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After reviewing the Chp. 7 ppt-
Describe what is language?
Describe the milestones in language development.
Who is Noam Choms
Module 7.1 Thinking
Module 7.2 Language
Module 7.3 Intelligence
Module 7.1
Thinking
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Focuses on how we acquire knowledge about the world
Cognitive psychologists investigate
Thinking
Information processing
Language
Problem solving
When psychology first emerged as an independent science, the focus was on the mind, but introspective methods were limited to subjective experiences that could not be directly observed or measured.
Some theorists study cognition, the mental processes involved in acquiring and applying knowledge and using language as a means of communication. Cognitive psychology has emerged since the mid-1900s as a major area of study in psychology. This chapter focuses on three major areas of study in cognitive psychology: thinking, language, and intelligence.
The mental representation and manipulation of information
Information is represented in the form of:
Mental Images
Words
Concepts
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The human mind is continually thinking, but what is thinking? How do psychologists define thinking?
Virtually everything you do, from important decisions to mundane tasks, involve this type of mental manipulation.
A mental picture or representation of an object or event, not a “photographic” record
Can be held and manipulated
Can lead to creative solutions for puzzling problems
Gender differences in mental imagery
Women seem to use images more in memories, while
men use them more in immediate problem-solving
Not limited to visual images
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How do we use mental imagery in our daily lives? Can you think of some examples?
Same
Same
Different
Are the objects
in each pair the
same or different?
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© Cengage Learning
People vary in their abilities to manipulate mental image. Let’s try it out with these examples.
Mental categories we use to group
objects, events, and ideas according
to their common features
Functions
Helps us make sense of the world and allow
us to anticipate the future more accurately
Allows us to distinguish threatening from
harmless stimuli
Helps us to respond more quickly to events
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Concepts are mental representations of information in the form of categories for grouping similar objects, events, and ideas.
What makes a fruit
a fruit?
Logical vs.
natural concepts
How do people use natural concepts?
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© Myotis/Shutterstock.com
How do logical concepts differ from natural concepts? How do we develop the concepts we use in our daily lives?
Logical concepts – clearly defined rules for determining membership
Natural concepts – the rules for determining membership are poorly defined or fuzzy
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Problem solving – a cognitive process in which we employ mental strategies to solve problems.
We can sometimes solve problems through:
Trial and error (hit or miss)
Insight or “eureka-type” experiences. Insight is believed to result from restructuring a problem. Do you remember the work of Wolfgang Kohler from chapter 5?
Next we’ll take a look at two problems that involve some creative problem solving strategies.
Source: Metcalfe, J. (1986). Feelings of knowing in memory and problem solving. Journal of Experimental Psychology:
Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 12, 288-294.
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The problem here is to move only three of the dots to make a downward facing triangle. You can use a set of poker chips to work through the solution. Will you try out every possible solution (trial and error approach)? Or will you sit back and mull the problem over in your head, waiting for a flash of inspiration that leads to the correct solution (insight approach)? The answer is found on the next slide.
Problem
Move only three of these dots to
make a downward-facing triangle
Solution
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Source: Metcalfe, J. (1986). Feelings of knowing in memory and problem solving. Journal of Experimental Psychology:
Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 12, 288-294.
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© Cengage Learning
Algorithms and heuristics can be used as problem-solving strategies.
An algorithm is a methodical, step-by-step procedure for trying all possible alternatives in searching for a solution to a problem, which guarantees a solution. Algorithms used in arithmetic render perfect solutions. So long as you follow the rules for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, you will get the right answer every time. Computers are programmed to apply algorithms to solve problems.
Heuristics are guiding principles or “rules of thumb” used in solving problems, but they don’t guarantee success.
The matchstick problem shown here is an example of how heuristics can be used to solve a problem. You must move two matches to form four equal squares.
An algorithm (trying all possible solutions) in this case will eventually work, but is inefficient, as there are just too many possible rearrangements of the matchsticks to test each one. Instead, you can apply a rule of thumb of discarding unlikely alternatives in order to find a more likely solution.
[Click to see solution]
Types of Heuristics include:
- Means-end analysis – evaluating the difference between a current position and a desired goal, then employing different means to reduce that difference.
- Working backwards – starting with a potential solution and working backward to see if the data support the solution
- Creating subgoals – See next slide.
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Sub Goal 1
Sub Goal 2
Sub Goal 3
© Cengage Learning
A
B
C
1
2
3
Formulating subgoals is an example of a problem-solving heuristic by which we approach a complex problem by creating subgoals that break down a larger problem into smaller, more manageable problems.
In this example (called the Tower of Hanoi problem), you must move the rings from peg A to peg C. You can move only the top ring on a peg and can’t place a larger ring above a smaller one.
