Language
·codified system for communication, with capacity for generating and receiving infinite variety of messages ·psycholinguistic categories of: ·syntax (grammar) ·semantics (meaning) ·pragmatics (social use of language) ·phonology: ·study of basic sounds, phonemes = smallest unit of sound that affects the meaning of speech; there are 40 in English ·their combination into morphemes = smallest unit of language that has meaning; e.g. ‘dog’, ‘un-‘, ‘-ed’ ·expression of morphemes in rhythms and cadences - prosody)
Language development
1.Pre-Linguistic: 0-12 months
a)crying b)cooing: 6 wks (vowel sounds) c)babbling: 6 months (appearance of consonants) even in the deaf d)tuneful babble: 8 months (intonations simulate conversational cadences) e)phonemic contraction: 10 months (to range used in native tongue) f)repetitive phonemes: 11 months.
2.Single word stage: 12-18 months
a)constant utterance to refer to a thing b)parents often confuse with repetitive phonemes (ma-ma etc.) c)holophrastic use - one word for complex meanings. d)by 18 months, about 18 words, mainly nouns and some action verbs.
3.Two word stage: 18-30 months
a)telegrammatic grammar in rather rigid word order b)words often too numerous to count by 2 years c)probable limit of non-human primate communication
4.Grammatical differentiation: 30-48 months
a)increasing length of utterances b)inclusion of function words such as prepositions and conjunctions c)increasing development of syntactical rules (e.g. adding ‘s’ to pluralize everything)
5.From 5 years
a)use of passives, subjunctives, etc. b)learning of more advanced conversational rules e.g. not interrupting c)gradual internalization of speech into verbal thought
Clinical relevance
·semantic-pragmatic disorder ·disorders of interpersonal functioning also show disordered language development e.g. Autism, Asperger’s syndrome ·delayed speech may have a social causation and has behavioural consequences e.g. tantrums ·speech as an aspect of social functioning may be inhibited e.g. elective mutism ·difficulties separating speech and thought e.g. in schizophrenia
Cerebral considerations
·99% of right handed people have a dominant left hemisphere
·60% of left-handed people have a dominant left hemisphere
Pathways involved
1.Hearing: a)speech à auditory cortex à auditory association cortex à Wernicke’s area à comprehension
2.Reading: a)written word à visual cortex à visual association cortex à angular gyrus à Wernicke’s area à comprehension
3.Speaking: a)thought à Wernicke’s area à Broca’s area à motor speech areas à speech
4.Writing: a)thought à Wernicke’s area à angular gyrus à motor areas à writing
Causes of slower speech development
·being male ·being a twin ·prolonged second-stage labour .larger family size
Thought
·thinking is the manipulation of mental representations
Information-Processing Speed – Reaction time
·depends on: ·the complexity of the decision ·stimulus-response compatibility ·if the spatial relationship between a set of stimuli and possible responses is a natural or compatible one, reaction time will be fast ·expectancy ·expected stimuli are perceived more quickly and with greater accuracy than those that are surprising ·in any reaction-time task, there is a speed-accuracy trade-off ·if you try to respond more quickly, errors increase
Evoked brain potentials
·the evoked brain potential is a small, temporary change in voltage on an EEG that occurs in response to specific events ·there is a negative peak (N100) followed by a large positive peak (P300) ·the exact timing of P300 is sensitive to factors that alter the speed of perceptual processes
Mental representations
Cognitive maps
·a cognitive map is a mental representation of a familiar part of your world e.g. your home ·include systematic distortions, e.g. rectangular bias, a tendency to impose a rectangular north-south-east-west grid on the environment
Images
·are mental representations of visual information ·manipulations performed on images of objects are similar to those that would be performed on that object in the real world ·when objects are of a similar size, we must summon an image of each, then carefully compare them - the greater detail of the comparison or the more similar the objects, the longer the response time
Concept schemas and event scripts
·concepts are categories of objects, events, or ideas with common properties ·they may be concrete and visual e.g. ‘round’ or ‘red’ ·or abstract, such as ‘truth’ or ‘justice’ ·artificial concepts (e.g. ‘square’) can be clearly defined by a set of rules or properties such that each member of the concept has all of the defining properties and no nonmember does ·natural concepts (e.g. ‘home’ or ‘game’) have no fixed set of defining features, but instead share a set of characteristic features
