1
Q
What is cognition?
A
- -the mental processes involved in acquiring knowledge
- -involves thinking
2
Q
What are the properties of language?
A
- -language is symbolic: people use spoken sounds and written words to represent objects, actions, ideas, events
- -language is semantic: meaningful
- -language is generative: a limited number of symbols can be combined in an infinite variety of ways to generate an endless array of novel messages. Everyday you create and comprehend sentences that you have never spoken or heard before
- -language is structured: rules govern the arrangement of words into phrases and sentences
3
Q
What are phonemes?
A
–the smallest speech units in a language that can be distinguished perceptually
4
Q
What are morphemes?
A
- -the smallest unit of meaning in a language
- -each morpheme contributes to the meaning of the entire word
- -ex. unfriendly has 3 morphemes; the root friend, the prefix un and the suffix ly
5
Q
What is semantics?
A
- -the area of language concerned with understanding the meaning of words and word combinations
- -a words meaning may consist of both it’s denotation, (dictionary definition), and its connotation (emotional overtones and secondary implications)
6
Q
What is syntax?
A
–a system of rules that specify how words can be arranged into sentences
7
Q
What is a critical period?
A
–refers to a limited time span in the development of an organism when it is optimal for certain capacities to emerge because the organism is especially responsive to certain experiences
8
Q
How do children develop language?
A
- -at around 10-13 months of age, children begin to utter sounds that correspond to words (mama, dada, papa) because they resemble syllables that infants most often babble spontaneously
- -toddlers can say between 3 and 50 words by 18 months but their receptive vocabulary is larger than their productive vocabulary
- -children probably acquire nouns before verbs because the meanings of nouns refer to distinct concert objects while the meanings of verbs tend to represent more abstract concepts
- -vocabulary spurt: 18-24 months
9
Q
What is fast mapping?
A
- -one factor underlying the rapid growth of vocabulary during the vocal spurt
- -it is the process by which children map a word onto an underlying concept after only one exposure
10
Q
What is an overextension?
A
- -occurs when a child incorrectly uses a word to describe a wider set of objects or actions than it is meant to
- -ex. using the word ball for anything that is round
- -appears between ages 1 and 2 1/2 and last for several months
11
Q
What is an underextension?
A
- -occurs when a child incorrectly uses a word to describe a narrower set of objects or actions than it is meant to
- -ex. child might use the word doll to refer only to a single, favourite doll
- -overextensions and under extensions show that a child is actively trying to learn the rules of a language
12
Q
What is telegraphic speech?
A
- -early sentences at the end of second year of age are characterized as telegraphic speech
- -telegraphic speech consists mainly of content words; articles, prepositions, and other less critical words are omitted
- -ex. “give doll” instead of “please give me the doll”
- -not cross-culturally universal
13
Q
What is overregularizations?
A
- -occur when grammatical rules are incorrectly generalized to irregular cases where they do not apply
- -ex “I goed home” or “I hitted the ball”
- -occur in all languages
14
Q
What is metalinguistic awareness
A
- -the ability to reflect on the use of language
- -school-age children begin to take interest ambiguities in sentences, and they “play” with language to come up with puns and jokes
15
Q
According to Ellen Bialystok’s recent research, what are the cognitive benefits to being bilingual?
A
- -bilingualism is associated with higher levels of controlled processing on tasks that require control of attention
- -both languages remain active even when bilinguals are reading, writing, and hearing one particular language so they have the cognitive control to juggle both languages relatively easily
- -enhanced social skills
- -even “crib bilinguals” who can’t speak show enhanced ability to control and switch attention
- -bilingualism may help attenuate age-related losses in certain aspects of cognition
ex. bilingual patients experienced the onset of dementia four years later, o average, than monolingual patients
16
Q
What did Allen and Beatrice Gardner do?