Formulating subgoals is a useful strategy for completing this problem. Think of it this way – your first goal is to move ring 3, the biggest ring, onto peg C. Your second goal is to move ring two to peg B, and so on.
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© Cengage Learning
Common barriers to problem solving include functional fixedness, which is the tendency to perceive an item only in terms of its most common use (as in the two-string problem); mental set, which exists when people persist in using problem-solving strategies that have worked in the past but may not apply to the present problem.
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© Cengage Learning
Two strings hang from the ceiling but are too far apart to allow a person to hold one and walk to the other. On the table are a book of matches, a candle, and a few pieces of cotton. How could the strings be tied together?
[Click to see the solution.]
The solution depends on tying the candle to the string so that the string could be swung like a pendulum. Failure to solve the problem is a classic example of functional fixedness (failing to recognize how a candle can be used in other ways).
127 Cups
3 Cups
21 Cups
100 Cups
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© Cengage Learning
Suppose that you have a 21-cup jar, a 127-cup jar, and a 3-cup jar. Drawing and discarding as much water as you like, you need to measure out exactly 100 cups of water. How can this be done? Solving this problem requires an ability to reduce numerical relationships to an algebraic formula, which is this case is B (100-cup jar) – A (21-cup jar) – 2C (3-cup jar). Classic studies by Gestalt psychologist Abraham Luchins in the 1940s showed that once people derive a formula that works, they continue to use the same formula even when simpler solutions become possible. An example like the one shown here would be followed by several other similar examples that can be solved by the same formula. Then a new problem appears in which a simpler strategy would work, but most people continue to rely on the earlier but more cumbersome formula. The tendency to rely on strategies that worked in similar situations in the past but that may not be the best solution to the present problem is called a mental set.
[Click to see the solution.]
Do you ever look for information that
“proves” you are right while ignoring
data that shows you are wrong?
The tendency to stick to an initial hypothesis even in the face of strong contradictory evidence
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Once you have a first impression – either of a situation or a person – the confirmation bias may explain some of why it is so difficult to get that impression to change.
Which is more likely?
They are equally likely
½ x ½ x ½ x ½ x ½ x ½ = 1/64
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© Cengage Learning
Which of the two scenarios on the screen seems more likely?
[Click to see answer]
The representativeness heuristic involves basing the estimated probability of an event on how similar it is to the typical prototype or example of that event.
You may have guessed the answer is the bottom row, as it seems to be more representative of a random sequence than the top row. However, the probability is exactly the same. The representativeness heuristic can lead us to poor decisions when the sample we rely upon is not representative of the larger population (e.g., seeing what turns out to be a lousy movie because we happen to have overheard someone in an elevator recommending it to a friend).
Words beginning with the letter K
Which is more frequent?
Words with K in the third position
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Heuristics are mental shortcuts that people use in forming judgments and making decisions in situations of uncertainty. As we’ve seen, heuristics can be helpful in problem solving, but they sometimes become impediments to problem solving.
The availability heuristic involves basing the estimated probability of an event on how easily relevant instances come to mind – for example, estimating divorce rate by recalling the number of divorces among your friends’ parents.
Research by Tversky and Kahneman supports the hypothesis that examples that come to mind more readily, such as words beginning with the letter K, are perceived to be more frequent than examples that may be forgotten, such as words with K in the third position. Thus, applying the availability heuristic can lead to the wrong answer.
Divergent thinking vs. convergent thinking
Cognitive processes underlying creativity
Use of analogy
Conceptual combination
Conceptual expansion
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© The New Yorker Collection 1998 Leo Cullum from cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved.
Here we see some of the processes underlying creative thinking. You don’t need to be a genius to be creative. How can we be creative in our own lives?
Creativity – thinking that leads to original, practical, and meaningful solutions to problems or that generates new ideas or artistic expressions.
Divergent thinking – the ability to conceive of new ways of viewing situations and new uses for familiar objects.
Convergent thinking – The attempt to narrow down a range of alternatives to one correct answer to a problem.
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Module 7.2
Language
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Language is defined as consisting of symbols that convey meaning, plus rules for combining those symbols, that can be used to generate an infinite variety of messages.
Grammar refers to the set rules that dictate how symbols in a given language are used to form meaningful expressions.
Phoneme:
s t r ey n j
Syntax:
( a stranger is a person
you do not know)
Morpheme:
strange
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strangers
Semantics:
There are strangers near our house.
Basic sounds are combined into units with meaning, which are combined into words, which are combined into phrases, which are combined into sentences.
Phonemes are the smallest units of speech. English uses about 40 phonemes that can combine to form approximately 500,000 words.
Morphemes are the smallest units of meaning in a language, consisting of root words, prefixes, and suffixes.
Syntax is a system of rules for arranging words into sentences. Different languages have different rules (e.g., verb or subject first in a sentence?)