·it is usually a combination of properties that define a concept ·most of the concepts that people use are natural ·a member of a natural concept that possesses all or most of its characteristic features is called a prototype ·the closer the object to the prototype, the faster the speed that we can decide if it is a member of the concept ·concepts can be mentally represented as schemas, generalizations we develop about categories of objects, events, and people ·schemas about familiar sequences of events or activities (e.g. entering a restaurant) are called scripts ·scripts are involved in the top-down processing that enables people to recognize and react to expected events than unexpected events
Propositions
·a proposition is the smallest unit of knowledge that can stand as a separate assertion ·e.g. ‘dogs chase cats’, ‘birds have wings’
Thinking strategies
·reasoning is the process through which people generate and evaluate arguments, and reach conclusions about them
Formal reasoning
·formal, or logical reasoning seeks valid conclusions through the application of rigorous procedures ·includes algorithms - systematic methods that always reach a correct result ·logic - a set of mental procedures that provide a more general algorithm, or formula, for drawing valid conclusions about the world ·logical arguments containing two or more premises and a conclusion are known as syllogisms ·the conclusion is an inference, based on the premises and the rules of logic ·a premise can be false yet the logic can still be correct ·e.g.All doctors are brilliant, I am a doctor, Therefore, I am brilliant ·the logic is correct, but the first premise is incorrect
Problems with logical reasoning
1.Bias about conclusions - people may agree with a conclusion not because they have examined the premises, but because they hold a prior belief about the conclusion
2.The conversion effect - people assume that because A implies B, then B implies A
3.Limits on working memory - arises if elements in a syllogism involves negatives, e.g. “No dogs are nonanimals”
Informal reasoning
·people use informal reasoning to assess the credibility of a conclusion based on the evidence for it ·e.g. how many swans do you have to observe before you conclude that all swans are white?
·formal reasoning = all of them
·informal reasoning = a mental rule of thumb enables you to gauge what the correct answer will be
·heuristics are these ‘mental shortcuts’, or rules of thumb
·there are three important heuristics:
1.The anchoring heuristic - estimating the probability of an event by adjusting a starting value ·e.g. if you thought the probability of being mugged in New York is 90 %, and then found out it was closer to 1 %, you might reduce your estimate only to 80 % ·presents a challenge to defence attorneys, because the prosecution’s evidence is presented first and it may be hard to alter the juror’s belief of guilt
2.The representatives heuristic - people base conclusions about whether an example belongs in a certain class on how similar it is to other items in that class ·e.g. if a patient has symptoms that are similar to a common disease but are even more representative of a rarer one, physicians are more likely to diagnose the rarer condition
3.The availability heuristic - involves judging the probability that an event may occur or that a hypothesis may be true by how easily the hypothesis or examples of the event can be brought to mind ·means that TV news reports showing airline crashes may make those rare events so memorable that people refuse to fly because they overestimate the probability of a crash
Problem solving
Strategies for problem solving
1.decomposition - dividing the problem into smaller, more manageable subproblems
2.working backward
3.finding analogies - recognizing the similarities between the current problem and previous problems
4.incubation - laying it aside for a while, so that (probably) incorrect ideas that were previously blocking the path to a correct solution are forgotten
Obstacles to problem solving
1.multiple hypotheses - the particular hypothesis that comes to mind may be the one that easily comes to mind, not the one most likely to be correct
2.mental sets - a mental set consists of a tendency to stick with a strategy or solution that worked in the past ·experience may produce functional fixed-ness, the tendency to use familiar objects in familiar rather than creative ways ·an incubation strategy often helps to break mental sets
3.the confirmation bias - humans have a strong bias to confirm rather than refute the hypothesis they have chosen, even in the face of strong evidence against the hypothesis
4.ignoring negative evidence - compared with symptoms or events that are present, events that do not occur are less likely to be noticed and observed.
