Psychology 1000 Study Guide - Final Guide: Psycholinguistics, Mental Image, Problem Solving

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 1000
• Professor: John Mitchell

Document Summary

Mental representations: cognitive representations of the world, including images, ideas, concepts, and principles, that are the foundations of thinking and problem solving. Language: consists of a system of symbols and rules for combining these symbols in ways that can generate an infinite number of possible messages and meanings. Psycholinguistics: the scientific study of the psychological aspects of language, such as how people understand, produce and acquire language. Some evolutionary theorists believe that the use of language evolved as people gathered to form larger social units. Four properties essential to language are symbols, structure, meaning, generativity and a fifth, displacement: language is symbolic and structured. Language uses sounds, written characters, or some other system of symbols to represent objects, events, ideas, feeling, and actions. No matter how a word came to being, it has an agreed upon meaning to those who speak the language.