PSYC 1001 Chapter Notes - Chapter 8: Cognitive Flexibility, Quebec French, Interpersonal Communication

• School: Carleton University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 1001
• Professor: Bruce Tsuji

Document Summary

Cognition: the mental processes involved in acquiring knowledge. 1950"s: cognitive revolution, study complexities of language, interference, problem solving, decision making and reasoning. Language: symbols that convey meaning, plus rules for combining those symbols, that can be used to generate an infinite variety of messages. Language is symbolic (spoken sounds and written words to represent objects, events, actions and ideas) Allows tense (things that happened or were somewhere in past) Flexible, many objects fit into a category represented by one word (lamp) Symbols used are arbitrary (no connection between word and meaning, just defined) Different languages have different (arbitrary) words (stylo, pen, pluma) but shared meaning. Language is generative (limited number of symbols can be combine in an infinite variety to generate message) Infinite variety of sentences but must be structured in a limited number of ways (grammar) Basic sounds combined into units with meaning, combined into words, combined into phrases, combined into sentences.