SG AP PSI ExamCognition
Language Acquisition
Phonology – meaningful sounds that make up words
Made up of phonemes
In human language, a phoneme is the smallest structural unit that distinguishes meaning. An example of a phoneme is the /t/ sound in the words tip, stand, water, and cat. These instances of /t/ are considered to be the same sound despite the fact that in each word they are pronounced somewhat differently.
Morphology – Grouping phonemes into combinations for sounds or words
Morpheme – smallest combination of sounds possible that HAS SYNTAX/meaning
This is the ol’ English language of breaking down words
Gulf – a morpheme
Engulf – two morphemes (En and gulf)
Main types: Root word, prefix, suffix, stem
Phoneme = bMorpheme = atTogether they = bat
Syntax/Grammar – Specifies how we put words together in order to make sense.
I give to want a dollar you to. Vs. I want to give a dollar to you.
Semantics – the meaning given to words within context
Peter petered out when he read the red book he was asked to read by his bookie.
How does the brain make sense of all this?
Broca’s Area – area where sounds are combined into words.
Wernicke’s Area – area where words are combined into sentences
Chomsky & Inborn Universal Grammar / Chomsky’s Theory on Language Development -
a. Mental Grammar – Instead of a list of sentences to use, our brain stores an endless amount of nouns, verbs, objects, adjectives, etc., and the brain innately understands how to combine them for unique sentences.
b. Innate Brain Program – Innate ability to understand the rules of grammar by 4 or 5 years old.
Children are hypothesized to have an innate knowledge of the basic grammatical structure common to all human languages (i.e. they assume that any language which they encounter is of a certain restricted kind). This innate knowledge is often referred to as universal grammar.
But, how do you explain culture/language variances? (A classic Nature/Nurture debate)
c. Deep structure vs. surface structure – a sentence sounds literally as it is spoken (surface structure) but can have varying meanings (deep structure)
We are going to my house. We bouncin’ to the crib.
Two different sentences in terms of surface structure, but with the same meaning (deep structure).
The day-old doughnut was eaten by me.
I ate the doughnut which was a day old.
No matter the language, you go through the following stages:
- babbling (0-6 mos.)
- single word (around 1 y.o.)
- two-word combos (around 2 y.o. – or, 15 months for Ethan; Gavin was 16 mos.)
- sentences (around 4 y.o.)
- Overregularization – As youngsters learn grammar rules, they over apply them and do not understand irregular formations (I’m gooder than you; Molly hitted me)
Critical Language Period
Infancy to around 12 years old – learning a second language is easier during this time period for the same reasons it is easier to learn a first language.
The brain is supposedly genetically programmed to facilitate comprehension as well as word sounds during this period. This starts to deteriorate with age.
Ways to hamper language acquisition
1.Parents do not facilitate vocabulary practice. (Reading with them)
2.Parents dissuade words/sounds that are not “correct.”
3.Parents do not involve children in conversation.
4.Parents do not let the child have social interaction (Social Cognitive Learning)
5.Motherese/Parentese – speaking in “baby talk” around the child does not supply the child with the correct morphemes/phonics for development.
BENJAMIN WHORF -- Language is contextual; it is dependant upon the environment in which it is learned. (THEORY OF LINGUISTIC RELATIVITY). Conducted studies on the Inuit people in the Great White North.
- The Whorf hypothesis, Linguistic Determinism, primarily dealt with the way that language affects thought. Also sometimes called the Whorfian hypothesis, this theory claims that the language a person speaks affects the way that he or she thinks, meaning that the structure of the language itself affects cognition.
Insight – a sudden solution comes to a problem.
Wolfgang Kohler and his chimps:
Sticks and boxes – needed a banana, so they got them, even if they were up on a hanger above the lab.
Functional fixedness – the inability to see a use for a item besides its intended one
Algorithms – fixed sets of rules used to solve problems
Heuristics – hints
Availability heuristic – Making a decision/answering a question relative to your immediate experiences (your favorite movie is the most current one you have seen).
Convergent thinking – only one set correct solution (Algebra)
Divergent thinking – more than one way to solve a problem
Deductive reasoning – start with things you think to be true and then draw specific solutions form that.
Inductive reasoning – start with the small details and look to a broader solution.
COGNITION
Cognition: (Thinking) the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating.
Concept: a mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people.
