313392 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Linguistic Determinism, Motivation, Cochlear Implant
Topic of Intelligence in Psychology
1. Cognition is all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing,
remembering, and communicating.
2. A concept is a mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people.
● Concepts simplify our thinking.
o For example, the concept chair includes many items—a baby’s high
chair, a reclining chair, a dentist’s chair.
● A prototype is a mental image or best example of a category. Matching new
items to a prototype provides a quick and easy method for sorting items into
categories (as when comparing feathered creatures to a prototypical bird,
such as a robin).
3. An algorithm is a methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees
solving a particular problem.
● It contrasts with the usually speedier—but also more error prone—use of
heuristics.
o A heuristic is a simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make
judgments and solve problems efficiently.
● An insight is a sudden realization of a problem’s solution. This contrasts with
strategy-based solutions.
o It is an abrupt, true-seeming, and often satisfying solution.
4. Obstacles to problem solving include:
● Confirmation bias—a tendency to search for information that supports our
preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence
● Fixation—an inability to see a problem from a fresh perspective
o A mental set is type of fixation that involves a tendency to approach
a problem in one particular way that is often a way that has been
successful in the past.
o Just like a perceptual set predisposes what we perceive, a mental set
predisposes how we think.
5. An intuition is an effortless, immediate, automatic feeling or thought, as
contrasted with explicit, conscious reasoning.
● Heuristics enable snap judgments.
o The availability heuristic involves estimating the likelihood of
events based on their availability in memory. If instances come
readily to mind (perhaps because of their vividness), we presume
such events are common.
o For example, casinos entice us to gamble by signaling even small
wins with bells and lights—making them mentally vivid—while
keeping big losses invisible.
o This also leads us to fear the wrong things. For example, shark
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
attacks kill about one American per year, while heart disease kills
800,000—but it’s much easier to visualize a shark bite, and thus
many people fear sharks more than cigarettes or the effects of an
unhealthy diet (Daley, 2011).
● Overconfidence is the tendency to be more confident than correct or to
overestimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgments.
o For example, overconfidence can also feed extreme political views.
People with a superficial understanding of political proposals often
express strong pro or con views. Asking them to explain the details
of these policies exposes them to their own ignorance, which in turn
leads them to express more moderate views (Fernbach et al., 2013).
● Belief perseverance is the act of clinging to one’s initial conceptions after the
basis on which they were formed has been discredited.
o A remedy for belief perseverance is to consider how we might have
explained an opposite result.
● Framing is the way an issue is posed.
o How an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and
judgments.
o Subtle wording differences can dramatically alter our responses.
o For example, imagine two surgeons explaining a surgery risk. One
tells patients that 10 percent of people die during this surgery. The
other tells patients that 90 percent survive. Although the
information is the same, the effect is not. Both patients and
physicians perceive greater risk when they hear that 10 percent die
(Marteau, 1989; McNeil et al., 1988; Rothman & Salovey, 1997).
● As people gain expertise, they grow adept at making quick, shrewd
judgments.
o For example, chess masters display this tacit expertise in blitz
chess, where, after barely a glance, they intuitively know the right
move (Burns, 2004).
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
● Smart thinkers welcome their intuitions (which are usually adaptive), but
when making complex decisions they gather as much information as possible
and then take time to let their two-track mind process all available
information.
6. Creativity is the ability to produce new and valuable ideas.
● Aptitude tests (like the SAT) require convergent thinking, but creativity
requires divergent thinking.
o Convergent thinking involves narrowing the available problem
solutions to determine the single best solution.
o Divergent thinking involves expanding the number of possible
problem solutions and/or creative thinking that diverges in
different directions.
● Robert Sternberg has proposed that creativity has five components:
expertise; imaginative thinking skills; a venturesome personality; intrinsic
motivation; and a creative environment that sparks, supports, and refines
creative ideas.
7. Other animals’ cognitive skills:
● Evidence from studies of various species shows that many other animals use
concepts, numbers, and tools and that they transmit learning from one
generation to the next (cultural transmission).
● Other animals can also demonstrate insight.
● And, like humans, some other species show insight, self-awareness, altruism,
cooperation, and grief.
8. Language is our spoken, written, or signed words and the ways we combine
them to communicate meaning.
● A phoneme in a language is the smallest distinctive sound unit.
● A morpheme in a language is the smallest unit that carries meaning.
o A morpheme may be a word or a part of a word (such as a prefix).
● Grammar in a language is a system of rules that enables us to communicate
with and understand others.
o In a given language, semantics is the set of rules for deriving
meaning from sounds, and syntax is the set of rules for combining
words into grammatically sensible sentences.
o Linguist Noam Chomsky has argued that all languages share some
basic elements, which he calls universal grammar. All human
languages, for example, have nouns, verbs, and adjectives as
grammatical building blocks.
● We acquire a specific language through learning as our biology and
experience interact.
o B. F. Skinner believed we learn language as we learn other things—
by association, imitation, and reinforcement.
9. The development of babies’ receptive language, their ability to understand
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Topic of intelligence in psychology: cognition is all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating, a concept is a mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people. Concepts simplify our thinking: for example, the concept chair includes many items a baby"s high chair, a reclining chair, a dentist"s chair. A prototype is a mental image or best example of a category. It contrasts with the usually speedier but also more error prone use of. An insight is a sudden realization of a problem"s solution. Confirmation bias a tendency to search for information that supports our. Fixation an inability to see a problem from a fresh perspective: a mental set is type of fixation that involves a tendency to approach preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence. It is an abrupt, true-seeming, and often satisfying solution. a problem in one particular way that is often a way that has been successful in the past.
