Unit7myers8thedpt2

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PSYCHOLOGY(8th Edition)David Myers

PowerPoint SlidesAneeq Ahmad

Henderson State University

Worth Publishers, © 2006

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Thinking and Language

Chapter 10

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Thinking Concepts

Solving Problems

Making Decisions and Forming Judgments

Belief Bias

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Language Language Structure

Language Development

Thinking & Language Language Influences

Thinking

Thinking in Images

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Animal Thinking and Language Do Animals Think?

Do Animals Exhibit Language?

The Case of the Apes

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Thinking

Thinking or cognition refers to a process that involves knowing, understanding,

remembering and communicating.

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Cognitive Psychologists

Thinking involve a number of mental activities listed below, and cognitive

psychologists study them with great detail.

1. Concepts2. Problem solving3. Decision making4. Judgment

formation

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Concepts

Mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people. There are variety of chairs but their common features define the concept of chair.

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Category Hierarchies

We organize concepts into category hierarchies.

Courtesy of C

hristine Brune

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Development of Concepts

We form some concepts by definitions, e.g., triangle has three side. But mostly we form concepts by a mental image or a best example (prototype), e.g., robin is a prototype of a bird but penguin is not.

Triangle (definition) Bird (mental image)

Daniel J. C

ox/ Getty Im

ages

J. Messerschm

idt/ The Picture C

ube

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Categories

Once we place an item in a category our memory shifts toward the category

prototype.

A computer generated face that was 70 percentCaucasian, lead people to classify it as Caucasian.

Courtesy of O

liver Corneille

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Problem Solving

There are two ways to solve problems:

Algorithms: Methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular

problem.

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Algorithms

Algorithms exhaust all possibilities before arriving at a solution. Take long time.

Computers use algorithms.

S P L O Y O C H Y G

If we were to unscramble these letters to form a word, using an algorithm approach would

take 907,208 possibilities.

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Heuristics

Are simple thinking strategies that

often allows us to make judgments

and solve problems efficiently.

Speedier but more error-prone than

algorithms.

B2M

Productions/D

igital Version/G

etty Images

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Heuristics

Heuristics make it easy for us to use simple principles to arrive at solutions to problems.

S P L O Y O C H Y GS P L O Y O C H G YP S L O Y O C H G YP S Y C H O L O G Y

Try putting Y at the end and see if the wordstarts to make sense.

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Probability that that person is a truck driver is far greater than an ivy league professor just because there are more truck drivers than

such professors.

Representativeness Heuristic

Judging the likelihood of things or objects in terms of how well they seem to represent, or

match a particular prototype.

If you were to meet a man, slim, short, wears glasses and likes poetry. What do you think would his profession would be?

An Ivy league professor or a truck driver?

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Availability Heuristic

Why does our availability heuristic lead us astray?Whatever increases the ease of retrieving

information increases its perceived availability.

How is retrieval facilitated?1. How recently we have heard about the

event.2. How distinct it is.3. How correct it is.

Examples of availability heuristic:

• Is it more likely that you get killed by a falling airplane or a shark attack?

Developer: Lehman Benson III, University of Arizona, [email protected], 2006

http://sitemaker.umich.edu/dec.btr/files/benson_overview.pdf

A B

Do more people die from A) stomach cancer or

B) motor vehicle accidents each year?

• http://stefanor.uctleg.net/course-notes-archive/bus1010s/04%20Heuristics%20examples.pdf

A= Availability HeuristicB= Representativeness Heuristic

How many fish are do you see?

Did you guess 5? If you guessed 4, then…


You don’t visit Raleigh because you heard about the new sewer monsters

they found in the town!


Why were so many people surprised to hear Susan Boyle sing?


• I will never eat at a particular restaurant after I got sick immediately after eating there. I had the flu and it had nothing to do with the food, but I still can’t go back!


A husband and wife get into an argument with one another. Both are convinced that they do more work around the house than the other. Each lists off the work they’ve done this week. How can they both be convinced that they are right?

Quick review:

• Concept

• Schema

• Prototype

• Algorithm

• Heuristics (2 types- availability, representativeness)

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InsightWolfgang Kohler-

A ha! momentInsight involves

sudden novel realization of a

solution to a problem. Insight is

in humans and animals.

Grande using boxes toobtain food

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Insight

Brain imaging and EEG studies suggest that

when an insight strikes (“Aha” experience) it

activates the right temporal cortex (Jung-Beeman, 2004). The

time between not knowing the solution to

knowing it is 0.3 seconds.

From M

ark Jung-Beekm

an, Northw

estern U

niversity and John Kounios, D

rexel University

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Obstacles in Solving Problems

Confirmation Bias: A tendency to search for information that confirms a personal bias.

2 – 4 – 6

Rule: Any ascending series of numbers. 1 – 2 – 3 would comply. Ss had difficulty figuring out the

rule due to confirmation bias (Wason, 1960).

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Fixation

Fixation: Inability to see a problem from a fresh perspective. Impediment to problem solving. Two examples are mental set and functional fixedness.

