Title: Thinking, Language,
1Thinking, Language, Intelligence
- The best way to have a good idea is to have lots
of ideas. - Lines Pauling
2Thinking
- What is it?
- Manipulation of words images
- Cognitive psychology
- Studies how the mind
- Organizes perceptions
- Processes information
- Interprets experience
3Concept Formation
- Concept
- A mental grouping of persons, places, ideas,
events, or objects that share common properties - Priming
- When one concept is activated, others nearby in
the network are primed
4Concept Formation
- Prototype
- Best representative of a concept
- Ex Sport
- Football
- Basketball
- Golf
- Chess
- NASCAR
5Problem Solving Strategies
6Problem Solving Trial Error
- Identify problem
- Car wont start
- Gather information
- Outta gas? Dead battery?
- Try a solution
- Not outta gas, so Ill dry off the wires
- Evaluate results
- Car starts - yeah!
- Car doesnt start - try another solution
7Problem Solving Strategies
- Trial error
- Algorithm
- A systematic, step-by-step problem-solving
strategy, guaranteed to provide a solution - Heuristic
- A rule of thumb that allows one to make judgments
that are quick but often in error - L K C C O
- Insight
8Water Problem
9Problems with Problem Solving
- Mental set
- The tendency to use a strategy that has worked in
the past - Functional Fixedness
- A tendency to think of objects only in terms of
their usual functions, a limitation that disrupts
problem solving
10Problems with Problem Solving
- Confirmation Bias
- The inclination to search only for evidence that
will verify ones beliefs - Belief Perseverance
- The tendency to cling to beliefs even after they
have been discredited - Anderson (1980)
11Decision Making
- Try to make best choice from alternatives
- Utility value of given outcome
- Probability likelihood youll achieve it
- Representativeness Heuristic
- A tendency to estimate the likelihood of an event
in terms of how typical (how similar to the
prototype) it seems - Availability Heuristic
- A tendency to estimate the
- likelihood of an event in terms of
- how easily instances of it can be
- recalled
12Language
- Formal system of communication
- Spoken,written, and/or gestures
- Between 5,000 and 6,000 languages, worldwide
- Most languages also have many dialects
13Properties of Language
- Semantic
- There are separate units in a language and these
units have meaning - Phoneme basic building block of spoken language
- Morpheme smallest unit that carries meaning
- Generative
- Combing language in novel ways
- Displacement
- The property of language that accounts for the
capacity to communicate about matters that are
not in the here-and-now
14Structure of Language
- Grammar
- The rules of a language
- Syntax
- Specifies how words can be arranged
- Semantics
- Specifies how meaning is
- understood communicated
- Transformational grammar
- Any one thought can be expressed
- in different ways
15Language Acquisition
- Birth
- Cooing, crying, gurgling
- 4-6 months
- Babbling
- 12 months
- First words
- 2 yrs up
- Telegraphic speech
- Overextension
16Language Acquisition
- No one disputes the stages of language
development - But there are two main questions in terms of what
it all means - Is language acquisition a product of nature or
nurture? - Which comes first language or thought?
17the answers
- Is it nature or nurture?
- Skinner vs. Chomsky
- Skinner Children learn language the way animals
learn mazes - Chomsky The brain is hard-wired for learning
lang. - Critical period
- During the first few years of life, we are most
receptive to language learning - What comes first thought or language?
- Both sometimes children use words to communicate
what they already know and sometimes they form
concepts to fit the words they hear
18Linguistic Relativity
- The hypothesis that language determines, or at
least influences, the way we think
Eyeglasses
Dumbbell
- Hyde, 1984
- Wudgemaker story he she he or she they
- Males equally good regardless
- Females better in she stories, worse in he
version
19Intelligence
- the test of a first-rate intelligence is the
ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at
the same time, and still retain the ability to
function - F. Scott Fitzgerald
20Intelligence
- What is intelligence?
- The capacity to learn from experience and adapt
successfully to ones environment - Reflects how well we function
- Francis Galton
- Believed that intelligence was inherited
- Based intelligence on
- Muscular strength
- Size of your head
- Speed at reacting to signals
- Your ability to detect slight differences
21Binet-Simon Stanford-Binet Scales
- Binet-Simon scale (1905)
- Assigned mental age based on items correct
- Stanford-Binet
- Lewis Terman at Stanford (1916)
- Added items suitable to adults
- Converted scale to a single score
- IQ mental age x 100
- chronological age
- This doesnt work for adults was adjusted
22The Wechsler Scales
- David Weschler
- Intelligence is
- The global capacity to act purposefully, to think
rationally, and to deal effectively with the
environment - IQ ratio breaks down as we get older
- Deviation IQ
- Compares scores to the mean of peer group
- WAIS
- Measures intelligence for late adolescence
through adulthood - Two parts verbal performance subtests
23Issues to Consider in IQ Testing
- Standardization
- The procedure by which existing norms are used to
interpret an individuals test score
24Distribution of IQ scores
68
Mental Retardation
Mentally Gifted
95
100
115
85
130
70
25Issues to Consider in IQ Testing
- Standardization
- The procedure by which existing norms are used to
interpret an individuals test score - Reliability
- Degree to which test gives consistent results
- Validity
- Does the test measure what it
- claims to measure
26Factor Theories of Intelligence
- Spearmans G factor (1904)
- Proposed that general intelligence (g) underlies
all mental abilities - Factor analysis
- A statistical technique used to identify clusters
of test items that correlate with another - Thurstones Primary Mental Abilities
- 7 factors which correlate but not enough to
represent 1 underlying factor - Verbal comprehension, word fluency, number
facility (math), associative memory, perceptual
speed for stimulus recognition, reasoning, and
spatial visualization
27Factor Theories of Intelligence
- Triarchic theory of intelligence
- Robert Sternberg
- Analytical
- The mental steps of components used to solve
problems - This is what traditional IQ tests assess
- Creative
- Intellectual and motivational processes that lead
to novel solutions, ideas, artistic forms, or
products - Practical
- The ability to size up new situations and adapt
to real-life demands
28Gardners Frames of Mind
- Multiple intelligences
- There are seven types of intelligence
- Linguistic verbal aptitude
- Logical-mathematical mathematical aptitude
- Spatial ability to visualize objects
- Musical ability to appreciate the tonal
qualities of sound, compose, and play - Bodily-kinesthetic ability to control movement
- Interpersonal ability to understand people
- Intrapersonal ability to understand oneself
29The Nature Nurture Debate
- Natures influence on IQ
- Identical twins reared together are more similar
than fraternal twins reared together - Siblings who grow up together are more similar
than unrelated individuals who grow up in the
same house - Children are more similar to their biological
parents than to adoptive parents - Nurtures influence on IQ
- Prenatal care, exposure to alcohol and other
toxins, birth complications, malnutrition in the
first few months of life, intellectual
stimulation at home, stress, high-quality
education, the amount of time spent in school - Head Start programs (and those like it)
30Extremes in Intelligence
- Mental retardation
- IQ below 70
- Difficulties with
- Self-care
- School / work
- Social relationships
- Four categories
- Mild, Moderate, Severe, Profound
31Causes of Mental Retardation
- Cultural-familial
- Inadequate mental stimulation
- Poor diet, little or no medical care
- Genetic defects
- Down syndrome
- Brain damage
- Fetal alcohol syndrome
- Hypoxia
32Mental Giftedness
- IQ above 130
- MENSA
- Limits membership to top 2 of population
- Sidis Fallacy
- Contrary to popular belief, geniuses
- dont tend to burn out at early age