chapter 8 videos

Question 1

Cognitive obstacles: the nine dot problem

Answer 1

try to connect all 9 dots using 4 lines without lifting pencil —have to go outside the physicl box that we assume we cannot do beforehand

Question 2

Functional fixedness

Answer 2

tendency to treat objects as only serving one function

Question 3

Forming judgements by algorithm is hard work and time consuming …..

Answer 3

using a heuristic to form a judgement is quicker, but requires a good basis for guessing

Question 4

Representativeness heuristic

Answer 4

the assumption that all members of a category share the same features based on ones experience with only a small number of category members

Question 5

conjunction fallacy

Answer 5

the failure to appreciate that the probability of two events occurring together must be lower than the probability of those events occurring alone

Question 6

availability heuristic

Answer 6

making judgements about the frequency with which events occur based on how easy it is for us to think of examples

Question 7

The anchoring effect

Answer 7

restrictions in a persons numerical judgements based solely on their exposure to some number. The anchoring effect even occurs when the biasing number is completely irrelevant

Question 8

Framing effects

Answer 8

when the mere wording of a question has biasing influence on our judgements or decision making

Question 9

Belief perseverance

Answer 9

persisting in ones pre existing beliefs despite exposure to evidence that contradicts those beliefs

Question 10

Confirmation bias

Answer 10

seeking out and attending to evidence that supports some belief, while also actively avoiding evidence that contradicts that belief

Question 11

Paradox of choice

Answer 11

two types of decision makers: Maximizers: thoroughly explore the pros and cons associated with every option in an effort to mae the best possible choice Satisficers: do very little research and simply choose the first option that fulfull some minimum set of criteria

Question 12

Aphasia

Answer 12

any impairment in the ability to produce or comprehend language

Question 13

brocas aphasia

Answer 13

any impairment in the ability to produce language through speech

Question 14

wernickes aphasia

Answer 14

an impairment in the ability to comprehend spoken language

Question 15

language

Answer 15

a rule based means of communication, using spoken, written or gestural symbols… advantage: 1) Allows us to communicate about things that are not physically present 2) Allows for creating symbols to represent completely novel concepts that may not even exist in reality 3) Can be transferred from one generation from the next

Question 16

language productivity

Answer 16

the basic units of language permit an almost infinite number of combinations

Question 17

phonemes

Answer 17

the smalled units of language – they are the units of sound that we use to form words (ie “test” consists of four phonemes: t/e/s/t/

Question 18

morphemes

Answer 18

the smallest meaningful units of language. Some morephemes, like plant, are meaningful on their own

Question 19

semantics

Answer 19

the study of how people learn the meaning of words

Question 20

orthography

Answer 20

the visual representation of words

Question 21

phronology

Answer 21

the speech based representation of words

Question 22

dyslexia

Answer 22

their primary difficulty seems to be in their translating the orthography of words in their phonological representation

Question 23

syntax

Answer 23

the rules that define the acceptable order of combining words into phrases and sentences

Question 24

pragmatics

Answer 24

non linguistic aspects of our communication with language such as body language, tone of voice, and reliance on cultural expressions that are not to be taken literally

Question 25

features of infants that support languageacquisition

Answer 25

1) Infants prefer speech sounds to other types of sounds 2) Infants soon come to prefer phoneme combinations that are common in the language they are exposed to 3) Babies also soon come to prefer hearing nouns and verbs over other types

Question 26

naming explosion

Answer 26

through infancy and toddlerhood, humans learn so many words so quickly, it qualifies as a type of explosion

Question 27

fast mapping

Answer 27

very young children appear to learn many words with only one single exposure

Question 28

Overgeneralization errors

Answer 28

errors may be incorrect, but impressive, applications of rules that works well in other situations

Question 29

sensitive period

Answer 29

the early period in our lifespan, during which acquisition of language occurs quite easily naturally

Question 30

cross fostering

Answer 30

placing a chimpanzee to be raised as a member of a human family

Question 31

Skeptical concerns about chimps capacity for language

Answer 31

1) No chimp has ever used language to form complex phrases 2) No chimp has transferred their knowledge of language to their children 3) No chimp has generated a new symbol as a way to make reference to an unfamiliar object or event – the productivity function of language 4) Working so closely with chimps may compromise the objectivity of the researchers involved in chimp language studies