Chapter 9

The spontaneous utterance of a variety of sounds by infants is called

babbling

Jahmal cites his cousin Luana's many car accidents as evidence as evidence that women are worse drivers than men. He overlooks that fact that his wife and three daughters have had far fewer car accidents than he and his two sons. Jahmal's prejudicial conclusion about women's driving skills best illustrates the effect of

confirmations bias

People told that chemical in the air is projected to kill 10 out every 10,000 people feel more frightened than if told the fatality risk is one-techth of 1 percent. This best illustrates the importance of

framing

During the earliest stage of speech development, infants

make some speech sounds that do not occur in their parents' native language

Ojinska sold many more raffle tickets when she told potential buyers they has a 10 percent chance of winning a prize than when she told they had 90 percent chance of not winning. This best illustrates

the framing effect

Heuristics are

simple thinking strategies for solving problems quickly and efficiently

Phonemes are

the smallest distinctive sound units of a language

Cognitive psychologists are most directly concerned with the study of

thinking

In testing thousands of different materials for use as lightbulb filaments, Thomas Edison best illustrated a problem-solving approach known as

trial and error

Two-year-old Dirk's sentence - "Dad come," "Mom laugh" and "Truck gone" - are examples of

telegraphic speech

A mental set is a

tendency to approach a problem in a way that has been successful in the past

Emotion-laden images of unusual but vivid cases of abducted children may lead many parents to experience exaggerated fears of letting their children walk to school. The exaggerated fears best illustrate the impact of

the availability heuristic

Experienced chicken seders can tell you a chick's sex at a glance, yet cannot tell you how they do it. Their acquired expertise is such an automatic habit that it feels like

intuition

Without awareness, we often use highly adaptive heuristics. This illustrates the value of

intuition

Which of the following was cited by Whorf as evidence in support of the linguistic determinism hypothesis?

The Hopi cannot readily think about the past because their language has no past tense for verbs

The principles of learning emphasized by B. F. Skinner are most helpful in explaining why children

add new words to their vocabulary

A sudden realization of the solution to a problem is called

insight

The smallest speech units that carry meaning are called

morphemes

In English, adjectives precede nouns. This is a rule syntax, which is the

orderly arrangement of words into grammatically sensible sentences

Steve was sure he answered at least 70 questions correctly on his biology test. In fact, he was right on only 55 items. Steve's misjudgment of his test performance illustrates

overconfidence

A best example of a category of objects, events, or people is called a(n)

prototype

The tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions is called

confirmation bias

Logical, methodical step-by-step procedures for solving problems are called

algorithms

Many people overestimate how long they actually remain awake during restless nights because their moments of wakefulness are easier to recall than their moments of sleep. This best illustrates the impact of

availability heuristic

People are often positively impressed by research that supports their own point of view. Asking them whether they would have been equally impressed by the same research if it had proved results that disputed their point of view is likely to inhabit

belief perseverance

To promote cognitive efficiency, concepts are organized into

category hierarchies

Research suggests that humans can most easily master the grammar of a second language during

childhood

A mental grouping of similar objects, events or people is a(n)

concept

When given candle, tacks and a box of matches and asked to mount the candle on a wall, people often fail to think of using the matchbox as a candleholder. This best illustrates

functional fixedness

In trying to solve a potentially complicated problem quickly, we are most likely to rely on

heuristics

The availability heuristic refers to our tendency to

judge the likelihood of an event in terms of how readily instances of its occurrence are remembered

Spoken, written, or signed words and the ways they are combined to communicate meaning constitute

language

Chomsky's theory of language development suggests that children have an inborn

language acquisition device

According to Chomsky, the fact that young children generate all sorts of sentences they have never heard before suggests that

language skills are not developed simply through the processes of imitation and reinforcement

Most people take less time to identify a cow as a mammal than a mouse as a mammal because cow more closely resembles their mammal

prototype

Great apes, dolphins and elephants have demonstrated self-awareness by

recognizing themselves in a mirror

A European visitor to the United States ask a taxi driver, " Can you please a ride to the airport me give?" This visitor has apparently not yet mastered the ________ of the english language.

syntax

Perceived differences between various shades of color are greater if people assign a different name to each hue. This best illustrates the influence of

universal grammar on language acquisition