Thought and Language - Lecture Four

Question 1

Representation

Answer 1

Knowledge of the world which forms the content of our thoughts

Question 2

Analogous representations

Answer 2

Mental images

Question 3

Symbolic representations

Answer 3

Prepositional thoughts - internal statements

Question 4

Mental imagery

Answer 4

Representation of a stimulus that originates inside your brain, rather than from external sensory input

Question 5

What do symbols represent?

Answer 5

Any kind of content, but don’t resemble what it is they stand for

Question 6

Prepositional thought

Answer 6

Statements that express ideas

Question 7

Why is categorisation useful?

Answer 7

It allows us to know what to expect each time we encounter a member of a category

Question 8

Reasoning

Answer 8

Intelligent thought
Making decisions, problem solving
Drawing implications from our beliefs

Question 9

Deductive reasoning

Answer 9

Begin with a belief, what are the implications of those beliefs? Move from the general principles or rules to specific instances.

Question 10

Syllogism

Answer 10

Two or more prepositions that are assumed to be true

Question 11

Inductive reasoning

Answer 11

Start with specifics and then conclude general principles

Question 12

What influences our ability to reason deductively?

Answer 12

Belief bias, confirmation bias and the content of what we are reasoning about matters

Question 13

Tets hypotheses

Answer 13

From data to theories

Question 14

What influences our ability to reason?

Answer 14

Belief bias, people are often incorrect and confirmation bias

Question 15

Belief bias

Answer 15

Rather than applying a logical rule or following through - people might decide it’s not valid due to its plausibility.

Question 16

People are often incorrect

Answer 16

Reason on the basis of plausibility rather than logical rules

Question 17

The confirmation bias

Answer 17

The beliefs we hold influence how we process information

Question 18

Making judgments

Answer 18

Drawing conclusions from experience

Question 19

Heuristics

Answer 19

Shortcuts that are correct most of the time

Question 20

Availability heuristics

Answer 20

Mental shortcut that relies on immediate examples that come to a given person’s mind when evaluating a specific decision

Question 21

Why use heuristics? Are they good for us?

Answer 21

They save time, often work and are usually efficient