Thinking

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Thinking
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Cognition

• Another term for thinking, knowing and
  remembering

Does the way we think really matter?
Maybe by studying the way we think, we can
eventually think better.
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Concepts
In order to think about the world, we form..

• A mental grouping of similar objects, events,
  ideas or people.
• Concepts are similar to Piagets idea of.

Schemas
These animals all look different, but they fall
under our concept of dogs.
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Prototypes
We base our concepts on .

• A mental image or best example of a category.

• If a new object is similar to our prototype, we
  are better able to recognize it.

If this was my prototype of a man then what are
you?
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How do we solve problems?
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Trial and Error
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Algorithms

• A methodical, logical rule or procedure that
  guarantees solving a particular problem.

What are the benefits and detriments of
algorithms?
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Big Bang Theory

• The Friendship Algorithm

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Heuristics

• A rule-of-thumb strategy that often allows us to
  make judgments and solve problems efficiently.

Who would you trust to baby-sit your child?

• A short cut (that can be prone to errors).

Your answer is based on your heuristic of their
appearances.
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Insight

• A sudden and often novel realization of the
  solution to a problem.
• AHA! moment

• No real strategy involved

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Obstacles to problem solving
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Confirmation Bias

• A tendency to search for information that
  confirms ones preconceptions.

For example, if you believe that during a full
moon there is an increase in admissions to the
emergency room where you work, you will take
notice of admissions during a full moon, but be
inattentive to the moon when admissions occur
during other nights of the month.
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Match Problem
Can you arrange these six matches into four
equilateral triangles?
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Match Problem

• Fixation
• The inability to see a problem from a new
  perspective.

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Mental Set

• A tendency to approach a problem in a particular
  way, especially if it has worked in the past.
• May or may not be a good thing.

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Functional Fixedness

• The tendency to think of things only in terms of
  their usual functions.

What are some things I can do with this quarter
(other than spend it)?
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Types of Heuristics(That often lead to errors)
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Representativeness Heuristic
Below is Linda. She loves books and hates loud
noises. Is Linda a librarian or a beautician?

• A rule of thumb for judging the likelihood of
  things in terms of how well they match our
  prototype.
• Can cause us to ignore important information.

Chances are, she is a beautician!!!
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Availability Heuristic

• Estimating the likelihood of events based on
  their availability in our memory.

Although diseases kill many more people than
accidents, it has been shown that people will
judge accidents and diseases to be equally fatal.
This is because accidents are more dramatic and
are often written up in the paper or seen on the
news on t.v., and are more available in memory
than diseases.

• If it comes to mind easily (maybe a vivid event)
  we presume it is common.

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Overconfidence

• The tendency to be more confident than correct.
• To overestimate the accuracy of your beliefs and
  judgments.

Considering overconfidence who you want to risk
1 million dollars on an audience poll?
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Framing

• The way an issued is posed.
• It can have drastic effects on your decisions and
  judgments.

How do you think framing will play a part in this
years election?
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Belief Bias

• Democrats support free speech

• The tendency for ones preexisting beliefs to
  distort logical reasoning.
• Sometimes making invalid conclusions valid or
  vice versa.

2. Dictators are not Democrats.
Conclusion Dictators do not support free speech.
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Belief Perseverance

• Clinging to your initial conceptions after the
  basis on which they were formed has been
  discredited.

• the reason people fight on campus

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Language and Thought
Its all about communication!!!
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Language

• Our spoken written or gestured words and the way
  we combine them to communicate meaning.

Believe it or not, this communication is a form
of language!!!
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Phonemes

• In a spoken language, the smallest distinctive
  sound unit.
• Chug has three phonemes, ch, u, g.

How many phonemes does platypus have?
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Morphemes

• In a language, the smallest unit that carries
  meaning.
• Can be a word or part of a word (prefix or
  suffix).

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Grammar

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

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Semantics

• The set of rules by which we derive meaning in a
  language.
• Adding ed at the end of words means past tense.

The Chinese languages do not have expansive
semantic rules. They usually have totally
different symbols for different tenses.
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Syntax

• The rules for combining words into grammatically
  sensible sentences.
• In English, adjectives come before nouns, but not
  in Spanish!!

Is this the White House or the House White?
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Language development

• How many words do you think you know now?

Probably around 80,000.
After age 1 you average about 13 words a day.
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Language Development

• Babbling Stage starting at 3-4 months, the
  infant makes spontaneous sounds. Not limited to
  the phonemes of the infants household language.

• One-word stage 1-2 years old, uses one word to
  communicate big meanings.

• Two word stage at age 2, uses two words to
  communicate meanings- called telegraphic speech.

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Language Development

• Holophrase
• A single word used to express complex meanings
• Ex Mama can mean
• Come here, mama.
• There goes mama.
• You are my mama.

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Language Development

• Ages 2 and 3
• Sentences include missing words.
• Combine phrases and clauses into complex
  sentences
• Overregularization grammatical rules (past tense
  and plurals)
• I goed, sitted, seed

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Language Development

• Third year
• Who, what, when, where, how questions emerge
• Age 4
• Asking questions, take turns talking, lengthy
  conversations
• Age 6
• 10, 000 words
• Age 7-9
• Words have more than one meaning

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Genie

• Brain damaged from abuse or birth?
• Rapidly learning languagethen hit a wall.
• Could not determine if language can be learned
  after puberty because of brain damage.

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Andrei

• Learned social norms.
• As of a few months ago still cannot speak.

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How do we explain language development?
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Skinner

• Skinner thought that we can explain language
  development through social learning theory (which
  is?).

The young boy imitates his dad, then gets a
reward.
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ChomskyInborn Universal Grammar

• We acquire language too quickly for it to be
  learned.
• We have this learning box inside our heads that
  enable us to learn any human language.

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Does language influence our thinking?
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Whorfs Linguistic Relativity

• The idea that language determines the way we
  think (not vice versa).

• The Hopi tribe has no past tense in their
  language, so Whorf says they rarely think of the
  past.

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Do people that speak more than one language think
differently depending on their language at that
time?
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Thinking without Language

• We can think in words.
• But more often we think in mental pictures.

In 1977, Reggie Jackson hit 3 HRs against the
Dodgers. He has stated that before each at bat,
he visualizes crushing a home run. Do you think
visualization helps?
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Do Animals think?
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Kohlers Chimpanzees

• Kohler exhibited that Chimps can problem solve.

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Honeybees seem to communicate
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Apes and Signing
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Thought (proposition)
Production
Sentence
Comprehension
Clauses
Phrases
Words (morphemes)
Sounds (phonemes)
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Thought
Production
Watch out a leopard is sneaking up on our left
Comprehension
Watch out a leopard is sneaking up on our left
Watch out a leopard is sneaking up ...
Watch out a ...
woch out a leperd iz sneking up on ouer left