·codified system for communication, with capacity for generating and receiving infinite variety of messages ·psycholinguistic categories of: ·syntax (grammar) ·semantics (meaning) ·pragmatics (social use of language) ·phonology: ·study of basic sounds, phonemes = smallest unit of sound that affects the meaning of speech; there are 40 in English ·their combination into morphemes = smallest unit of language that has meaning; e.g. ‘dog’, ‘un-‘, ‘-ed’ ·expression of morphemes in rhythms and cadences - prosody)
Language development
1.Pre-Linguistic: 0-12 months
a)crying b)cooing: 6 wks (vowel sounds) c)babbling: 6 months (appearance of consonants) even in the deaf d)tuneful babble: 8 months (intonations simulate conversational cadences) e)phonemic contraction: 10 months (to range used in native tongue) f)repetitive phonemes: 11 months.
2.Single word stage: 12-18 months
a)constant utterance to refer to a thing b)parents often confuse with repetitive phonemes (ma-ma etc.) c)holophrastic use - one word for complex meanings. d)by 18 months, about 18 words, mainly nouns and some action verbs.
3.Two word stage: 18-30 months
a)telegrammatic grammar in rather rigid word order b)words often too numerous to count by 2 years c)probable limit of non-human primate communication
4.Grammatical differentiation: 30-48 months
a)increasing length of utterances b)inclusion of function words such as prepositions and conjunctions c)increasing development of syntactical rules (e.g. adding ‘s’ to pluralize everything)
5.From 5 years
a)use of passives, subjunctives, etc. b)learning of more advanced conversational rules e.g. not interrupting c)gradual internalization of speech into verbal thought
Clinical relevance
·semantic-pragmatic disorder ·disorders of interpersonal functioning also show disordered language development e.g. Autism, Asperger’s syndrome ·delayed speech may have a social causation and has behavioural consequences e.g. tantrums ·speech as an aspect of social functioning may be inhibited e.g. elective mutism ·difficulties separating speech and thought e.g. in schizophrenia
Cerebral considerations
·99% of right handed people have a dominant left hemisphere
·60% of left-handed people have a dominant left hemisphere
Pathways involved
1.Hearing: a)speech à auditory cortex à auditory association cortex à Wernicke’s area à comprehension
2.Reading: a)written word à visual cortex à visual association cortex à angular gyrus à Wernicke’s area à comprehension
3.Speaking: a)thought à Wernicke’s area à Broca’s area à motor speech areas à speech
4.Writing: a)thought à Wernicke’s area à angular gyrus à motor areas à writing
Causes of slower speech development
·being male ·being a twin ·prolonged second-stage labour .larger family size
Thought
·thinking is the manipulation of mental representations
Information-Processing Speed – Reaction time
·depends on: ·the complexity of the decision ·stimulus-response compatibility ·if the spatial relationship between a set of stimuli and possible responses is a natural or compatible one, reaction time will be fast ·expectancy ·expected stimuli are perceived more quickly and with greater accuracy than those that are surprising ·in any reaction-time task, there is a speed-accuracy trade-off ·if you try to respond more quickly, errors increase
Evoked brain potentials
·the evoked brain potential is a small, temporary change in voltage on an EEG that occurs in response to specific events ·there is a negative peak (N100) followed by a large positive peak (P300) ·the exact timing of P300 is sensitive to factors that alter the speed of perceptual processes
Mental representations
Cognitive maps
·a cognitive map is a mental representation of a familiar part of your world e.g. your home ·include systematic distortions, e.g. rectangular bias, a tendency to impose a rectangular north-south-east-west grid on the environment
Images
·are mental representations of visual information ·manipulations performed on images of objects are similar to those that would be performed on that object in the real world ·when objects are of a similar size, we must summon an image of each, then carefully compare them - the greater detail of the comparison or the more similar the objects, the longer the response time
Concept schemas and event scripts
·concepts are categories of objects, events, or ideas with common properties ·they may be concrete and visual e.g. ‘round’ or ‘red’ ·or abstract, such as ‘truth’ or ‘justice’ ·artificial concepts (e.g. ‘square’) can be clearly defined by a set of rules or properties such that each member of the concept has all of the defining properties and no nonmember does ·natural concepts (e.g. ‘home’ or ‘game’) have no fixed set of defining features, but instead share a set of characteristic features