Prototype: a mental image or BEST example of a category (e.g., a prototypical "bird" may be a robin).
Artificial Intelligence (AI): the science of designing and programming computer systems to do intelligent things and to simulate human thought processes, such as intuitive reasoning, learning, and understanding language.
Solving Problems
Algorithm: a methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem.
Heuristic: a simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently; usually speedier but also more error-prone than algorithms.
Insight: a sudden and often novel realization of the solution to a problem; it contrasts with strategy-based solutions.
Obstacles to Problem Solving
Confirmation Bias: a tendency to search for information that confirms one's preconceptions.
Fixation: the inability to see a problem from a new perspective.
Mental Set: a 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.
Functional Fixedness: the tendency to think of objects only in terms of their usual functions.
Making Decisions and Judgments
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 relevant information.
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.
Overconfidence: the tendency to be more confident in our judgments that correct---to overestimate the accuracy of one's beliefs and judgments.
Framing: the way in which an issue is posed (or worded); this can significantly affect decisions and judgments.
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.
LANGUAGE
Language: our spoken, written, or signed words and the ways we combine them to communicate meaning.
Phoneme: in spoken language, the smallest distinctive sound unit.
Morpheme: in language, the smallest unit that carries meaning; may be a word or part of a word (like a prefix).
Grammar: a system of rules that enables us to communicate with language and understand each other.
Semantics: the set of rules by which we derive meaning from morphemes, words, and sentences; also the study of meaning.
Syntax: the rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences.
Language Development
Babbling Stage: beginning at 3-4 months, the stage of speech development in which the infant spontaneously utters various sounds at first unrelated to the household language.
One-word Stage: the stage in speech development, from about age 1 to age 2, during which a child speaks mostly in single words.
Two-word Stage: beginning at about age 2, the stage in speech development during which a child speaks mostly two-word statements.
Telegraphic Speech: speech stage in which a child speaks like a telegram--"go car"--using mostly nouns and verbs and omitting "auxiliary words (like "the" and "a").
Explaining Language Development
Skinner & Operant Conditioning: Skinner believed that we can explain language development with familiar behavioral principles, such as association (of the sights of things with the sounds of words); imitation (of the words and syntax modeled by others); and reinforcement (with smiles and hugs when the child says something right). In other words, NURTURE plays the biggest role in the development of language.
Chomsky & Inborn Universal Grammar: While linguist Noam Chomsky agreed that we do "learn" the language in which we are raised, he pointed out that children generate all sorts of sentences they have never heard and, therefore could not be imitating. Additionally, many of the errors young children make result from overgeneralization of grammatical rules, such as adding -ed to make the past tense (e.g., "I holded the baby" or "I runned to the store"). They are certainly not imitating parents when they make these errors. Syntax seems to be particular "hard-wired". You will not hear children say things like, "She an apple ate."
THINKING & LANGUAGE
Linguist Benjamin Whorf contended that language determines the way we think.
Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis or Linguistic Determination: Whorf's hypothesis that language determines the way we think.
For example, the HOPI do not have many words for the past tense, so they do not have a clear grasp of the past!
Animals & Language
Honeybees communicatewith other worker bees by engaging in an intricate "dance". The dance in forms other bees of the direction and distance of a food source.
Primates have learned to communicate with American Sign Language or by using symbols. The most well-known are Washoe (a chimp) and KoKo (a gorilla) who were both taught sign language. Some of these apes have been found to create new words and sign spontaneously with other apes.
**While primate "language" seems very impressive, critics point out that apes learn vocabulary with great difficulty (unlike humans) and have a very hard time learning (if they ever do) proper syntax.
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SG AP PSI ExamCognition
Cognitive Bias –
Many of these biases are studied for how they affect belief formation, business decisions and scientific research.
During groupthink, members of the group avoid promoting viewpoints outside the comfort zone of consensus thinking. A variety of motives for this may exist such as a desire to avoid being seen as foolish, or a desire to avoid embarrassing or angering other members of the group. Groupthink may cause groups to make hasty, irrational decisions, where individual doubts are set aside, for fear of upsetting the group’s balance. The term is frequently used pejoratively, with hindsight
Confirmation bias — the tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions.
Framing — by using a too narrow approach or description of the situation or issue. Also framing effect — drawing different conclusions based on how data are presented.