The Matchstick Problem: How

would you arrange six matches to form

four equilateral triangles?

From

“Problem

Solving” by M

. Scheerer. C

opyright © 1963 by

Scientific A

merican, Inc. A

ll Rights R

eserved.

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Using these materials, how would you mount the candle on a bulletin board?

Candle-Mounting Problem

From

“Problem

Solving” by M

. Scheerer. C

opyright © 1963 by

Scientific A

merican, Inc. A

ll Rights R

eserved.

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The Matchstick Problem: Solution

From

“Problem

Solving” by M

. Scheerer. C

opyright © 1963 by

Scientific A

merican, Inc. A

ll Rights R

eserved.

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Candle-Mounting Problem: Solution

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Mental Set

A tendency to approach a problem in a particular way especially a way that has

been successful in the past.

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Functional Fixedness

A tendency to think of the only familiar functions for objects.

?

Problem: Tie the two ropes together. Use a screw driver, cotton balls and a matchbox.

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Functional Fixedness

Use screwdriver as weight, tie it to one rope’s end swing it toward the other rope

to tie the knot.

?

The inability to think about screwdriver as weight isfunctional fixedness about the object.

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Using and Misusing Heuristics

Two kinds of heuristics have been identified by cognitive psychologists. Representative

and availability heuristics.

Amos Tversky Daniel Kahneman

Courtesy of G

reymeyer A

ward, U

niversity of L

ouisville and the Tversky fam

ily

Courtesy of G

reymeyer A

ward, U

niversity of L

ouisville and Daniel K

ahneman

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Making Decision & Forming Judgments

Each day we make hundreds of judgments and decisions based on our intuition seldom using systematic reasoning.

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Overconfidence

Intuitive heuristics, confirmation of beliefs, and knack of explaining failures increases

our overconfidence. It is a tendency to overestimate the accuracy of one’s beliefs

and judgments.

At a stock market both the seller and

buyer may be confident about their decisions on a stock.

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Exaggerated Fear

Opposed to overconfidence is our

tendency for exaggerated fear

about how things may happen. Such fears may be ill-founded.

9/11 crashes led to decline in air travel

due to fear.

AP

/ Wide W

orld Photos

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Framing Decisions

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?

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Belief Bias

The tendency for one’s preexisting beliefs to distort logical reasoning sometimes by

making invalid conclusions.

God is love.Love is blind

Ray Charles is blind.Ray Charles is God.

Anonymous graffiti

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Belief Perseverance

Our tendency to cling to our beliefs in the face of contrary evidence is called belief

perseverance.

Once you see a country as hostile, you are likely to interpret ambiguous actions on their part as signifying their hostility

(Jervis, 1985).

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Perils & Powers of Intuition

Where Intuition can be perilous if unchecked, it is extremely efficient and

adaptive.

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Perils & Powers of Intuition

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Language

Our spoken, written, or gestured work, it is the way we communicate meaning to

ourselves and others.

Language transmits culture.

M. &

E. B

ernheim/ W

oodfin Cam

p & A

ssociates

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Language Structure

Phonemes: The smallest distinctive sound unit in a spoken language. For example:

bat, has three phonemes b · a · t

chat, has three phonemes ch · a · t

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Language Structure

Morpheme: The smallest unit that carries meaning may be a word or a part of a word. For example:

Milk = milkPumpkin = pump . kin

Unforgettable = un · for · get · table

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Structuring Language

Phrase

Sentence

Meaningful units (290,500) … meat, pumpkin.Words

Smallest meaningful units (100,000) … un, for.

Morphemes

Basic sounds (about 40) … ea, sh.Phonemes

Composed of two or more words (326,000) … meat eater.

Composed of many words (infinite) … She opened the jewelry box.

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Grammar

A system of rules in a language that enables us to communicate with and understand others.

Grammar

SyntaxSemantics

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Semantics

Set of rules by which we derive meaning from morphemes, words, and sentences.

For example:

Semantic rule tells us that adding –ed to the word laugh means that it happened in

the past.

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Syntax

The rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences. For example:

In English syntactical rule is that adjectives come before nouns; white house. In Spanish it is reversed; casa

blanca.

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Language Development

Children learn their native languages

much before learning to add 2+2.

We learn on average (after age 1) 3,500

words a year, amassing 60,000

words by the time we graduate high school.

Tim

e Life Pictures/ G

etty Images

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When do we learn language?

Babbling Stage: beginning at 4

months the infant spontaneously utters various sounds, like ah-goo. Babbling is

not imitation of adult speech.

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One-Word Stage: Beginning at or around the first birthday, a child starts to speak one-word and makes family adults understand him. The word doggy may mean look at the dog out there.

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Two-Word Stage: Before the 2nd year a child starts to speak in two-word sentences. This form of speech is called telegraphic speech in which the child speaks like a telegram —“go car,” means that, I would like to go for a ride in the car.

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Longer phrases: After telegraphic speech children start uttering longer phrases (Mommy get ball), with syntactical sense and by early elementary school they are enjoying humor.

You never starve in the desert because of all the sand-which-is there.

