Myers’ PSYCHOLOGY

Myers’ PSYCHOLOGY Chapter 10 Thinking and Language James A. McCubbin, PhD Clemson University Worth Publishers

Thinking • Cognition • mental activity associated with processing, understanding, and communicating information • Cognitive Psychology • the study of these mental activities • concept formation • problem solving • decision making • judgement formation • study of both logical and illogical thinking

Thinking • Concept • mental grouping of similar objects, events, or people • address • country, city, street, house • zip codes • Prototype • the 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.)

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

Thinking • Heuristic • rule-of-thumb strategy that often allows us to make judgements and solve problems efficiently • usually speedier than algorithms • more error-prone than algorithms • sometimes we’re unaware of using heuristics

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?

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

Thinking- Insight • Wolfgang Kohler’s experiment on insight by a chimpanzee

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

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

The Three-Jugs Problem Given jugs of these sizes: Measure out this much water: Problem A B C 1 21 127 3 100 2 14 46 5 22 3 18 43 10 5 4 7 42 6 23 5 20 57 4 29 6 23 49 3 20 7 15 39 3 18

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

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

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

The Matchstick Problem • Solution to the matchstick problem

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.

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

Heuristics • Representativeness Heuristic • rule of thumb for 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

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

Thinking • Overconfidence • tendency to be more confident than correct • tendency to overestimate the accuracy of one’s beliefs and judgements

Thinking • Framing • the way an issue is posed • how an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and judgements • Example: What is the best way to market ground beef- As 25% fat or 75% lean?

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

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

Artificial Intelligence • Artificial Intelligence • includes practical applications • chess playing • industrial robots • expert systems • efforts to model human thinking inspired by our current understanding of how the brain works

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

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

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

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

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 Language • We are all born to recognize speech sounds from all the world’s languages

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

Language • Two-Word Stage • beginning about age 2 • the stage in speech development during which a child speaks 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

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

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

Environment spoken language heard provides input to Genes design Brain Mechanisms for understanding and producing language Behavior Mastery of native language Language

Percentage correct on grammar test 100 90 80 70 60 50 Native 3-7 8-10 11-15 17-39 Age at school Language • New language learning gets harder with age

Language • Linguistic Relativity • Whorf's hypothesis that language determines the way we think

Direction of nectar source Language • The straight-line part of the dance points in the direction of a nectar source, relative to the sun

Myers’ PSYCHOLOGY