Unit 7B Thinking, Problem Solving, Creativity, and Language

Question 1

Cognition

Answer 1

The mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating.

Question 2

What does a cognitive psychologist do?

Answer 2

They study the logical and sometimes illogical ways in which we create concepts, solve problems, make decisions, and judgments

Question 3

Schema/Concept

Answer 3

A mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people (Ex. When I think of dogs that includes all diff breeds)

Question 4

Prototypes

Answer 4

Mental images or best examples of a category

Question 5

Algorithms

Answer 5

A methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem (Ex. The step-by-step procedure to solving a math problem)

Question 6

Heuristics

Answer 6

A simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently

Question 7

What are 2 differences between algorithms and heuristics?

Answer 7

Heuristics are faster but more error prone than algorithms

Question 8

Insight

Answer 8

A sudden and often novel realization of the solution to a problem; it contrasts w strategy-based solutions

Question 9

Creativity

Answer 9

The ability to produce novel and valuable ideas

Question 10

Convergent thinking

Answer 10

Determining one correct answer

Question 11

Divergent thinking

Answer 11

Determining many uses for one thing (this is easiest for creative ppl)

Question 12

What did Robert Sternberg say were the five components of creativity?

Answer 12

1. Expertise
2. Imaginative thinking skills
3. A venturesome personality
4. Intrinsic motivation
5. A creative environment

Question 13

Confirmation bias

Answer 13

A tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence

Question 14

Fixation

Answer 14

The inability to see a problem from a new perspective, by employing a different mental set

Question 15

Mental set

Answer 15

A tendency to approach a problem in one particular way, often a way that has been successful in the past

Question 16

Functional fixedness

Answer 16

The tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual functions; an impediment to problem solving (Ex. You might view a thumbtack as something that can only be used to hold paper to a cork board)

Question 17

Representative heuristics

Answer 17

Judging the likelihood of things in terms of how well they seem to represent, or match, particular prototypes; may lead us to ignore other relevant information

Question 18

Availability heuristic

Answer 18

Estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; if instances come readily to mind (perhaps because you saw them on the news a couple times) we presume they are common

Question 19

Overconfidence

Answer 19

The tendency to be more confident than correct - to overestimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgment

Question 20

Belief perseverance

Answer 20

Clinging to one’s initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited

Question 21

Intuition

Answer 21

An effortless, immediate, automatic feeling or thought, as contrasted with explicit, conscious reasoning

Question 22

Framing

Answer 22

The way an issue is posed; how an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and judgments

Question 23

Language

Answer 23

Our spoken, written, or signed words and the way we combine them to communicate meaning

Question 24

Phonemes

Answer 24

In language, the smallest distinctive sound unit (Ex. B-A-T (3), CH-A-T (3))

Question 25

Morphemes

Answer 25

I’m language, the smallest units that carry meaning; may be a word or part of a word, like a prefix (Ex. Bat, pre-, -ed, etc)

Question 26

Grammar

Answer 26

A system of rules that enables us to communicate with and understand others

Question 27

Semantics

Answer 27

The set of rules by which we derive meaning from morphemes, words, and sentences in a given language; also, the study of meaning (Ex. Semantic rule tells us that adding -ed to the word laugh means that it happened in the past)

Question 28

Syntax

Answer 28

The rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences in a given language (Ex. In English syntactical rule says that adjectives come before nouns; White House. In Spanish it’s the opposite; casa blanca.)

Question 29

About how old are babies when they start babbling?

Answer 29

4 months

Question 30

One-word stage

Answer 30

The stage in speech development, from about age 1 to 2, during which a child speaks mostly in single words

Question 31

Telegraphic speech

Answer 31

An early speech stage in which a child speaks like a telegram - “go car” - using mostly nouns and verbs

Question 32

Language activation device

Answer 32

A “switch box” that needs to be turned either “on” or “off” for us to understand and produce language

Question 33

Linguistic determinism

Answer 33

Whorf’s hypothesis that language determines the way we think (Ex. A tribe has no past tense in there language, so they must not think about the past)

Question 34

What increases our overconfidence?

Answer 34

Heuristics, confirmation of beliefs, and the inclination to explain failures

Question 35

Exaggerated Fear

Answer 35

The opposite of having overconfidence is having an exaggerated fear about what may happen. Such fears may be unfounded. (Ex. The 9/11 attacks led to a decline in air travel due to fear)

Question 36

Receptive Language

Answer 36

Is the child’s ability to comprehend speech. Begins to mature before their productive language, which is their ability to produce words.

Question 37

Productive Language

Answer 37

Is a child’s ability to produce words (improves with improvement of receptive language)

Question 38

How did BF Skinner (Behavioral Psychology) think children acquire language?

Answer 38

- through operant learning - language acquisition is association, imitation, and reinforcement - grammar and sentence structure are learned through positive and negative reinforcement

Question 39

How did Noam Chomsky (Linguist) think children acquire language?

Answer 39

- we learn language too quickly for it to be through reinforcement and punishment - inborn universal language acquisition device + grammar

Question 40

Universal Grammar

Answer 40

- all human languages have the same grammatical building blocks, such as nouns and verbs, subjects and objects, negations and questions - we all start speaking mostly in nouns - we all follow language development stages

Question 41

Critical Period

Answer 41

Children can’t perform that same statistical analysis and intense language acquisition through our whole life

Question 42

Mental Practice

Answer 42

Repeatedly imagining achieving your goals under several different conditions

Question 43

Retroactive Interference

Answer 43

Occurs when new information makes it harder to recall something you learned earlier

Question 44

Broca’s Area

Answer 44

Associated with speech production and articulation