1. Thinking & Language
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2. Learning Objectives
• Students will be able to:
– Describe how humans organize
thoughts.
– Distinguish between concepts
and prototypes.
– Identify different types of
thinking.
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3. How do we organize thoughts?
• We organize thoughts and memories into
hierarchies:
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4. Concepts v. Prototypes
• Concept: The mental grouping of similar objects,
events, ideas, or people. There are a variety of chairs
but their common features define the concept of a
chair.
• Prototype: Best example of a concept
– we form concepts with mental images or typical
examples (prototypes). For example, a robin is a
prototype of a bird, but a penguin is not.
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5. Types of Thinking
• Convergent Thinking: Deliberate,
purposeful thinking that is useful for solving
problems with only one correct solution
• Divergent Thinking: also known as
creative thinking, it follows no set plan and is
more useful for solving problems that have
multiple solutions in different directions.
• Metacognition: Thinking about thinking.
Example: thinking about your strategy to
solve an algebra problem
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6. Learning Objectives in Review
• Students will be able to:
– Describe how humans organize
thoughts.
– Distinguish between concepts
and prototypes.
– Identify different types of
thinking.
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7. Section Assessment
1. In pairs, develop your own novel concept
and prototype pairing.
2. What type of thinking did you use to come
with that concept/prototype pair?
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8. Learning Objectives
• Students will be able to:
– Describe the methods humans
use to solve problems.
– Explain the obstacles people
encounter when solving
problems.
– Describe insight and incubation
as it relates to problem-solving.
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9. Problem Solving Examples
1. How can you physically stand behind your father
while he is standing behind you?
2. What occurred on the 6th of May, 1978 at
12:34PM?
3. Can you translate this: Y Y U R Y Y U B I C U R
YY4ME
4. A man bought a horse for $60 and sold it for $70.
Then he bought the same horse back for $80 and
sold it again for $90. How much money did he
make in the horse business?
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10. Problem Solving
• Algorithms: Methodical, logical rules or procedures
that guarantee solving a particular problem.
– Algorithms, which are very time consuming, exhaust all
possibilities before arriving at a solution. Computers use
algorithms.
SPLOYOCHYG
If we were to unscramble these letters to form a word
using an algorithmic approach, we would face
907,208 possibilities.
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11. Insight & Incubation
• Insight: involves a sudden novel
realization of a solution to a problem.
Humans and animals have insight.
– Example: Wolfgang Kohler & Sultan the Ape
• Incubation Effect: Walking away from
the problem only to have insight set in
• Brain imaging and EEG studies suggest
that when an insight strikes (the “Aha”
experience), it activates the right
temporal cortex
• The time between not knowing the
solution and realizing it is 0.3 seconds.
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12. Obstacles in Problems Solving
•
•
•
Confirmation Bias: A tendency to search for information that
confirms a personal bias
Fixation: An inability to see a problem from a fresh
perspective. This impedes problem solving. Two examples of
fixation are mental set and functional fixedness.
Mental Set: A tendency to approach a problem in a particular
way, especially if that way was successful in the past.
– Example: O-T-T-F…
– Example: J-F-M-A
Using these materials, how would
you mount the candle on a bulletin
board and be able to light it?
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13. Working Backwards
• Working Backwards is another way to solve
problems like this one:
The water lilies on the surface of a small pond
double in area every 24 hours. From the time
the first water lily appears until the pond is
completely covered takes 60 days. On what
day is half the pond covered in water lilies?
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14. Hill-Climbing Problem-Solving
• For Fun: Your mission is to rearrange the coins so that
each coin touches exactly two others. You are limited to
three moves. Each move must entail sliding a coin to a
position in which it touches exactly two others, without
disturbing any coins.
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15. Learning Objectives in Review
• Students will be able to:
– Describe the methods humans
use to solve problems.
– Explain the obstacles people
encounter when solving
problems.
– Describe insight and incubation
as it relates to problem-solving.
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16. Section Assessment
• Using the handouts and games provided by
the instructor, students will work in groups
to solve various brain teasers and puzzles.
• Students should be able to discuss with the
instructor how the problem-solving terms
relate to solving the brain teasers and
puzzles.
• Complete the problem-solving analysis
worksheet on your own paper.
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17. Learning Objectives
• Students will be able to:
– Describe how decision making is
affected by framing.
– Distinguish between
representativeness heuristic and
availability heuristic.
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18. Decision Making
• Framing Effect: Decisions and judgments may be
significantly affected depending upon how an issue
is framed. “5% fat or 95% fat free”
Doctors may use
framing effect to
help patients
elect to do
surgeries
Other Framing:
Condoms have a 95% success rate
in stopping HIV infections.
(90% college students rate
condoms as effective)
Condoms have a 5% failure rate
(4% rate condoms as effective)
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19. How do we make decisions using heuristics?
• Heuristics are simple, thinking strategies
that allow us to make judgments and
solve problems efficiently. Heuristics are
less time consuming, but more error-prone than
algorithms. (AKA- Rules of Thumb or Shortcuts)
– Representativeness Heuristic: Judging the
likelihood of things or objects in terms of how well they
seem to represent, or match, a particular prototype.
– Which would you pick for a six question T/F Test?
1. T T T T T T
2. T T T F F F
3. T F F T T F
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20. How do we make decisions using heuristics?