Semantics refer to the meaning of words and word combinations. Learning semantics involves learning the variety of objects and actions to which words refer.
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© iStockphoto.com/kvisel
Milestones in Language Acquisition
| Age (Approximate) | Vocal Activity | Description |
| Birth | Crying | Crying expresses distress |
| 2 months | Cooing | Infant begins making cooing sounds (e.g., “aah” and “oooh”). |
| 6 to 12 months | Babbling | Phonemes, the basic units of sound, appear. |
| 12 months | One-word phrases | Babies imitate sounds and can understand some words; they begin to say single words. |
| 18 to 24 months | Two-word phrases or sentences | Vocabulary grows to about 50 words, and babies emit two-word phrases or sentences. |
| 24 to 36 months | Complex speech | Sentences become longer and more complex and include plurals and past tense; speech shows elements of proper syntax |
Infant vocalizations are initially similar across languages, involving all phonemes. Infants cry, coo, and make repetitive babbling vocalizations of all phonemes.
Birth – a child will only use crying as a linguistic expression.
2 months – Cooing
By the age of 6 months, the babbling sounds begin to resemble those of the infants’ surrounding language.
By the time an infant is 12 months of age, the first word is typically spoken, usually dada, mama, papa, etc. This is similar across cultures.
While few words are spoken (expressive language) at this stage, very young children may actually understand (receptive language) more language than they can produce.
18 to 24 months sees the child using two-word phrases or sentences.
From 2 to 3 years the child will start mastering complex speech.
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2-5 years: Language
Development
for Early Childhood
By the end of the second year, children begin combining words to produce meaningful sentences. These sentences are characterized as telegraphic, because they resemble telegrams, consisting mainly of content words, with articles, prepositions, and other less critical words omitted.
By the end of the third year, children can express complex ideas; however, they continue to make mistakes such as overregularizing, which invovles generalizing grammatical rules incorrectly to irregular cases where they do not apply, such as in the example, ”he goed home,” for example.
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Clinton Wallace/Globe Photos/ZUMAPRESS.com/Alamy
Nature and Nurture:
Chomsky believes we have an inborn propensity to learn language. Chomsky introduced the concept of the language acquisition device (LAD), which he described as an innate, prewired mechanism for language development.
Both nature and nurture are involved in language acquisition. Humans have a biological capacity to develop language, but need experience with the sounds, meanings, and structures of human speech for language to develop.
Critics note that Chomsky’s LAD does not explain mechanisms by which language is produced.
Linguistic relativity hypothesis:
Language determines thought
Also called the Whorfian hypothesis
Research findings
Language does not determine thought but
it does influence how we think about the world
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Use example of Rosch’s research with a New Guinea tribe, showing that even though tribal members had only two words to distinguish among many colors, they were just as able as English-speaking people to distinguish between many different colors. That said, language does influence thought. For example, how does the use of the male gender when speaking of certain occupations (e.g., policeman, fireman) influence gender typing of these occupations.
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Courtesy of the Great Ape Trust of Iowa
Researchers have attempted to teach language to a variety of animals, but the most success has been shown with chimpanzees and gorillas.
One of the biggest problems in teaching human language to nonhuman animals is that the vocal apparatus is not the same. Researchers, therefore, began to use ASL with chimpanzees.
One early example was Washoe, a chimpanzee who was taught to use ASL. Washoe developed a vocabulary of about 160 words, combining them into simple sentences, but showing little evidence of mastering the rules of language.
The neurological substrates underlying language may be present in chimpanzees. Still, chimps by no means approach the language facility of an adult human, suggesting an evolutionary basis for human language development.
Note that many animals species have their own communication systems. Is it fair to judge communication in other animal species by human standards? What would it be like for humans to learn chimp communication?
General findings are that animals can learn imitation but lack the ability to master grammatical components such as syntax, which would be required for true “language” use.
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Module 7.3
Intelligence
The capacity to
Reason clearly
Act purposefully
Adapt to one’s environment
Pursue one’s goals
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Like the word “thinking”, the word “intelligence” is widely used but is difficult to define precisely. The following definition was suggested by the American psychologist and developer of many widely-used tests of intelligence, David Wechsler: “The global capacity of the individual to act purposefully, to think rationally, and to deal effectively with the environment.”
Alfred Binet –
With colleague Theodore Simon, developed the first formal intelligence test to assess a child’s mental age.
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The Frenchmen Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon developed the first modern intelligence test. In 1912, a German psychologist, William Stern, offered a formula for computing the IQ based on ratio between mental age (MA) and chronological age (CA).
