Psyo1012 - T8: Language And Thought

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Human language

Back 1

a communication system specific to homo-sapiens, which is open, free to change, and allows its users to express abstract and distant ideas

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Morpheme

Back 2

smallest units of meaning in a language, e.g. email-able

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Phoneme

Back 3

smallest units of sound in a language, i.e. consonant and vowel sounds

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Syntax

Back 4

rules for arranging words and symbols into sentences

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Grammar

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entire set of rules for combining symbols and sounds, e.g. verb agreement, plurals

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Protolanguage

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rudimentary language used by earlier species of homo; no syntax

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Cooing

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repeated vowel sounds, during the first six months of infancy

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Babbling

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infant’s experimentation with a complex range of phonemes, occurring during five to nine months of infancy

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One-word utterances

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speaking classic ‘one-words’, occurs around twelve months of infancy

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Two-word utterances

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children creating unique ways of saying things, using two words, occurring around eighteen months of pregnancy

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Sentence phase

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where children begin speaking in fully grammatical sentences, occurring around age 2.5-3

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Sensitive period

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begins in the first years of life and ends at around the age of twelve

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Child-directed speech

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higher pitch, raise and lower volume, simpler sentences and emphasizes emotion

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Skinner

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developed the conditioning and learning theory, stressing the importance of reinforcement and shaping

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Chomsky

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developed the nativist theory, stressing that language is discovered rather than developed

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Linguistic-relativity hypothesis

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interoperation of world is based on the words we use (hypothesis)

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Whort-Sapir hypothesis

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language creates thought as much as thought creates language (hypothesis)

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Parameters

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different rules for what is/isn’t allowed in different language

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Learning theory of language acquisition

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language is acquired through operant learning, via processes of reinforcement and shaping

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Symbolic language

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no real connection between a sound and the meaning or idea associated with it (type of language)

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Cognition

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mental processes involved in acquiring, processing, and storing knowledge

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Cognitive psychology

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the study of how people perceive, remember, think, speak, and solve problems

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Visual imagery

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visual representations created by the brain after the original stimulus is no longer present

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Mental rotation

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process of imagining an object turning in three-dimensional space, generally performed better by men

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Concept

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a mental grouping of objects, events, or people – the most basic unit of knowledge

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Concept hierarchy

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arrangement of related concepts in a particular way, with some being general and some being specific

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Parallel distributive processing

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proposes that associations between concepts activate man networks or nodes at the same time (PCP)

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Category

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a concept that organizes other concepts around what they all share in common

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Idiom

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expressions unique to a particular language

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Prototype

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the best-fitting examples of a category

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Reasoning

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the process of drawing inferences or conclusions from principles and evidence

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Deductive reasoning

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a type of reasoning from general statements to specific conclusions

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Inductive reasoning

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a type of reasoning from specific evidence to general conclusions

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Casual inference

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judgements about causation of one thing by another

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Confirmation bias

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the tendency to support information of one’s general beliefs while ignoring information/evidence that contradicts it

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Critical thinking

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process by which one analyzes, evaluates, and forms ideas

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Scientific thinking

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process using the cognitive skills required to generate, test, and revise theories

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Metacognitive thinking

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process that includes the ability first to think and then to reflect on one’s own thinking

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Heuristics

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mental shortcuts; methods for making complex and uncertain decisions and judgements

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Representative heuristic

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a device used to estimate the probability of one event based on how typical or representative it is of another event

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Availability heuristic

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a device we use to make decisions based on the ease with which estimates come to mind or how available they are to our awareness

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Conjunction fallacy

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humans will choose the one that is most likely to help them achieve their particular goals