1. Thinking  Cognition  mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating  Cognitive Psychologists  study these mental activities  concept formation  problem solving  decision making  judgment formation

2. Thinking  Concept  mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people  Prototype  mental image or best example of a category  matching new items to the prototype provides a quick and easy method for including items in a category (as when comparing feathered creatures to a prototypical bird, such as a robin)

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

4. Thinking  Heuristic  simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently  usually speedier than algorithms  more error-prone than algorithms

5. Thinking Unscramble S P L O Y O C H Y G  Algorithm  all 907,208 combinations  Heuristic  throw out all YY combinations  other heuristics?

6. Thinking  Insight  sudden and often novel realization of the solution to a problem  contrasts with strategy-based solutions  Confirmation Bias  tendency to search for information that confirms one’s preconceptions  Fixation  inability to see a problem from a new perspective  impediment to problem solving

7. The Matchstick Problem  How would you arrange six matches to form four equilateral triangles?

8. The Three-Jugs Problem  Using jugs A, B, and C, with the capacities shown, how would you measure out the volumes indicated?

9. The Candle-Mounting Problem  Using these materials, how would you mount the candle on a bulletin board?

10. Thinking  Mental Set  tendency to approach a problem in a particular way  especially a way that has been successful in the past but may or may not be helpful in solving a new problem

11. Thinking  Functional Fixedness  tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual functions  impediment to problem solving

12. Functional Fixedness

13. The Matchstick Problem  Solution to the matchstick problem

14. The Three-Jugs Problem  Solution: a) All seven problems can be solved by the equation shown in (a): B - A - 2C = desired volume.  b) But simpler solutions exist for problems 6 and 7, such as A - C for problem 6.

15. The Candle-Mounting Problem  Solving this problem requires recognizing that a box need not always serve as a container

16. Nine dots problem zWithout lifting your pencil or re-tracing any line, draw four straight lines that connect all nine dots

17. Nine dots mental set zMost people will not draw lines that extend from the square formed by the nine dots zTo solve the problem, you have to break your mental set

18. Heuristics  Representativeness Heuristic  judging the likelihood of things in terms of how well they seem to represent, or match, particular prototypes  may lead one to ignore other relevant information

21. Heuristics  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  Example: airplane crash

22. Thinking  Overconfidence  tendency to be more confident than correct  tendency to overestimate the accuracy of one’s beliefs and judgments

23. Thinking  Framing  the way an issue is posed  how an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and judgments  Example: What is the best way to market ground beef--as 25% fat or 75% lean?

24. Thinking  Belief Bias  the tendency for one’s preexisting beliefs to distort logical reasoning  sometimes by making invalid conclusions seem valid or valid conclusions seem invalid  Belief Perseverance  clinging to one’s initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited

25. Artificial Intelligence  Artificial Intelligence  designing and programming computer systems  to do intelligent things  to simulate human thought processes  intuitive reasoning  learning  understanding language

26. Artificial Intelligence  Computer Neural Networks  computer circuits that mimic the brain’s interconnected neural cells  performing tasks  learning to recognize visual patterns  learning to recognize smells

27. Language  Language  our spoken, written, or gestured works and the way we combine them to communicate meaning  Phoneme  in a spoken language, the smallest distinctive sound unit

28. Language  Morpheme  in a language, the smallest unit that carries meaning  may be a word or a part of a word (such as a prefix)  Grammar  a system of rules in a language that enables us to communicate with and understand others

29. Language  Semantics  the set of rules by which we derive meaning from morphemes, words, and sentences in a given language  also, the study of meaning  Syntax  the rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences in a given language

30. Language  We are all born to recognize speech sounds from all the world’s languages 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Percentage able to discriminate Hindi t’s Hindi- speaking adults 6-8 months 8-10 months 10-12 months English- speaking adults Infants from English-speaking homes

31. Language  Babbling Stage  beginning at 3 to 4 months  the stage of speech development in which the infant spontaneously utters various sounds at first unrelated to the household language  One-Word Stage  from about age 1 to 2  the stage in speech development during which a child speaks mostly in single words

32. Language  Two-Word Stage  beginning about age 2  the stage in speech development during which a child speaks in mostly two-word statements  Telegraphic Speech  early speech stage in which the child speaks like a telegram-–“go car”--using mostly nouns and verbs and omitting “auxiliary” words

33. Language Summary of Language Development Month (approximate) Stage 4 10 12 24 24+ Babbles many speech sounds. Babbling reveals households language. One-word stage. Two-world, telegraphic speech. Language develops rapidly into complete sentences.

34. Language  Genes design the mechanisms for a language, and experience activates them as it modifies the brain

35. Language  New language learning gets harder with age 100 90 80 70 60 50 Native3-78-1011-1517-39 Percentage correct on grammar test Age at school

36. Language  Linguistic Determinism  Whorf”s hypothesis that language determines the way we think

37. Language  The interplay of thought and language

38. Animal Thinking and Language  The straight-line part of the dance points in the direction of a nectar source, relative to the sun Direction of nectar source

39. Animal Thinking and Language  Is this really language?

40. Animal Thinking and Language  Gestured Communication

41. Animal Communication zAnimals clearly communicate with each other, but is that language? zSome primates that have been trained demonstrate the same level of language comprehension as that of an average 2-year-old child zNon-primates can also acquire some language abilities, i.e., dolphins, parrots