Myers

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Myers PSYCHOLOGY (7th Ed)

• Chapter 7B
• Thinking and Language
• James A. McCubbin, PhD
• Clemson University
• Worth Publishers

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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

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Thinking

• Concept
• mental grouping of similar objects, events,
  ideas, or people
• Prototype
• mental image or best example of a category
• Ex. Describe what a bird looks like?

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Concept

• Chairs

• Flowers

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Prototype
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Solving Problems4 Strategies

• Algorithms
• Step-by-step
• Heuristic
• Insight
• Trial and Error

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Thinking Problem Solving

• Algorithm
• methodical, logical rule or procedure that
  guarantees solving a particular problem
• For example solving an equation using Order of
  Operations.
• 2x6 14 Solve for X

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Thinking Problem Solving

• Heuristic
• simple thinking strategy that often allows us to
  make judgments and solve problems efficiently
• Rules of thumb derived from experience. No
  guarantee of accuracy or usefulness
• Example, counting seconds between lighting and
  thunder to see how far away storm is.
• Racial Profiling, stereotyping are heuristics.

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Thinking Problem Solving

• Insight
• sudden and often novel realization of the
  solution to a problem
• contrasts with strategy-based solutions
• Trial and Error
• make attempts until correct solution is found.

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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?

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Solving ProblemsCreativity

• Creativity read pgs 301-302
• Strernbergs five components
• Expertise
• Imaginative thinking skills
• A venturesome personality
• Intrinsic motivation
• A creative environment

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Thinking Hurdles to Problem Solving

• Confirmation Bias
• tendency to search for information that confirms
  ones preconceptions
• Fixation
• inability to see a problem from a new perspective
• impediment to problem solving

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Thinking

• Functional Fixedness
• tendency to think of things only in terms of
  their usual functions
• impediment to problem solving

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The Matchstick Problem

• How would you arrange six matches to form four
  equilateral triangles?

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The Candle-Mounting Problem

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

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The Three-Jugs Problem

• Using jugs A, B, and C, with the capacities
  shown, how would you measure out the volumes
  indicated?

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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

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Representativeness Heuristic

• Two boxers are in a match scheduled for 12
  rounds. (Pure boxing only no kicking, UFC
  takedowns, or anything else). One of the boxers
  gets knocked out after only six rounds, yet no
  man throws a punch. How is this possible?

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Heuristics

• Representativeness Heuristic
• Describe a NASCAR driver
• Drivers 1
• Drivers 2

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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, Casino Winners
  Losers, Jaws swimming.

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Thinking

• Overconfidence
• tendency to be more confident than correct
• tendency to overestimate the accuracy of ones
  beliefs and judgments

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Thinking

• Belief Bias
• the tendency for ones preexisting beliefs to
  distort logical reasoning
• sometimes by making invalid conclusions seem
  valid or valid conclusions seem invalid
• Belief Perseverance
• clinging to ones initial conceptions after the
  basis on which they were formed has been
  discredited read pgs 308-309 Fear Factor

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Making Decisions and Forming Judgments Using and
Misusing Heuristics

• The Availability Heuristic

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Thinking

• Framing read pgs 311-312
• 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?
• Preferred Portion Size Restaurants use words
  such as small, regular, supersize for their
  portions.
• Opt In vs Opt Out
• Those who understand the power of framing can
  use it to influence our decisions

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Thinking

• When you know a thing, to hold that you know it
  and when you do not know a thing, to allow that
  you do not know it THIS is KNOWLEDGE!
  Confucius
• Work on Group Problems to Solve Worksheet.

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Language

• Language
• our spoken, written, or gestured words and the
  way we combine them to communicate meaning
• Phoneme
• in a spoken language, the smallest distinctive
  sound unit. The sound of a letter as used in a
  word.
• For example the letter A sounds different in
  Ate and Cat.

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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) ex. Uni, Bi, Tri ( Cycle)
• Grammar
• a system of rules in a language that enables us
  to communicate with and understand others

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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

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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

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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

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Language
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Language

• Genes design the mechanisms for a language, and
  experience activates them as it modifies the brain

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How do we Learn Language Read pgs 316-317

• Skinner Operant Learning

• Chomsky Inborn Universal Grammer

• Association sights of things with the sounds of
  words
• Imitation of the words and syntax modeled by
  others
• Reinforcement With smiles and hugs when a
  child speaks.
• Linda Linda Linda

• Language Acquisition Device we are genetically
  prewired to acquire language. As we hear
  language, the switches get set for the language
  we are to learn.
• Universal Grammar All human grammars have the
  same building blocks, such as nouns and verbs,
  subjects and objects. Regardless of language,
  kids start speaking in nouns rather than verbs or
  adjectives.

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Language

• Linguistic Determinism
• Whorfs hypothesis that language determines the
  way we think
• Different languages impose different concepts of
  reality.
• Ex. Spanglish, Pig Latin, Slang, words with
  different meanings by location.

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Language

• The interplay of thought and language

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Language Review

• 1. What are the structural components of
  Language?
• 2. What are the stages of Language Development?
• 3. What is the relationship between language and
  thinking?

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• For Next Class
• Study for Test Unit 6, 7A and 7B Combined.
• For the rest of class, go over Unit Review for
  both sections.