A
- -since chimps do not have the vocal apparatus to acquire human speech, Allen and Beatrice trained a chimp named Washoe to use ASL
- -Washoe learned 160 words and was able to combine these words to convey sentences such as “Washoe sorry”
- -however, according to Herbert Terrace, the chimps’ sentences were products of imitation and operant conditioning rather than generation based on linguistic rules
17
Q
What did Sue Savage-Rumbaugh and her colleagues do
A
- -trained bonobos to communicate by touching geometric symbols that represent words on a computer-monitored keyboard
- -One of the star pupils was a chimp named Kanzi and he acquired hundreds of words and was able to combine them in what seemed follow the rules of language
- -ex. he was able to specify if he wanted to chase of be chased by differentiating between symbol combinations in a way that appeared to involve the use of grammatical rules
- -Kanzi’s trainers began to notice he could understand verbal utterances between them so they evaluated this by asking Kanzi to carry out tasks such as “pour the coke in the lemonade” and “pour the lemonade in the coke” and Kanzi correctly carried our 72% of the 660 requests
18
Q
Can animals develop language?
A
- -yes, but in a very basic and primitive way
- -however, a normal human toddler can surpass even the most successfully trained chimps
19
Q
What does Steven Pinker suggest as to why humans are so well suited for learning language?
A
- -the universal nature of language suggests that language is an innate human characteristic
- -Consistent with this view, Pinker argues that humans’ special talent for language is a species-specific trait that is the product of natural selection
- -However, David Premack expressed criticism that small differences in language skill would influence reproductive fitness in primitive societies where all they had to do was warn others of predators
- -In an effort to refute this argument, Pinker and Bloom point out that very small adaptive disparities are sufficient to fuel evolutionary change
20
Q
What does Dunbar argue about human language evolution?
A
–argues that language developed as a device to build and maintain social coalitions in increasingly larger groups
21
Q
What is the behaviourist theory of language acquisition?
A
- -First outlined by Skinner in his book Verbal Behaviour and he claimed that children learn language the same way they learn everything else: through imitation, reinforcement, and conditioning
- -vocalizations are shaped with reinforcers until they are correct
- -ex. as children grow older, parents may insist on closer and closer approximation of the word water before supplying the requested drink
22
Q
How did Chomsly argue Skinners behaviourist theory of language acquisition and what did he propose instead?
A
- -Chomsky pointed out that there are infinite number of sentences in a language therefore it’s unreasonable to expect that children learn language by imitation
- -For example, children routinely children misuse the suffix “ed” and say “goed” “eated” and “thinked”. Mistakes such as these are inconsistent with Skinner’s emphasis on imitation because most adult speakers don’t use ungrammatical words like “goed”
- -Children create novel words and sentences
- -According to Chomsky, children learn the rules of language, not specific verbal responses as Skinner proposed
23
Q
What is the nativist theory of language acquisition?
A
- -This theory favoured by Chomsky suggests that humans have an inborn or “native” propensity to learn language
- -Nativist theory proposes that humans are equipped with a language acquisition device (LAD): an innate mechanism or process that facilitates the learning of language
24
Q
What did critics say about the nativist theory?
A
- -They argue that the LAD concept is terribly vague as there is no explanation as to how it works, what exactly it is, and the neural mechanisms that underly it
- -they also argue that it isn’t fair to compare the rapid progress of toddlers, who are immersed in their native language, against the struggles of older students, who may devote 10-15 hours per week to their foreign language course
- -according to this nativist approach, there’s no behaviourist programming, reinforcement is not part of this process. This is a problem because children require something to imitate.
25
What is the interactionist theory of language acquisition?
- -these theories assert that both biology and experience make important contributions to the development of language
- -like the nativists, interactionists believe that humans are biologically equipped for language learning and also agree that much of this acquisition involves rules
- -however, like the behaviourists, they believe that social exchanges with parents and others play a critical role in moulding language skills
- -three types of interactionist approaches
1) Cognitive: language development is just an aspect of the natural cognitive development that comes with the child’s growth/maturity
2) Social Communication: language develops because we are social animals and communication is vital to our social world (a functional approach
3) Emergentist: the young brain is still maturing/forming and the connections are still emerging. As the child is exposed to language and has a chance to try language, their brain will solidify (consolidate) connections that support this development
26
What is linguistic relativity?
