Unit 7 B Key Terms Thinking Problem solving

Unit 7 B Key Terms Thinking, Problem solving, Creativity and Language

Cognition all mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating information

Concept a mental grouping of similar objects, events, and people

Prototype the best example of a particular category

Algorithm a methodical, logical procedure to solving a problem. Sometimes slow, but sure to work

Heuristic a simple thinking strategy that allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently. Heuristics are more efficient than algorithms, but because they are dependent upon past experience they can hinder finding the solutions to novel problems

Insight a sudden, often novel, realization of the solution to a problem. Insight contrasts with the trial and method that underlies algorithmic problem solving, although it can often be preceded by an attempt to solve the problem algorithmically

Creativity the ability to produce novel and valuable ideas. A certain level of aptitude is necessary for, but not sufficient to explain, creativity.

Confirmation bias a tendency for people to search for, and accept, only that information which supports their preconceptions. A hindrance to problem solving.

Fixation an inability to approach a problem in a new way

Mental set the tendency to continue applying a particular problemsolving strategy even when it is no longer helpful

Functional fixedness is a type of fixation in which a person can only think of things in terms of their usual functions (a screwdriver is only a screwdriver, in other words)

Representativeness heuristic the tendency to judge the likelihood of things in terms of how well they match particular internalized prototypes

Availability heuristic based on estimating the probability of certain events in terms of how readily they come to mind

Overconfidence the tendency to overestimate the accuracy of one’s own beliefs and judgments

Belief perseverance the tendency for people to cling to a particular belief even after the information that led to the formation of that belief has been discredited

Intuition an immediate, automatic, and effortless feeling or thought

Framing the way an issue or question is posed. The particular language used can affect people’s perception of the issue and drive perception in a desired direction (death tax as opposed to inheritance tax)

Language Spoken, written, or signed words, and their combination to communicate meaning

Phonemes the smallest units of sound in a given language

Phones the smallest units of sound in all human languages. There are slightly more than 100 total phones. Each language contains a limited subset of this total (English, with 44, has the largest set of phonemes). Children are born with the ability to recognize and produce the complete set of phones, those not included in the subset of phonemes specific to our home language are lost within the first few years of life.

Morphemes the smallest units of language that carry meaning. Most “words” are made by combining morphemes (“words” contains two morphemes)

Grammar a system of rules that enables us to communicate with, and understand, others using the same language

Semantics the set of rules used to derive meaning from combining morphemes, words, and sentences in any given language

Syntax the rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences in any given language

Babbling stage the first stage of language development in infancy. Beginning at about 4 months infants randomly produce all of the phones of which all human language is comprised.

One-word (holographic) speech Beginning at about one year of age children begin to make one-word statements. The child’s inflection, not additional words, communicate the intended meaning of the statement. In this stage children generally only speak nouns.

Two-word speech Beginning at around age two children will add a verb to their utterances. “MILK!!!” becomes “want milk”.

Telegraphic speech the economical, telegram-like speech of most young children in, and just out of, the two-word stage. Depending upon the language culture the child is growing up in, one of the first signs of maturation is the consistently correct placement of the verb, either before or after the subject.

Linguistic determinism Benjamin Lee Whorf’s hypothesis that the nature of our language constrains the limits of our thought. Whorf’s work was largely discredited because of his use of false data, but cognitivists have begun to resurrect this view of the understanding of the connection between thought and language