·it is usually a combination of properties that define a concept ·most of the concepts that people use are natural ·a member of a natural concept that possesses all or most of its characteristic features is called a prototype ·the closer the object to the prototype, the faster the speed that we can decide if it is a member of the concept ·concepts can be mentally represented as schemas, generalizations we develop about categories of objects, events, and people ·schemas about familiar sequences of events or activities (e.g. entering a restaurant) are called scripts ·scripts are involved in the top-down processing that enables people to recognize and react to expected events than unexpected events
Propositions
·a proposition is the smallest unit of knowledge that can stand as a separate assertion ·e.g. ‘dogs chase cats’, ‘birds have wings’
Thinking strategies
·reasoning is the process through which people generate and evaluate arguments, and reach conclusions about them
Formal reasoning
·formal, or logical reasoning seeks valid conclusions through the application of rigorous procedures ·includes algorithms - systematic methods that always reach a correct result ·logic - a set of mental procedures that provide a more general algorithm, or formula, for drawing valid conclusions about the world ·logical arguments containing two or more premises and a conclusion are known as syllogisms ·the conclusion is an inference, based on the premises and the rules of logic ·a premise can be false yet the logic can still be correct ·e.g.All doctors are brilliant, I am a doctor, Therefore, I am brilliant ·the logic is correct, but the first premise is incorrect
Problems with logical reasoning
1.Bias about conclusions - people may agree with a conclusion not because they have examined the premises, but because they hold a prior belief about the conclusion
2.The conversion effect - people assume that because A implies B, then B implies A
3.Limits on working memory - arises if elements in a syllogism involves negatives, e.g. “No dogs are nonanimals”
Informal reasoning
·people use informal reasoning to assess the credibility of a conclusion based on the evidence for it ·e.g. how many swans do you have to observe before you conclude that all swans are white?
·formal reasoning = all of them
·informal reasoning = a mental rule of thumb enables you to gauge what the correct answer will be
·heuristics are these ‘mental shortcuts’, or rules of thumb
·there are three important heuristics:
1.The anchoring heuristic - estimating the probability of an event by adjusting a starting value ·e.g. if you thought the probability of being mugged in New York is 90 %, and then found out it was closer to 1 %, you might reduce your estimate only to 80 % ·presents a challenge to defence attorneys, because the prosecution’s evidence is presented first and it may be hard to alter the juror’s belief of guilt
2.The representatives heuristic - people base conclusions about whether an example belongs in a certain class on how similar it is to other items in that class ·e.g. if a patient has symptoms that are similar to a common disease but are even more representative of a rarer one, physicians are more likely to diagnose the rarer condition
3.The availability heuristic - involves judging the probability that an event may occur or that a hypothesis may be true by how easily the hypothesis or examples of the event can be brought to mind ·means that TV news reports showing airline crashes may make those rare events so memorable that people refuse to fly because they overestimate the probability of a crash
Problem solving
Strategies for problem solving
1.decomposition - dividing the problem into smaller, more manageable subproblems
2.working backward
3.finding analogies - recognizing the similarities between the current problem and previous problems
4.incubation - laying it aside for a while, so that (probably) incorrect ideas that were previously blocking the path to a correct solution are forgotten
Obstacles to problem solving
1.multiple hypotheses - the particular hypothesis that comes to mind may be the one that easily comes to mind, not the one most likely to be correct
2.mental sets - a mental set consists of a tendency to stick with a strategy or solution that worked in the past ·experience may produce functional fixed-ness, the tendency to use familiar objects in familiar rather than creative ways ·an incubation strategy often helps to break mental sets
3.the confirmation bias - humans have a strong bias to confirm rather than refute the hypothesis they have chosen, even in the face of strong evidence against the hypothesis
4.ignoring negative evidence - compared with symptoms or events that are present, events that do not occur are less likely to be noticed and observed.
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