Welcome Back!

Review of Henry Clay Expectations Syllabus Update/Refinements (new

room= new stuff!) Review of commonly missed exam

questions Creativity

I got tons of Jurassic Park stuff for

Christmas! (Happy Ms. Moberg!)

Extra Credit Opportunity

The Remix to Cognition-Earn 5 extra credit points on our next test! Make your own “Remix to Ignition” to AP

Psychology Cognition! ▪ Requirements:

▪ 10 vocabulary terms defined/explained in your song lyrics▪ School appropriate▪ To earn the full points, you will

A) preform your remix in class B) record your remix to be played for the class in a format that

can be played on Windows Media Player C) upload of video of you preforming your remix to Youtube so

we can watch in class!

DUE: Monday January 19th (no exceptions)

Chapter 8: Language and Thought

Problem Solving

Cognition

Cognition- mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating information Concepts- mental groupings of similar

objects, events, ideas, and people Prototypes- mental image or best

example of a category

Creativity

Creativity- the ability to produce ideas that are both novel and valuable Studies suggest that a certain level of

aptitude-a score above 120 on a standard intelligence test- supports creativity

Convergent thinking- narrows the available problem solutions to determine the single best solution

Divergent thinking- expands the number of possible problem solutions (creative thinking that diverges in different directions)

5 Components of Creativity Expertise- a well-developed base of knowledge Imaginative thinking skills- the ability to see

things in novel ways, to recognize patterns, and to make connections

A venturesome personality- to seek new experiences, tolerates ambiguity and risk, and perseveres in overcoming obstacles

Intrinsic motivation- being driven by more interest, satisfaction, and challenge than by external pressures

A creative environment- sparks, supports, and refines creative ideas.

Problem Solving: Types of Problems

Greeno (1978) – three basic classes Problems of inducing structure

Series completion and analogy problems

Problems of arrangement String problem and Anagrams

▪ Often solved through insight Problems of transformation

Hobbits and orcs problem Water jar problem

Word Problems

Susan gets in her car in Boston and drives toward New York City, averaging 50 mph. Twenty minutes later, Ellen gets in her car in New York City driving towards Boston,

averaging 60 miles per hour. Both women take the same route, which extends a total of 220 miles between the 2 cities. Which car is nearer to Boston when they meet?

Simple Word Problems

In the Thompson family there are five brothers and each brother has one sister. If you count Mrs. Thompson, how many females are in the Thompson family?

Fifteen percent of the people in Topeka have unlisted phone numbers. You select 200 names at random from the Topeka phone book. How many of these people can be expected to have unlisted phone numbers?

Figure 8.6 Six standard problems used in studies of problem solving

Solution to Water Jar Problem

(B-A-2C)

Mental Set “Insanity is doing the same thing over

and over and expecting different results”

– Einstein

The first four require the same strategy

(B-A-2C)

The 5th is much simpler (A-C), however people get stuck here

Without lifting your pencil from the paper, draw no more than 4 straight lines that will cross through all nine dots.-no retracing lines

Unnecessary Constraints

• Most people will not draw lines outside the imaginary boundary that surrounds the dots

• That constraint is imposed by the problem solver, not the prompt.

• People also feel compelled to draw 4 lines, but that’s not necessary

The Matchstick Problem

Move 2 matches to form 4 (and only 4) equal squares.

Matchstick Solution

Effective Problem Solving

Barriers to effective problem solving: Irrelevant Information Functional Fixedness Mental Set Unnecessary Constraints

Figure 8.12 The tower of Hanoi problem

Approaches to Problem Solving

Algorithms Systematic trial-and-error Guaranteed solution

Heuristics Shortcuts No guaranteed solution

▪ Forming subgoals▪ Working backward▪ Searching for analogies▪ Changing the representation of a problem

Heuristics in Judging Probabilities

The availability heuristic▪ Explains why you are afraid of being attacked

by a shark, but you shouldn’t be.

The representativeness heuristic▪ Judging a book by it’s cover▪ Use your representative heuristic

to make assumptions about this guy

Decision Making:Evaluating Alternatives and Making Choices

Simon (1957) – theory of bounded rationality

Making Choices Additive strategies Elimination by aspects Risky decision making

▪ Expected value▪ Subjective utility▪ Subjective probability

Table 8.3 Application of the additive model to choosing an apartment

Culture, Cognitive Style,and Problem Solving

Field dependence – relying on external frames of reference

Field independence – relying on internal frames of reference Western cultures inspire field

independence Cultural influence based in ecological

demands Holistic vs. analytic cognitive styles

Understanding Pitfalls in Reasoning About Decisions

The gambler’s fallacy Assuming something will happen soon because it’s

“due” Overestimating the improbable

More likely to die in an airplane or car? Confirmation bias

Seeking information to confirm what you already believe The overconfidence effect

98% confidence intervals only right 60% of the time Framing

10 people are drowning, you can either save 5 of them OR let 5 of them die

Language

Wednesday-Friday

Language and language development

“Genie” Review of key psychologists and

theories from this chapter “Koko” (if we have time)