- To clarify: When one seeks to explain an event, the understanding often depends on the frame referred to. If a friend rapidly closes and opens an eye, we will respond very differently depending on whether we attribute this to a purely "physical" frame (he blinked) or to a social frame (he winked).
Mere exposure effect — the tendency for people to express undue liking for things merely because they are familiar with them.
(Mere)Exposure effect is a psychological phenomenon well known to advertisers: people express undue liking for things merely because they are familiar with them. This effect has been nicknamed the "familiarity breeds liking" effect. In interpersonal attractiveness research studies, the term exposure principle is used to characterize the phenomenon in which the more often a person is seen by someone the more pleasing and likeable that person appears to be.
Memory biases
Hindsight bias, I-Knew-It-All-along, is the inclination to see events that have occurred as more predictable than they in fact were before they took place. Hindsight bias has been demonstrated experimentally in a variety of settings, including politics, games and medicine. In psychological experiments of hindsight bias, subjects also tend to remember their predictions of future events as having been stronger than they actually were, in those cases where those predictions turn out correct.
The availability heuristic is a rule of thumb (which can result in a cognitive bias), where people base their prediction of the frequency of an event or the proportion within a population based on how easily an example can be brought to mind. In these instances the ease of imagining an example or the vividness and emotional impact of that example becomes more credible than actual statistical probability. Because an example is easily brought to mind or mentally "available", the single example is considered as representative of the whole rather than as just a single example in a range of data. Several examples:
- Someone argues that cigarette smoking is not unhealthy because his grandfather smoked three packs of cigarettes a day and lived to be 100. The grandfather's health could simply be an unusual case that does not speak to the health of smokers in general
- Someone makes a statement that people who drive red cars get more speeding tickets, and you agree with the statement because a mutual friend, Jim, drives a red car and frequently gets speeding tickets. The reality could be that Jim just drives fast and would get a speeding ticket regardless of the color car that he drove. In fact, statistics from the New Jersey State Police showed that fewer speeding tickets were given to red cars in 2007 than to many other colored cars, but in this case since Jim is an available example, the statement may seem more plausible.
The misinformation effect is a memory bias that occurs when misinformation affects people's reports of their own memory.
- In one oft-cited study led by Elizabeth Loftus, people watched footage of a car accident. Later some were asked to estimate the speed at which the car was going when it hit the other car. Others were asked how fast they thought the car was going when it smashed into the other. Those who were asked the question with the smashed wording were much more likely to "remember" seeing broken glass in a later question (in reality, no glass had been broken in the accident). They also remembered the car as driving much faster.
Mood congruent memory bias: the improved recall of information congruent with one's current mood.
Primacy effect: that the first items on a list show an advantage in memory.
Recency effect: that the last items on a list show an advantage in memory.
Serial position effect: that items near the end of a list are the easiest to recall, followed by the items at the beginning of a list; items in the middle are the least likely to be remembered
Spacing effect: that information is better recalled if exposure to it is repeated over a longer span of time.
Tip of the tongue phenomenon: when a subject is able to recall parts of an item, or related information, but is frustratingly unable to recall the whole item. This is thought to be an instance of "blocking" where multiple similar memories are being recalled and interfere with each other (Schacter, 1999)
Illusory correlation — beliefs that inaccurately suppose a relationship between a certain type of action and an effect.
The just-world phenomenon, also called the just-world theory, just-world fallacy, just-world effect, or just-world hypothesis, refers to the tendency for people to want to believe that the world is "just" so strongly that when they witness an otherwise inexplicable injustice they will rationalize it by searching for things that the victim might have done to deserve it. This deflects their anxiety, and lets them continue to believe the world is a just place, but at the expense of blaming victims for things that were not, objectively, their fault.
Fundamental attribution error — the tendency for people to over-emphasize personality-based explanations for behaviors observed in others while under-emphasizing the role and power of situational influences on the same behavior (see also actor-observer bias, group attribution error, positivity effect, and negativity effect).
False consensus effect — the tendency for people to overestimate the degree to which others agree with them.
Gambler's fallacy — the tendency to assume that individual random events are influenced by previous random events. For example, "I've flipped heads with this coin five times consecutively, so the chance of tails coming out on the sixth flip is much greater than heads."
Hawthorne effect — refers to a phenomenon which is thought to occur when people observed during a research study temporarily change their behavior or performance (this can also be referred to as demand characteristics).