THINKING & LANGUAGE
Unit 7B
THINKING
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Thinking, or cognition, refers to a process that
involves knowing, understanding, remembering,
and communicating.
Cognitive Psychologists Study
Concepts
 Problem Solving
 Decision Making
 Judgment Formation
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CONCEPTS
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Concepts – the mental grouping of similar
objects, events, ideas, or people.
For example…
 There are a variety of chair types, but their
common features define them as a chair.
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We form some concepts with definitions.
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A triangle has three sides.
We also form Prototypes – A robin is a prototypical
bird, while penguin is not.
CATEGORY HIERARCHIES
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We organize concepts into category hierarchies.
PROBLEM SOLVING
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Problem Solving Strategies
Trial & Error
 Algorithms
 Heuristics
 Insight
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TRIAL & ERROR
We’re all used to this approach.
 Try, try, try again.
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For example…
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Will your joke make Teacher laugh?
ALGORITHMS
Exhaust all possibilities before arriving at a
solution.
 Computers use algorithms.
 Very time consuming.
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SPLOYOCHYG
If we unscramble these letters to form a word using
an algorithmic approach, we would face 907,200
possibilities.
HEURISTICS
Heuristics – thinking strategies that allow us to
make judgments and solve problems efficiently.
 Less time consuming than algorithms.
 More error prone than algorithms.

For example…
 Words with two Y’s probably end in a Y.
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SPLOYOCHYG
SPLOYOCHGY
REPRESENTATIVENESS HEURISTIC
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Judging the likelihood of things or objects in
terms of how well they seem to represent, or
match, a particular prototype.
If you see a slim, short, man who wears glasses
and a beard, and likes poetry, what do you think
his profession might be.
An ivy league professor or a truck driver?
AVAILABILITY HEURISTIC
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Whatever increases the ease of retrieving
information increases its perceived availability.
How is retrieval facilitated?
How recent have we heard about the event?
 How distinct is it?
 How correct is it?
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INSIGHT
Insight involves a
sudden novel
realization of a
solution to a problem.
 Humans and animals
have insight.

INSIGHT
Brain imaging and
EEG studies suggest
that when insight
strikes, it activates
the right temporal
cortex.
 Your “Aha” Moment
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OBSTACLES IN SOLVING PROBLEMS
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Confirmation Bias – a tendency to search for
information that confirms personal bias.
For Example…
If you are good at soccer, and are watching
another high school soccer game, you will
probably search for information that suggests the
other team/player is not as good as you.
FIXATION