- -Bejamin Lee Whorf speculated that different languages lead people to view the world differently
- -linguistic relativity: the hypothesis that one's language determines the nature of one's thought
- -current thinking seems to favour the "weaker version" of the hypothesis (language makes certain ways of thinking easier or more difficult) rather than the "stronger" version (a given language makes certain ways of thinking obligatory or impossible)
27
How did Jim Greeno categorize problems?
1) problems of inducing structure: requires people to discover relationships among numbers, words, symbols, or ideas. Ex: 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 family?
2) problems of arrangement: requires people to arrange parts of a problem in a way that satisfies some criterion. Ex. rearrange the letters in each row to make an English word
3) problems of transformation require people to carry out a sequence of transformations in order to reach a specific goal
ex. suppose you have a 21 cup jar, a 127 cup jar, and a 3 cup jar. Drawing and discarding as much water as you'd like, you need to measure out exactly 100 cups of water. How can this be done?
28
What are the barriers to effective problem solving?
1) focusing on irrelevant information; effective problem solving requires that you attempt to figure out what information is relevant and what is irrelevant before proceeding
2) functional fixedness: the tendency to perceive an item only in terms of its most common use. People tend to overlook obscure, little-noticed features of problems. To combat this, you have to train yourself to successfully decompose problems into their constituent parts
3) mental set: exists when people persist in using problem-solving strategies that have worked in the past
4) unnecessary constraints: effective problem solving requires specifying all the constraints governing a problem without assuming any constraints that don't exist. Ex. without lifting your pencil, draw a line through all 9 dots. Many people thinking they can't draw outside the do boundaries even though that constraint wasn't specified in the problem.
29
What is the problem space?
- -refers to the set of possible pathways to a solution considered by the problem solver
- -the problem solver's task is to find a solution path among the potential pathways that could lead from the problem's initial state to its goal state
30
What is an algorithm approach to problem-solving?
- -a methodological, step-by-step procedure for trying all possible alternatives in searching for a solution to a problem
- -ex. to solve the anagram IHCRA, you could write out all possible arrangements of these letters until you eventually reach an answer
- -algorithms can be effective when there are relatively few possible solutions to be tried out but they can be impractical when the problem space is large
31
What is the heuristic approach to problem solving?
- -a guiding principle or a "rule of thumb" used in solving problems or making decisions
- -a heuristic allows you to discard some alternatives and narrow the problem space while pursuing selected alternatives that appear more likely to lead to a solution
- -heuristics in problem solving include forming subgoals (intermediate steps toward a solution), working backward, searching for analogies (if you can spot an analogy between problems, you may be able to use the solution to a previous problem to solve a current one, and changing the representation of a problem
- -however, the reason there are flaws and biases in decision making is because people tend to use heuristics
32
What is the incubation effect?
- -occurs when new solutions surface for a previously unsolved problem after a period of not consciously thinking about the problem
- -research suggests that incubation effects can even occur during sleep
- -some theorists believe that the incubation effects occur because people continue to work on problems at an unconscious level after conscious effort has been suspended
- -however, other evidence suggests that a high level of mind wandering during the incubation break is associated with a greater likelihood of coming up with a new solution
33
How does culture influence problem-solving?
--people from Eastern Asian cultures display a holistic cognitive style that focuses on context and relationships among elements (might have to do with eastern cultures' emphasis on the group and interdependence), whereas people from western cultures exhibit an analytic cognitive style that focuses on objects and their properties rather than context (might have to do with western cultures' emphasis on the individual and independence)
34
How can preferences influence decision making?
- -Barry Schwartz has argued that people in modern societies are overwhelmed by an overabundances of choices about preference
- -he explains that people routinely make errors when choosing among a handful of alternatives and that having more alternatives increases the potential for rumination and post-decision regret. This undermines individuals' happiness and contributes to depression
- -studies show that when consumers have too many choices (for a specific product), they are more likely to leave a store empty handed. However, participants who subjectively felt knowledgable about specific products were less likely to buy when given many options, but those who did not feel very knowledgable tended to welcome additional options when the extra choices helped them educate themselves about the product
35
What did Ap Dijksterhuis and colleagues show?
