Chapter 7

Representative heuristic

Is a strategy in which the likelihood of an event is estimated by comparing how similar it is to the prototype of the event. It can lead to inaccurate judgment if we fail to consider possible variations from the prototype and/or if we fail to consider the approximate number of prototypes that exist. We are more likely to risk speeding if we think we are somehow significantly different from the prototype of the driver who gets a speeding ticket. If our prototype is a teenager in a sports car, and we are an adult driving a minivan, we will probably estimate the likelihood of our getting a ticket as low.

Dogs and communication

Dogs are able to distinguish between people who are stingy with food rewards and people who are generous with it. They remember, and later they will approach the generous person even if that person clearly has less food to offer than the stingy person. They also seem able to distinguish among numbers up to nine. But in a study on dogs responses to human emergencies, researchers observed dogs in a room in which the dogs owner appeared to be trapped under a bookcase. None of the dogs sought help from an experimenter in the next room. They are not cognitively unique but have "an exquisite sensitivity to human action" (Wynne). Rather than trying to determine whether animals can reason, think or communicate like humans, researchers are interested in the specific cognitive capabilities that different species have evolved to best adapt to their ecological niche.

Elephants and communication

Elephants are highly social animals and seem to understand the nature of cooperation. In an experiment, elephants had to pull two ends of the same rope simultaneously to drag a bucket of tasty corn within reach. Researchers found that the elephants quickly learned to coordinate their efforts, and would wait at their rope end as long as 45 seconds for an elephant partner. They also appeared to understand that there was no point to pulling if the partner lacked access to the rope.

Decisions involving uncertainty

Estimating the probability of events. In some cases decisions involve a high degree of uncertainty, so you have to estimate the probability of an event occurring. We estimate, and then gamble. In deciding what the odds are there particular gamble will go our way, we tend to rely on 2 rule-of-thumb strategies to help us estimate the likelihood of events, the availability heuristic and the representativeness heuristic.

aptitude test

A test designed to assess a person's capacity to benefit from education or training. The goal is to predict your ability to learn certain types of information or perform certain skills.

Stages of Language Development - age 1 and up

1 year - First words. Usually concrete objects or people that are important to the child, such as mama, papa or ba-ba(bottle). "One word stage" where a single word and intonation stands for a whole sentence. Age 2 - Toddlers begin putting words together. The two-word stage. They combine two words to construct a simple sentence, such as "mama go". The words used are primarily content words, that is nouns, verbs, and sometimes adjectives and adverbs. No articles or prepositions. It reflects the first understandings of grammar. They typically follow grammatically correct sequences. Age 2 1/2 - toddlers rapidly increase the length and grammatical complexity of their sentences. Huge increase in the number of words they can comprehend and produce. Age 3 - The child has a production vocabulary of more than 3000 words. Acquires about 12 new words a day. High school age, a child may have a production vocabulary of more than 10,000 words. The ability to learn so many words so quickly doesn't last. The critical period during which it is easiest to learn a new language, including proper pronunciation and grammar begins to decline by ages six or seven.

Box - seeing faces and places in Mind's eye

fMRIs to compare brain activity during perception and imagery. Looked at familiar images/places and later imagined the same images/places. Imagining a name/place activates the same brain region as perceiving, but perceiving images/places is the stronger brain response. O'Craven & Kanwasher

Bilingualism

fluency in 2 or more languages. Multilingual. 2/3 of children worldwide are raised speaking 2 or more languages. It used to be discouraged in the US. It has cognitive benefits.

Famous Binet quote

"To judge well, to comprehend well, to reason well, these are the essential activities of intelligence."

What are the three basic requirements of good test design?

Standardization, reliability, and validity.

cognition

The mental activities involved in acquiring, retaining, and using knowledge.

Are all concepts similar?

Some are rigid, and some are not so easy. For example, a category may be vehicles. Cars, trucks, and buses all easily fit into that concept. However what about sleds, wheelbarrels, and rafts? These are not as easy to define as the others.

g factor or general intelligence (Spearman)

The notion of a general intelligence factor that is responsible for a person's overall performance on tests of mental ability.

Terman's longitudinal study

1921. Soon it came to be believed that the score was a fixed, inborn characteristic that was resistant to change. Terman believed eventually that a high IQ predicted more than success in school. Turman identified 1500 California school children with genius IQ scores. He set longitudinal research to follow their careers. Boys and girls between 8 and 12, with IQs above 140. They tended to be socially well-adjusted, as well as taller, stronger, and healthier than average children, with fewer illnesses and accidents. They performed exceptionally well in school. As a group in adulthood, they showed an astonishing range of accomplishments. In 1955, an average income was $5000 a year, and the average income for the group was $33,000. 2/3 graduated from college and a sizable portion had earned advanced academic or professional degrees. Next they compared the 100 most successful men (A group) with the hundred at least successful men (C group). Only a handful of the C group were professionals, and unlike the A group, they were earning only slightly above the national average income. In terms of their personal lives, they were less healthy, had higher rates of alcoholism, and were three times more likely to be divorced. The differences? As children, the As are much more likely to display prudence and forethought, will power, perseverance, and the desire to excel. They were different on three traits: they were goal oriented, had greater perseverance, and had greater self-confidence. They had greater ambition and a greater desire to achieve. Personality factors accounted for the differences in the level of accomplishment.