• Representativeness Heuristic (con’t)
– Tom W. is of high intelligence, although lacking in true creativity. He has a need
for order and clarity, and for neat and tidy systems in which every detail finds its
appropriate place. His writing is rather dull and mechanical, occasionally enlivened
by somewhat corny puns and by flashes of imagination of the sci-fi type. He has a
strong drive for competence. He seems to feel little sympathy for other people and
does not enjoy interacting with others. Self-centered, he nonetheless has a deep
moral sense."
– Which major is Tom?
Most Popular Majors
• Psychology
1. Psychology
• Biological Sciences (Pre-Med) 2. Business
3. Biosciences
• Education/Teaching
4. Education
• Business/Management
9. Engineering
• Engineering
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21. How do we make decisions using heuristics?
• Availability Heuristic
– Whatever increases the ease of retrieving
information increases its perceived
availability.
– Is it safer to fly or drive?
– 2002-2004
• 34 deaths by plane
• 128,000 by car
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22. Learning Objectives in Review
• Students will be able to:
– Describe how decision making is
affected by framing.
– Distinguish between
representativeness heuristic and
availability heuristic.
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23. Section Assessment
1. Breast cancer has recently received a great deal of attention in the news. This may
lead us to believe that breast cancer is a much bigger risk of death than is heart
disease, which would not be the case. This overestimation of risk effect is an
example of:
(A) Representativeness heuristic
(B) Availability heuristic
(C) Stereotyping
(D) Confirmation bias
2. A math student consistently tries to answer a problem using the same solution, but
is unable to generate any new approaches to the problem. This is best illustrated
by:
(A) A Mental Set
(B) Overgeneralization
(C) The Framing Effect
(D) Metacognition
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24. Learning Objectives
• Students will be able to:
– Describe general language
structure and its flaws.
– Identify the stages of language
development.
– Distinguish between Noam
Chomsky and B.F. Skinner’s
views of language development.
– Develop an understanding of
linguistic determinism.
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25. Language
David Hume Kennerly/
Getty Images
• Synthesize how biological, cognitive, and cultural
factors converge to facilitate acquisition,
development, and use of language
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26. Language Structures
• Phonemes: The smallest distinct sound unit in a
spoken language. For example: t, ch (40 in the English lang.)
• Morpheme: The smallest unit that carries a meaning.
It may be a word or part of a word. (Ex. –ed, un-, s)
• Grammar: is the system of rules in a language that enable us
to communicate with and understand others.
– Syntax: consists of the rules for combining words into
grammatically sensible sentences
– Semantics: is the set of rules by which we derive
meaning from morphemes, words, and sentences.
The future of language?: (Jeet, Jew)
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27. Chomsky’s Language Structures
• Surface Structure: The actual words,
symbols or signs (phonemes, morphemes
and syntax)
• Deep Structure: The meaning of the
words (semantics)
• More Flaws in Grammar:
– “Jack The Giant Killer”
– “Astronaut takes blame for gas in
spacecraft.”
– “Stolen painting found by tree.”
– “Safety experts say school bus
passengers should be belted.”
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28. Flaws in Semantics and Syntax
• Grammar Flaws
– Can we eat Grandma?
– He eats shoots and leaves.
– Try our hotdogs. None like
them.
– Can’t sleep, come to our
informational meeting.
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29. Developmental Language Flaws
• Overextensions
– ‘Ball’ is used to describe anything round like the
moon.
• Underextensions
– ‘Doll’ might describe only their doll but not other
dolls
• Overregularizations
– overuse of rules that do not fit
– ‘Goed’ or ‘hitted’
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30. Language Flaws: Lost in Translation
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31. Stages of Language Development
Pre-Linguistic Stage: Cooing and Babbling (3 months- 12
months)
Holophrastic Stage: One-word (12 months)
Telegraphic Stage: Two Word (age 2)
Complete Sentences: 2 Years +
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32. Language Development Theories
1.
2.
Operant Learning: Skinner (1957, 1985) believed that language
development may be explained on the basis of learning principles
such as association, imitation, and reinforcement.
Inborn Universal Grammar: Noam Chomsky (1959, 1987) opposed
Skinner’s ideas and suggested that the rate of language acquisition is
so fast that it cannot be explained through learning principles, and
thus most of it is inborn. Language Acquisition Device. Chomsky
says that all children need to learn language is to be introduced to it
Based on the ideas above, answer the following:
1.Who views language from the nature perspective? Nurture Perspective?
2.In a debate, who would raise the question, “How can children make up new sentences
without hearing them first?”
3.In a debate, who would raise the question, “How does the LAD work, where is it located?”
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33. Learning Language with Age
FACTS OF LANGUAGE
-Babbling before 8 months occurs with
multiple language syllabus, after 8 months
they only babble in their native language.
-Deaf babies babble with their hands.
-The sensitive period of language tends to
occur between birth and age 7.
-Children who hear a second language
before age 7 generally don’t speak with an
accent.
Vocabulary By Age
18 months: 50
1st grade: 10,000
5th grade: 40,000
“Fast-mapping”
helps in adding words
to about age 7.
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34. Thinking and Language
• Linguistic Determinism: Whorf (1956)
suggested that language determines
the way we think. For example, he
noted that the Hopi people do not have the
past tense for verbs. Therefore, the Hopi
cannot think readily about the past.
• Some cultures count: 1, 2, many…
When a language provides words for objects or
events, we can think about these objects more
clearly and remember them. It is easier to think
about two colors with two different names (A)
than colors with the same name (B)
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35. Learning Objectives in Review
• Students will be able to:
– Describe general language
structure and its flaws.
– Identify the stages of language
development.
– Distinguish between Noam
Chomsky and B.F. Skinner’s
views of language development.
– Develop an understanding of
linguistic determinism.
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