Cognition/Thinking
Agenda
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1. Lecture: Thinking and Language (20 minutes)
2. Problem Solving, Riddle me this? (15 minutes)
3. Tower of Hanoi (10 minutes)
4. Thinking without language (10 minutes) (10-11)
5. Thinking and language (5 minutes) 25.
6. Doublespeak (15 minutes) (10-6)
Metacognition – Thinking about thinking
A. Tools We Use To Think
1. Conceptual Thinking
a. Concepts: mental groupings of
similar objects* EXAMPLE: the warmup activity you did
b. Concepts can be grouped into
hierarchies * Why did you group the
words they way you did?
Concepts and Animals
Animals are capable of concept
information too.
• Pigeons have demonstrated this by
being shown a picture of a neverbefore-seen chair and being able to
identify it by pushing a button that
signified chairs.
We form concepts by developing
Prototypes
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Prototypes: the best example of a category
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Ex. A robin and goose both meet our needs for
the concept of bird.
If something does not fit the prototype we
have difficulty classifying it.
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Ex. Sometimes its hard to tell an allergy from a
cold.
Problem Solving
• We generate problem solving strategies by
using strategies such as:
– Algorithms: slow step by step procedure (solution
guaranteed)
– Heuristics: mental short-cuts (can result in
incorrect solutions)
– Insight: sudden realization of a solution to a
problem.
– Trial and Error Approach: try and see what works
and what doesn’t
Example
• Directions: Watch the following clip and pull
out all of the examples of insight, heuristics,
trial and error and algorithms you see.
• Intro• Commercial• Mythbusters?-
Obstacles to Problem Solving
Sometimes we cannot reach the answer to a problem.
We are faced with obstacles such as:
1. Confirmation Bias: ignore information that
refutes our ideas.
2. Fixation: inability to look at a problem from a
fresh perspective.
3. Mental set: tendency to solve problems in the
same way that has previously been successful.
4. Functional Fixedness: failure to use an object in
an unusual way.
Critical Thinking
• When we solve problems we reflect and reach
conclusions.
• Inductive reasoning: reasoning from specific to
general. (not all birds fly, but all birds have wings)
• Deductive reasoning: reasoning from general to
specific (all birds have wings, but not all birds fly)
Making Decisions and Forming Judgments
1. Representative Heuristic – judging the chances of things
in terms of how well they seem to match a particular
prototype
Ex. Who likes math more students or the math teacher?
2. Availability Heuristic – judging the chances of things
based on their availability in our memory
Ex. Being scared of flying but not riding in a car.
3. Overconfidence bias : tendency to underestimate the
extent to which our judgments are wrong.
Making decisions and forming
judgments (continued)
Decisions are influenced by how question is
asked (called framing)
Example: Which product would you buy? The
one labeled 90% fat free
or
10% fat?
Making decisions and forming
judgments (continued)
• Belief Bias: tendency for our personal beliefs
to block logical thinking.
• Belief Perseverance: holding onto a belief
even if it has been proven wrong.
• Hindsight Bias: falsely saying that you knew it
all along when in fact you didn’t.
Creativity: thinking in a new
unconventional way
- Convergent Thinking – focusing on one
correct solution. (ex. Answering multiple
choice questions)
- Divergent Thinking – coming up with
multiple possibilities – more creative.
Language
Agenda
• Language Notes
• How does the outside world affect you? Quick
Discussion.
• Genie Analysis
Language
• Is a flexible system of spoken, written,
or signed symbols that enables us to
communicate our thoughts and feelings.
• What would we do without language!?
Basic Building Blocks of Language
• Language is made up • Morphemes are the
of basic sound units
smallest and
called phonemes .
meaningful units of
speech: prefixes and
suffixes
• They have no
– They are a combo
meaning on their
of phonemes
own. They simply
make a sound.
Example
• Farm is made up of three phonemes – f –ar-m
• Farmer is made of two morphemes. By
adding “-er” to farm you have changed the
meaning of farm.
• How many phonemes in hat?
• How many in hate?
Stages of Language
• Babbling using phonemes = baby talk (twin
video clip)
• Holophrase – one word used over again (starts
around 10 months) Ex. Da-da
• Telegraphic speech – (around 2 years old) two
word sentences. “Eat cookie!” (verb and noun)
– Between 2-3 years of age children’s vocabulary
grows exponentially
• Overgeneralization: children apply grammar
rules without making appropriate exceptions.
– Ex: “I goed to the store”
Theories of Language Acquisition
• Are we born with a biological predisposition to
language?
– GENIE VIDEO CLIP
• Noam Chomsky says are brains are pre-wired
for language.
– Believed in the critical period for language
acquisition
• Universal grammar
– Brains prewired for grammar
– Grammar switch is turned on as we exposed
to language “language acquisition device
(LAD)”
• Overgeneralization is an example of this
• B. F. Skinner believed children learn language
by imitating why they see and hear.
– Children learn language by associations,
reinforcement, and imitation.
– Babies imitate sounds and are reinforced
Cognitive Neuroscience
• Emphasize that building neuronal connections
during the first few years of life is critical for
grammar
• Both Chomsky and Skinner are right.
Language acquisition is combination of nature
v. nurture.
Do Animals Exhibit Language?
•There is no doubt that
animals communicate.
•Vervet monkeys, whales
and even honey bees
communicate with
members of their species
and other species.
•Animals do have ability to
think (clip)
Rico has a
200-word vocabulary
Tower of Hanoi
Deprivation Studies
• Frederick II- attempted to raise children
completely isolated from interaction to see
the “natural” language of god.