- -deliberate decisions should be superior to intuitive decisions when choices are simple, but intuitive, unconscious decisions should be superior when choices are complex
- -Dijksterhuis believes that deliberations are taking place, but outside conscious awareness, when making unconscious and intuitive decisions
- -fMRI studies shows that the same brain regions that were activated by conscious deliberation about the decision remained active during the period of unconscious deliberation
36
What is risky decision making?
- -involves making choices under conditions of uncertainty
- -expected values can show whether you will gain from the choice, or lose (ex. gambling, lotteries, etc) however people frequently behave in ways that are inconsistent with expected value (gambler playing even through the expected value is negative)
- -subjective utility: represents what an outcome is personally worth to an individual. If we know an individuals' subjective utilities, we can better understand that person's risky decision making
- -subjective probability: if people don't know actual probabilities, they must rely on personal estimates of probabilities
37
What is the availability heuristic?
- -involves basing the estimated probability of an event on the ease with which relevant instances come to mind
ex. it's easier to think of words the begin with a certain letter than words that contain that letter at some other position. Hence, people tend to respond that there are more words starting with the letter K than words having a K in the third position
38
What is the representative heuristic?
--involves basing the estimated probability of an event on how similar it is to the typical prototype of that event
--people sometimes make a faulty decision based on how well something matches a prototype rather than its relevance to a particular situation
--ex. more likely to think an old woman is a librarian than a roller derby girl.
ex. assuming that it is more probable if HTHHTHTH happens during a coin toss rather than HHHHHHTT even though the chance to get heads or tails is equal (50%)
TENDENCY TO IGNORE BASE RATES
--assuming a shy and quite person is more likely to be a librarian rather than a salesperson. Salespeople outnumber librarians 75 to 1 so it is more likely that the person is a salesperson rather than a librarian. This base rate is often neglected when people estimate probabilities
--people are particularly bad when applying base-rates to themselves. ex, people underestimate the risks of their own health-impairing habits while viewing others' risk much more accurately
39
What is the conjunction fallacy?
- -occurs when people estimate that the odds of two uncertain events happening together are greater than the odds of either event happening alone
ex. You are meeting a man who is an articulate, ambitious, power-hungry wheeler dealer. Do you think it's more likely he's a university professor, or a university professor who's also a politician?
40
What is behavioural economics?
--a field of study that examines the effects of humans' actual (not idealized) decision-making processes on economic decisions
41
What is Simon's theory of bounded rationality?
- -asserts that people tend to use simple strategies in decision making that focus on only a few facets of available options and often result in "irrational" decisions that are less than optimal
- -people don't always live up to these goals of being systematic and rational in economic decisions
42
What did Kahneman and Tvertsky show in their paper "Prospect theory"?
--they showed that humans in their decision making often departed from the "rationality" and that how decision alternatives are framed (framing refers to how decisions are posed or how choices are structured) dramatically affects our decisions
43
What is the evolutionary analysis of flaws in human decision making?
- -According to Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, the human mind consists of a large number of specialized cognitive mechanisms that have emerged over the course of evolution to solve specific, adaptive problems such as finding food, shelter, mates, and dealing with allies and enemies. Thus, human decision-making and problem-solving strategies have been tailored to handle real-world adaptive problems
- -many errors in human reasoning should vanish if classical lab problems are reformulated in ways that resemble the type of input humans would have processed in ancestral times rather than probabilities and base rates
44
What has Gerd Gigerenzer suggested?
- -organisms have to make fast decisions under demanding circumstances with limited information so they do not have the time, resources, or cognitive capacities to gather all the relevant information, consider all of the possible options, calculate all the probabilities and risks, and then make statistically optimal decisions
- -demonstrated that these fast and frugal heuristics can yield inferences that are just as accurate as much more elaborate and time-consuming strategies that carefully weigh many options
45
What is the dual process theories?
- -people depend on two very different modes or systems when making decisions
- -one system consists of quick, simple, automatic judgements like the fast and frugal heuristics (tradition theorists characterize this as "intuitive thinking)
- -the second system consists of slower, more elaborate, effortful, controlled judgements
- -Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman refers to these two modes as System 1 (thinking fast) and System 2 (thinking slow)
46
What is cognitive psychology?
