CH 8: Language and Thought

Question 1

What are the two theories of language acquisition?

Answer 1

Behaviourist (Skinner) - learned through imitation

Nativist (Chomsky) - innate ability to acquire language

Question 2

Bilinguals have slight disadvantage in what area of cognitive function?

Answer 2

processing speed

Question 3

Linguistic relativity hypothesis

Answer 3

your language shapes your thought

Question 4

What were the three types of problems that Greeno identified? + examples

Answer 4

Problems of Inducing Structure (find relationship)
e.g., Merchant, sell… Customer - ?

Problems of Arrangement (organize) e.g., string problem in room w/hammer

Problems of Transformation
e.g., water jar problem

Question 5

What is a mental set?

Answer 5

keep using problem solving techniques that have worked in the past

Question 6

Availability heuristic

Answer 6

basing the estimated probability of an event on how easily relevant instances come to mind

two plane crashes yesterday –> plane crashes are common

Question 7

Representative heuristic

Answer 7

basing estimated probability on how similiar it is to the prototype

e.g. you think that flipping THHHHH is less likely than THTHTHT

Question 8

Conjunction Fallacy is due to what heuristic?

Answer 8

REPRESENTATIVE HEURISTIC

e.g., John is a teacher and a politician vs John is a teacher

Question 9

Theory of bounded rationality

Answer 9

People use simple decision making strategies that focus on only a few parts of available options, leads to irrational decisions that are less than optimal

Question 10

Fast and Frugal heuristics

Answer 10

“intuitive” evolutionary decision making, needed to make decisions quickly and under pressure to stay alive