixednessFunctional fixedness

19. Solving Problems Obstacles to Problem Solving Confirmation bias Fixation –Mental setMental set –Functional fixednessFunctional fixedness

20. Making Decisions and Forming Judgments Using and Misusing Heuristics The Representativeness Heuristic Amos TverskyDaniel Kahneman

21. Making Decisions and Forming Judgments Using and Misusing Heuristics The Availability Heuristic

22. Making Decisions and Forming Judgments Overconfidence Overconfidence

23. Making Decisions and Forming Judgments The Belief Perseverance Phenomenon Belief perseverance –Consider the opposite

24. Making Decisions and Forming Judgments The Perils and Powers of Intuition Intuition –Unconscious intuition

25. Making Decisions and Forming Judgments The Effects of Framing Framing –The Economist example 1. Internet-only for $59 2. Print-only for $125 3. Print-and-Internet subscription for $125

26. Language

27. Language Introduction Language

28. Language Structure Phonemes Phoneme –English about 40 phonemes 11 in Rotokas (Papua New Guinea) and 12 in Hawaiian 141 in !Xu~ (southern Africa, in the Kalahari desert) –Learning another language’s phonemes

29. Language Structure Morphemes Morpheme –Includes prefixes and suffixes

30. Language Structure Grammar Grammar –SemanticsSemantics –SyntaxSyntax

31. Language Development When Do We Learn Language? Receptive language Productive language –Babbling stageBabbling stage –One-word stageOne-word stage –Two-word stageTwo-word stage –Telegraphic speechTelegraphic speech

32. Language Development When Do We Learn Language?

38. Language Development Explaining Language Development Skinner: Operant Learning –Learning principles Association Imitation Reinforcement

39. Language Development Explaining Language Development Chomsky: Inborn Universal Grammar –Overgeneralization of language –Language acquisition device –Universal grammar Noam Chomsky & Ali G InterviewAli G Interview (1:56)

40. Language Development Explaining Language Development Statistical Learning and Critical Periods –Statistical learning Ex. United Nations as “Uneye Tednay Shuns” –Critical (sensitive) period

41. Thinking and Language

42. Language Influences Thinking Whorf’s linguistic determinismlinguistic determinism Bilingual advantage

43. Thinking in Images fMRI imagining pain Liu Chi Kung piano example UCLA undergraduate student experiment –Process Simulation > Outcome Simulation

44. Definition Slides

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

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

47. 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).

48. 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.

49. 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. Ex. SPLOYOCHYG - 907,200 possibilities

50. Insight = a sudden and often novel realization of the solution to a problem; it contrasts with strategy-based solutions. Ex. Think of a word that will form a compound word or phrase with each of the following three words: pine, crab, sauce

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

52. Confirmation Bias = a tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence. “2-4-6” Sequence

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

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

55. Functional Fixedness = the tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual functions; an impediment to problem solving. MacGyverMacGyver (4:49)

56. 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.

57. Representativeness Heuristic Linda is 31, single, outspoken, and very bright. She majored in philosophy in college. As a student, she was deeply concerned with discrimination and other social issues, and she participated in antinuclear demonstrations. Which statement is more likely? 1. Linda is a bank teller. 2. Linda is a bank teller and active in the feminist movement.

58. Representativeness Heuristic A stranger tells you about a person who is short, slim, and likes to read poetry, and then asks you to guess whether this person is more likely to be a professor of classics at an Ivy League University or a truck driver. Which would be a better guess?

59. 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 Ex. Letter K, terrorist attack

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

70. 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.

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

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

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

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