--researchers in this field seek to explain behaviour by investigating mental processes and structures that cannot be observed directly (attention, learning, problem solving, memory, language, etc.)
--The research involves a number of techniques, including neuropsychological analyses of patients with brain damage and mental disorders, computational modeling, functional neuroimaging, and experiments on the relation between brain development and cognition in human infants and other vertebrate species.
– also involves theoretical work involving computer simulation of the brain/mind
47
What does cognition refer to?
refers to all processes by which the sensory input is transformed, reduced, elaborated, stored, recovered, and used. It is concerned with these processes even when they operate in the absence of relevant stimulation, as in images and hallucinations.
48
What is serial vs parallel processing?
- -Serial processing: a series of steps in the “program” – where each step has to be resolved in order for the program to move on to the next step
- - Parallel processing: multiple steps can be processed at the same time – a network of processors that are interconnected (therefore can communicate with each other) – similarly, an interconnected network of neurons (i.e. a Neural Net)
- --->• Various lines of processing can communicate (excitatory or inhibitory) with other lines of processing
49
What is an algorithm?
A finite set of well-defined instructions for accomplishing some task
50
What did Alan Turing propose?
- -proposed a hypothetical machine(a Turing machine) that would follow an algorithm and be able to simulate the logic of any computer that could be constructed (including the brain)
- -The Church-Turing Thesis (Church’sThesis): we can create an algorithm for any task and then be simulated on a computer
51
What is the Chinese Room argument?
Searle
--build an algorithm to have a conversation in chinese (if (x) then (y)) that a machine follows. You put the machine in a box and someone puts in a question in Chinese through a slot. The machine scans the question (the input) and then looks at the algorithm to see what the answer should be (output) and then slides the answer back out through the slot. Searle’s argument is that a real person who actually speaks chinese can put in a question and get answers from this machine and be fooled into thinking that he/she is speaking to an actual person. Essentially the answer to this chinese room theory is that we can simulate the operations of the human brain into a computer. Searle proposes that we take the machine out and instead he goes into the room but the algorithm for the Chinese language (if (x) then (y)) is there. So when someone who speaks chinese puts in a question, Searle looks through the algorithm to find that input (question) and then write out the output (answer) so that the person on the outside is fooled into thinking that he/she is talking to a real person. However, Searle is merely following the syntax, but he doesn’t understand the meaning (semantics).
52
Is the mind a computer program?
- -General agreement that the answer is “No” (syntax, not semantics)
- -in the chinese room theroy, the computer can follow the syntax but doesn’t understand the semantics therefore the mind is not a computer program
53
What are the proponents of a weak vs strong AI?
- -Proponents of “WeakAI”–the principle value of the computer in the study of the mind is that it gives us a very powerful tool – it enables us to formulate and test hypotheses in a more rigorous and precise fashion
- -Proponents of “Strong AI”–the computer is not merely a tool in the study of the mind, rather, the appropriately programmed computer really is a mind, in the sense that computers given the right programs can be literally said to understand and have other cognitive states
54
Is the brain a digital computer?
The answer appears to be a tentative “Yes”
– NOTE – Searle (and others) would claim that the brain is a digital computer, however, the brain is also more than a digital computer – in that it has something more than what a digital computer does – intentionality
• Limited by the speed of the action potential( actual computers process faster, but work slower).
• The brain is made up of a Neural Net (a web of neurons) that appears to function as a parallel processor.
55
What is thinking and how does it relate to concepts?
Thinking involves the use of concepts. Concepts are just categories (ex. is this dead or not dead, is this a person or not a person, is this a cat or a dog, etc). These help us to organize information and helps us make faster decisions which is adaptive to our survival (threat or not threat). We’re also searching memory based on concepts and we use this to guide our behaviour. However, we don’t always agree with our categories and not everyone will organize the world in the same categories. Certain categories will be more prominent in one person but not the other (you valuing humour when you meet someone but not someone else)
56
What is a cognitive style?