The Cognitive Revolution

19th Century focus on the mind Introspection

Behaviorist focus on overt responses arguments regarding incomplete picture

of human functioning Empirical study of cognition – 1956

conference Simon and Newell – problem solving Chomsky – new model of language Miller – memory

Language: Turning Thoughts into Words

Properties of Language Symbolic Semantic Generative Structured

Language Acquisition

Innateness Hypothesis- humans are hard-wired to acquire language in a way that mammals cannot

Cultural Transmission Language is learned by its speakers Humans are not pre-programmed to speak a

specific language

Darwin – language ability is “an instinctive tendency to acquire an art”

The Hierarchical Structure of Language

Phonemes = smallest speech units 100 possible, English – about 40

Morphemes = smallest unit of meaning 50,000 in English, root words, prefixes,

suffixes Semantics = meaning of words and

word combinations Objects and actions to which words refer

Syntax = a system of rules for arranging words into sentences Different rules for different languages

Language Development: Milestones

Initial vocalizations similar across languages Crying, cooing, babbling

6 months – babbling sounds begin to resemble surrounding language

▪ Twin Talk 1 year – first word

similar cross-culturally – words for parents receptive vs. expressive language

Table 8.2 Overview of Typical Language Development

Language Development:Milestones Continued

18-24 months – vocabulary spurt fast mapping over and underextensions

▪ Overextension = Child calls all things round “ball”▪ Underextension = Child uses word “puppy” only in reference

to their family pet, fails to recognize other puppies End of second year – combine words

Telegraphic speech = “Me have now!” Mean Length of Utterance (MLU) = # of morphemes

End of third year – complex ideas, plural, past tense Overregularization = “I runned over here fast!”

Bilingualism:Learning More Than One Language

Research findings: Smaller vocabularies in one language,

combined vocabularies average Higher scores for middle-class bilingual

subjects on cognitive flexibility, analytical reasoning, selective attention, and metalinguistic awareness

Slight disadvantage in terms of language processing speed

2nd languages more easily acquired early in life

Greater acculturation facilitates acquisition

Figure 8.4 Age and second language learning

Critical Period

A span/period of time in one’s life which one must acquire a first language

Full proficiency can never be acquired if no language is acquired during the critical period

Exact cut-off age is not certain but is before puberty

Ex. “Genie” and deaf children born to hearing parents

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmdycJQi4Q

Theories of Language Acquisition

Behaviorist Skinner (Verbal Behavior 1957)

▪ learning of specific verbal responsesNativist

Chomsky▪ learning the rules of language▪ Language Acquisition Device (LAD)

Interactionist Cognitive, social communication, and

emergentist theories

B.F. Skinner v. Noam ChomskyAttempts to explain language development have sparked a spirited intellectual controversy. At the heart of this controversy is the nature-nurture debate. Behaviorist B. F. Skinner believed that we

can explain how babies acquire language entirely with principles of learning, such as the association of objects with the sounds of words, the imitation of language modeled by others, and

the reinforcement of correct use of words and syntax by parents and teachers. Linguist Noam Chomsky, who favors the nature position, believes that much of our language capacity is inborn. According to this perspective, just as "learning" to walk is programmed according to a timetable

of biological maturation, so children are prewired to begin to babble and talk.

In this exercise, review each of the following examples of language use by children and decide whether it best supports the position of B. F. Skinner or

Noam Chomsky.

1. While Marie and her mother are looking at a book together, Marie's mother shows her a picture of an animal and says "cow." Marie says "cow," and her mother praises her for her correct utterance. Two pages later, Marie spontaneously points to a picture and correctly identifies it as a cow.

2. When his day care teacher asks 2-year-old Jack what he did last Saturday, he responds with "We goed to the zoo." His teacher smiles, marveling at the fact that all children Jack's age make this type of grammatical error.

3. Nicole, who is deaf and was not exposed to sign language until age 3, lacks the manual linguistic skills of deaf children born to deaf-signing parents.

4. Twelve-year-old Malcolm, who emigrated to the United States at age 4, understands English grammar much better than 20-year-old Maya, who was first exposed to English at age 12.

Can Animals Develop Language?

Dolphins, sea lions, parrots, chimpanzees Vocal apparatus issue American Sign Language

Allen and Beatrice Gardner (1969) Chimpanzee - Washoe 160 word vocabulary

Sue Savage-Rumbaugh Bonobo chimpanzee - Kanzi Symbols Receptive language – 72% of 660 requests

Perspective Taking: Do Animals Have Language?

Few controversies have so divided the scientific community as has the controversy about the apes’ capacity for language. Although many scientists have made serious attempts at rearing apes in language-rich environments, the results have not overwhelmingly demonstrated that apes can use language as human beings us it.

At the heart of the argument are the criteria we use to determine true capacity for language. Generally, scientists specializing in the study of language impose the following criteria for the debate:

• Is the language symbolic: Can it be used to represent absent objects?• Does the language have systematic syntax, or word order?• Can the language be used in a creative or productive manner?

Figure 8.5 Interactionist theories of language acquisition