Fixation – an inability to see a problem from a
fresh perspective. This impedes problem solving.
The Matchstick Problem
How would you arrange six
Matches to form four
Equilateral triangles?
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THE MATCHSTICK PROBLEM - SOLUTION
THE CANDLE MOUNTING PROBLEM
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Using these materials, how would you mount the
candle on a bulletin board?
CANDLE MOUNTING PROBLEM - SOLUTION
MAKING DECISIONS &
FORMING JUDGMENTS
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Each day we make hundreds of judgments and
decisions based on our intuition, seldom using
systematic reasoning.
For example, what is the fastest way out of this
classroom?
OVERCONFIDENCE
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A tendency to overestimate the accuracy of our
beliefs and judgments.
For Example…
In the stock market, both the seller and the
buyer may be overconfident about their decisions
on a stock.
Have you ever got a “bad” deal when buying a
car, or are you confident that you got a good deal?
Faulty Decision Making
Confirmation Bias – A tendency to seek out information that
confirms our previously held beliefs
Belief Perseverance – The tendency to hold onto our belief
even in the face of evidence against our belief…our beliefs
distort our logic
Overconfidence – The tendency to count on our own estimates
and beliefs too much
Framing Decisions – The way we are presented the
information needed for making the decision can impact what
we decide
Ex: coat for $100 or same coat for $150 at 33% off
EXAGGERATED FEAR
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The opposite of having overconfidence is having
an exaggerated fear about what might happen.
For example…
The 9/11 attacks led to a decline in air travel due
to fear.
THE EFFECTS OF FRAMING
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Decisions and judgments may be significantly
affected depending upon how an issue is framed.
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Example…
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What is the best way to market ground beef?
25% Fat
 75% Lean
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THE BELIEF PERSEVERANCE
PHENOMENON
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Belief perseverance is the tendency to cling to our
beliefs in the face of contrary evidence.
If you see that a country is hostile, you are likely
to interpret their ambiguous actions as a sign of
hostility (Jervis, 1985).
For example…
Can you believe that Iraq is now starting form an
independent government?
LANGUAGE
Language – our spoken, written, or gestured
work, is the way we communicate meaning to
ourselves and others.
 Language transmits culture.
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LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
Children learn their
native languages
much before learning
to add 2+2.
 We learn on average
(after age 1) 3,500
words a year,
amassing 60,000
words by the time we
graduate form high
school.
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WHEN DO WE LEARN LANGUAGE?
Babbling Stage
 Beginning at 4
months.
 The infant
spontaneously utters
various sounds, like
ah-goo.
 Not an imitation of
adult speech.
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WHEN DO WE LEARN LANGUAGE?
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One-Word Stage – beginning at or around his
first birthday, a child starts to speak one word at
a time and is able to make family members
understand him.
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The word doggy, means, look at the dog out there.
Two-Word Stage – before the 2nd year, a child
starts to speak in two-word sentences. Also
called telegraphic speech because the child
speaks like a telegram.
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Go car, means, I would like to go for a ride in a car.
WHEN DO WE LEARN LANGUAGE?
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Longer Phrases – after telegraphic speech,
children begin uttering longer phrases with
syntactical sense, and by early elementary school
they are employing humor.
For example…
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Mommy get ball.
EXPLAINING LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
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Operant Learning – Skinner believed that
language development may be explained on the
basis of learning principles such as association,
imitation, and reinforcement.
Inborn Universal Grammar – Chomsky opposed
Skinner’s ideas and suggested that the rate of
language acquisition is so fast that it cannot be
explained through learning principles, and thus
most of it is inborn.
EXPLAINING LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
Childhood is a critical period for fully developing
certain aspects of language.
 Children never exposed to any langue (spoken or
written) by about age 7, gradually lose their
ability to master any language.
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GENES, BRAIN, & LANGUAGE
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Genes design the mechanisms for language, and
experiences modifies the brain.
CRITICAL PERIOD
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Learning new languages gets harder with age.
THINKING & LANGUAGE
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Language and thinking intricately intertwine.
Language and the Brain
w
As a child grows, his/her language develops.
Usually, understanding language occurs before the
production of language.
Wernicke’s Area
understand speech
Broca’s Area
produce speech
Parts of Language
Phonemes: Smallest unit of sound that can be understood as part of
a language
(40 in English) - Ex: The m of mat, the b of boy, or the ch in church
Morphemes: Smallest unit of sound that conveys a meaning in a
language. Can be individual or combinations of phonemes
- Ex: Unit consisting of a word, such as man
- Ex: A word element, such as -ed in walked
- Ex: Phoneme such as I
** cannot be divided into smaller meaningful parts**
Grammar: Set of rules that enables us to use our language
• Semantics – Refers to aspects of meaning assigned to language
(Ex: adding “ed” means it happened in the past)
• Syntax – The system of rules we use to string words together into proper
sentences
(Ex: adjectives come before nouns)
Pic: Units of Language
Kinds of Intelligence
Gardner - Theory of Multiple
Intelligences
• He believed that intelligence
could be broken down into
seven categories:
LANGUAGE INFLUENCES THINKING
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Linguistic Determinism – Whorf (1956)
suggested that language determines the way we
think.
For example…
He noted the Hopi people do not have the past
tense for verbs. Therefore, the Hopi cannot think
readily about the past.
THINKING IN IMAGES
To a large extent thinking is language based.
 When alone, we may talk to ourselves.
 However, we also think in images.
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For example…
Turning on the hot water.
 How to ride your bike.
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ANIMAL THINKING & LANGUAGE
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Do animals have a
language?
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Honeybees
communicate by
dancing.
 The dance moves
clearly indicate the
direction of the nectar.
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Do animals think?
Some animals have
shown the ability to…
Concept formation
 Insight
 Problem solving
 Culture
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