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Explaining Language Development

1. Operant Learning: Skinner (1957, 1985) believed that language development can be explained on the basis of learning principles, such as association, imitation and reinforcement.

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2. Inborn Universal Grammar: Chomsky (1959, 1987) opposed Skinners ideas and suggested that rate of language acquisition is so fast that it cannot be explained through learning principles, and thus most of it was inborn.

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3. Statistical Learning and Critical periods: Well before our first birthday, our brains are discerning word breaks by statistically analyzing which syllables in hap-py-ba-by go together. These statistical analysis are learned during critical periods of child development.

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Genes, Brain & Language

Genes design the mechanisms for a language, and experience modifies the

brain.

Mic

hael

New

man

/ Pho

to E

dit,

Inc.

Eye

of

Sci

ence

/ Pho

to R

esea

rche

rs, I

nc.

Dav

id H

ume

Ken

nerl

y/ G

etty

Im

ages

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Language & Age

New language learning gets harder with age.

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Language & Thinking

Thinking and language intricately intertwine.

Rubber B

all/ Alm

ay

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Language influences Thinking

Linguistic Determinism: Whorf’s (1956) suggested that language determines the way we think, e.g., Hopi, he noted, did not have past tense for verbs therefore Hopis could not think readily about the past.

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Language influences Thinking

When a language provides words for objects or events we can think about these objects more clearly and retain them. It is easier to think

about two colors with two different names (A) than colors with the same name (B) (Özgen,

2004).

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Word Power

Increasing word power pays its dividends. It pays for speakers and deaf who learn a

sign language.

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Linguistic Determinism Questioned

People from Papua New Guinea without our words for colors and shapes still

perceived them as we do (Rosch, 1974).

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Thinking in Images

To a large extent thinking is language based. Like when alone we talk to ourselves.

However, we also think in images.

2. When we are riding our bicycle.

1. When we open the hot water tap.

We don’t think in words, when:

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Images and Brain

Imagining about a physical activity activates the same brain regions as when

actually performing the activity.

Jean Duffy D

ecety, Septem

ber 2003

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Language and Thinking

Traffic runs both ways between thinking and language.

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Do animals have a language?

Animals & Language

Honey bees communicate by dancing. The dancemoves clearly indicate the direction of the nectar.

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Do animals think?

Common cognitive skills in humans

and apes.

1. Concept formation.

2. Insight3. Problem Solving4. Culture5. Mind?

African grey parrot assorts redblocks from green balls.

William

Munoz

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Insight

Chimpanzees show insightful behaviors when solving problems.

Sultan uses sticks to get food.

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Problem Solving

Apes are famous for solving problems

much like us.

Chimpanzee fishing for ants.

Courtesy of Jennifer B

yrne, c/o Richard B

yrne, D

epartment of P

sychology, University of S

t. Andrew

s, Scotland

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Animal Culture

Animals display custom and culture learnt and transmitted over generations.

Dolphins using sponges asforging tools.

Chimpanzee mother using andteaching a young how to use

a stone hammer.

Copyright A

manda K

Coakes

Michael N

ichols/ National G

eographic Society

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Mental States

Can animals infer mental states in themselves and others?

To some extent. Chimps and orangutans (and dolphins) have used mirrors to

inspect themselves if a researcher has put a paint spot on their face or bodies.

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Do Animals Exhibit Language?

There is no doubt that animals

communicate.

Vervet monkeys, whales and even

honey bees communicate with members of their specie and other

species.Rico (collie) has a

200-word vocabulary

Copyright B

aus/ Kreslow

ski

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The Case of Apes

Chimps do not have vocal apparatus for human-like speech (Hayes & Hayes,1951).

Gardner and Gardner (1969) therefore used American Sign Language (ASL) to train

Washoe (a chimp), who learnt 182 signs by age 32.

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Gestured Communication

Animals show communication through gestures as do humans. It is possible that

vocal speech developed from gestures during evolution.

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Sign Language

American Sign Language (ASL) has been instrumental in teaching a

communication form to chimpanzees.

When asked, chimpanzee usesa sign to say it is a baby

Paul Fusco/ Magnum

Photos

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Computer Assisted Language

Others have shown that bonobo pygmy chimpanzees can learn even larger vocabularies

and perhaps semantic nuances in learning language (Savage-Rumbaugh, 1991). Kanzi and

Panbanish developed vocabulary for hundreds of words and phrases.

Copyright of G

reat Ape T

rust of Iowa

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Criticism

1. Apes gain their limited vocabularies with great deal of difficulty unlike children who develop vocabularies at amazing rates.

2. Chimpanzees can make signs to get rewards, just as pigeon pecks at the key gets reward. But pigeon has not learnt a language.

3. Chimpanzees use signs meaningfully but lack syntax.

4. Presented with ambiguous information people tend to see what they want to see.

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Conclusions

If we say that animals can use meaningful sequences of signs to communicate means

language, our understanding would be naive… Steven Pinker (1995) concludes,

“chimps do not develop language.”

Unit7myers8thedpt2

Education

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