- -the way enact those concepts shapes the way we organize that information. The way evaluate and process that information. These cognitive styles then impact the way we make decisions and the way we problem solve and come to a resolutions and shape the way we then act towards that situation or people.
- -two types: field-independent and field-dependent
57
What is a field-independent cognitive style?
--- people tend to perceive objects or situations from an internal base—independent of the environment in which the information is presented.
– See the trees, not the forest
– field-independent people prefer impersonal situations and require large amounts of interpersonal space. They prefer solitude, are individualistic, never feel like embracing the whole world, value cognitive pursuits over humanitarian pursuits, and are more concerned with ideas than with people.
58
What is a field-dependent cognitive style?
--- persons rely heavily on environmental cues to analyze stimuli.
– See the forest, not the trees
– Field-dependent people are especially alert to social
cues and they prefer the emotional and physical closeness with others. They are sociable, gregarious, like being with others, want to help others, know many people, and are known to many people.
59
What is the concept formation in children?
Child may know what a dog is but not a cat so when it sees a cat it labels it as a dog because it has the same features -tail, four legs, furry. Then the child is taught that it is a cat so it has developed a new concept. But then it sees a puppy and we can see how the childs concept of a dog vs a cat plays out in this scenario, It might say the puppy is a cat because the child developed the concept of a cat by labelling it as something smaller than a dog.
60
What is the classical model and prototype model of concepts?
- -classical concept: we find the key elements that everything in that concept share
- -prototype model: People decide on whether an item reflects a concept by comparing it with the most typical item(s) of that concept.
61
What is the difference between uncertainty and certainty oriented people?
- - Uncertainty Oriented People – have a need to know and to find out new things about the self and the world around them. In situations that involve uncertainty, they are motivated to resolve this uncertainty.
- - Certainty Oriented People – typically avoid situations that make uncertainty salient. Prefer situations where there is nothing new to be found out about the self or the world. Desire to maintain clarity and gravitate toward certainty.
62
What did Kohler demonstrate when studying chimps?
-- Kohler –studied chimpanzee ability to use tools and to solve problems
• Prior to Kohler’s work, it was believed that only humans had the capacity to use and make tools.
--chimpanzees were able to use concepts (tools) to problem solve. Kohler demonstrated that chimpanzees were not only able to use tools, but make them as well.
--using the crate as a stand is using a tool, but stacking the crates is making a tool, which the chimp demonstrated in his effort to get the banana
63
What is confirmation bias?
the tendency to search for and use information that supports ideas rather than refutes them
64
What is belief perseverance?
the tendency to hold on to a belief in the face of contradictory evidence
65
What is overconfidence bias?
the tendency of people to have more confidence in judgments and decisions than is appropriate based on probability or past experiences
66
What is hindsight bias?
the tendency of people after an event has occurred, to believe that they accurately predicted the event
--the “i knew it all along bias”
67
What is the availability heuristic?
can produce flawed thinking, involves making a judgment about the probability of an event based on how readily previous examples come to mind – this is biased thinking due to the fact that the vividness (or emotional impact) of previous occurrences can impact our recall (thus, making emotional events seem more common than they really are)
68
What is the representative heuristic?
people sometimes make a faulty decision based on how well something matches a prototype rather than its relevance to a particular situation
--ex. more likely to think an old woman is a librarian than a roller derby girl.
69
What do all human languages have in common?
– Infinite generativity is the ability to produce an endless number of meaningful sentences using a finite set of words and rules
– Making language is a highly creative process
– Language is characterized by organizational rules
70
Is language dependent on thought or vice versa?
Psychologists have debated whether language is dependent on thought, or whether thought is dependent on language
– Language plays a role in cognition by saving into memory not only sounds and images but also words. Words, in turn, can influence how we think
– Cognition may provide an important foundation for language, but its pairing with language is not an automatic process
---thought dependent on language -consistent with the linguistic relativity hypothesis which argues that language determines the nature of thought and the words we use shape the way we think. Having a word for the concept shapes the way we think about that concept
PSYCH 1001
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