Lewis Terman
Adapted Binet-Simon test
for American use and established norms for comparisons
David Wechsler
Introduced concept of deviation IQ where 100 is average
Created tests designed to measure various mental abilities
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©Kristin Sekulic/Shutterstock.com
The intelligence test came to the U.S. and was developed further with the work of Henry Goddard and, later, of Stanford University psychologist Lewis Terman and New York psychologist David Wechsler.
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© Cengage Learning
Here we see examples of subtests similar to those used on the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale.
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© Cengage Learning
The distribution of intelligence is represented in terms of a normal distribution (“bell curve”).
Standardization
Reliability
Test-retest method
Alternative-forms method
Validity
Predictive validity
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What are the characteristics of a good intelligence test? How do tests measure up to these standards?
Standardization – establishing norms for a test by administering the test to large numbers of people who constitute a standardization sample.
Reliability – consistency of test scores over time.
Validity – the extent to which a test measures what it purports to measure.
Low expectations can become
self-fulfilling prophecies
Too much emphasis placed on IQ scores
in student placement
May be biased against those from other cultural backgrounds
Development of culture-fair tests
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How might IQ tests be misused? Have you ever had an intelligence test? How was it used (or misused)?
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F64/Digital Vision/Getty Images
Despite common mythology, neither sex is “smarter” than the other as a general statement.
Females tend to outperform males on some verbal skills, such as reading, writing, and spelling.
Males hold an edge in visual-spatial tasks. Traditional differences in math skills have virtually disappeared in recent years.
Men and women tend to perform similarly on tests of general intelligence and problem-solving skills.
Intellectual disability
IQ of about 70 or below
Difficulty coping with age-appropriate tasks
Practice of mainstreaming
Causes can be biological, environmental, or both
Intellectually gifted
IQ of about 130 or higher
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Note: IQ ranges and prevalence data are based on the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, 10th revision (ICD-10) Version for 2010.
Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization; King et al., 2009.
Levels of Intellectual Disability and Capabilities of School-Age Children
| Level of Intellectual Disability (approx. IQ Range) | Approx. Percentage of Cases | Typical Capabilities of School-Age Children |
| Mild (50-69) | 85% | Able to acquire reading and arithmetic skills to about a sixth-grade level and can later function relatively independently and engage in productive work. |
| Moderate (35-49) | 10% | Able to learn simple communication and manual skills, but have difficulty acquiring reading and arithmetic skills. |
| Severe (20-34) | 4% | Capable of basic speech and may be able to learn repetitive tasks in supervised settings. |
| Profound (below 20) | 2% | Severe delays in all areas of development, but some may learn simple tasks in supervised settings. |
Important to note that the great majority of people with intellectual disability fall in the mild range of the disorder.
Spearman’s “g”
Thurstone’s primary mental abilities
Gardner’s model of multiple intelligences
Sternberg’s triarchic theory of intelligence
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Psychologists continue to debate the nature of intelligence. These are some of the major conceptual models.
British psychologist Charles Spearman emphasized the importance of “g” or general cognitive ability. He also posited the need to account for specific abilities as well as “g’.”
Verbal comprehension
Numerical ability
Memory
Inductive reasoning
Perceptual speed
Verbal fluency
Spatial relations
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Psychologist Louis Thurstone expanded Spearman’s two-factor model (general ability and specific abilities) to seven primary mental abilities.
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Source: From D. J. Martin and K. S. Loomis, Building Teachers, 1st ed., Figure 5.5, p.136. Copyright © 2007 Wadsworth, a part of Cengage Learning.
Reproduced by permission. www.academic.cengage.com
Contemporary psychologist Howard Gardner posits the existence of multiple intelligences. He encourages schools to cultivate these different intelligences, not just the traditional linguistic and logical-mathematical intelligences. Do you agree?
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© Cengage Learning
© Will & Deni McIntyre/Corbis
© iStockphoto/Marcus Clackson
Anders Ryman/Documentary/Corbis
Another contemporary psychologist, Robert Sternberg, emphasizes how we bring together different aspects of our intelligence in meeting the challenges we face. He believes intelligence comprises three aspects: analytic, creative, and practical.
Evidence that intelligence has a strong genetic component
Environmental influences also important
Verbal interaction, reading, exploration
Both nature and nurture interact in complex ways
Heritability suggest that about 50% of the variation
in intelligence in the population can be explained
by genetic factors
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White Americans of European background typically score an average of 15 points higher than African Americans
on IQ tests
The reasons for this difference are unclear, though several different theories have been forwarded
Genetic explanations have generally been discounted,
and the emphasis is on environmental differences
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Applying Psychology in Daily Life
Becoming a Creative Problem Solver
Adopt a questioning attitude
Gather information
Avoid getting stuck in mental sets
Generate alternatives
Personal brainstorming
After generating a list, put it aside for a few days
Find analogies
Think outside the box
Sleep on it
Test it out
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