Giving birth to a new language

1977. A special school for deaf children opened in Managua, Nicaragua. The children developed a system of gestures for communicating with one another. It has evolved into a unique new language with its own grammar and syntax. The spontaneous evolution vividly demonstrates the human predisposition to develop rule based systems of communication.

Charles Spearman (1863-1945)

A British psychologist who believed that a single factor, which he called the g factor, underlies many different kinds of mental abilities. To him, a person's level of general intelligence was equivalent to his or her level of "mental energy." He believed the people who did well or poorly on a test of one mental ability such as verbal ability, tended also to do well or poorly on the other tests.

Normal curve or normal distribution

A bell-shaped distribution of individual differences in a normal population in which most scores cluster around the average score.

intelligence quotient (IQ)

A measure of general intelligence derived by comparing an individual score with the scores of others in the same age group. The number was derived by dividing the individuals mental age by the chronological age and multiplying the results by 100. Thus a child of average intelligence with mental age and chronological age bring the same, would have an IQ score of 100. A bright 10-year-old child with a mental age of a 13-year-old would have an IQ of 130, or a slow child with a chronological age of 10 and a mental age of 7 would have an IQ of 70.

mental age (MA)

A measurement of intelligence in which an individual's mental level is expressed in terms of the average abilities of a given age group.

Concepts

A mental category of ideas or objects based on properties they share. A kind of mental shorthand, like the category food. We tend to organize in main categories and subcategories. Main category food, subcategories fruit and vegetables. It makes it easier to communicate with others and to remember and learn new information.

mental images

A mental representation of objects or events that are not physically present. Typically visual pictures but taste, smell and touch as well. A scene, chocolate milk, popcorn, ice.

trial and error

A problem-solving strategy that involves attempting different solutions and eliminating those that do not work. It works when there is a limited range of solutions, like fine-tuning a recipe.

Algorithms

A problem-solving strategy that involves following a specific rule, procedure or method that inevitably produces the correct solution. Examples include mathematical formulas like converting temperature from Fahrenheit to Centigrade. It is not always practical, as in trying to figure out a combination lock with four or five numbers.

availability heuristic

A strategy in which the likelihood of an event is estimated on the basis of how readily available other instances of the event are in memory. When instances are easily recalled, we tend to consider the event as being more likely to occur. We are less likely to exceed the speed limit if we can readily recall a friend recently getting a speeding ticket. But it can lead us to more readily recall good outcomes. For example, we may more easily recall successful risky behaviors in extreme sports that end safely, and be tempted to make risky decisions based on those safe and happy endings.

language

A system for combining arbitrary symbols to produce an infinite number of meaningful statements. It is flexible, versatile, and complex.

achievement test

A test designed to measure a person's level of knowledge, skill, or accomplishment in a particular area. For example, mathematics or a foreign language.

Immigrants deemed unfit at Ellis Island

According to one intelligence "expert" of the time, 80% of the Hungarians 79% of the Italians, and 87% of the Russians were "feeble minded" the new science of mental testing was used to argue for restrictions on immigration.

animal cognition

Also known as comparative cognition. The study of animal learning, memory, thinking, and language. They study a wide range of cognitive abilities in many different species. Western scrub Jays can remember the past and anticipate the future. They survive harsh winters by remembering precisely where they stored the food they gathered months earlier. And bonobos and chimpanzees can remember events in the movie after viewing it just once. Their eyes focused on the location of the actions they expected to see, that is a human in an ape suit emerging through a door.

The characteristics of language - generative

Another characteristic is that it is creative. That is, you can generate an infinite number of new and different phrases and sentences.

What are the three main decision-making strategies?

The single-factor model, the additive model, and the elimination-by-aspects model. When a decision is important or complex, we're more likely to invest time, effort, and other resources in considering different options. It becomes complicated when each option involves the consideration of several features.

What about probability and rare, vivid events?

Availability heuristic as well. When a rare event makes a vivid impression on us we may overestimate its likelihood. A vivid memory can be created from watching lottery ads, making us believe that our likelihood of winning is greater than it actually is. The less accurately our memory of an event reflects the actual frequency of the event, the less accurate our estimate of the event's likelihood will be.

normal distribution curve of IQ score

Average score 100, 68% within normal range of 85-115. 95% from 70 to 130. 1/10 of 1% less than 55 or greater than 145.

David Wechsler (1896-1981)

Born in Romania, he immigrated with his family to New York when he was 6. Like Binet, he believed that intelligence involved a variety of mental abilities. He also strongly believe that IQ scores could be influenced by personality, motivation, and cultural factors. He was dissatisfied with the Stanford-Binet and other intelligence tests in widespread use. He was in charge of testing adults of widely varying cultural and social economic backgrounds and ages and a large hospital in New York City he designed a new test called the Wessler adult intelligence scale (WAIS) which was first published in 1955

The roles of genetics and environment in determining intelligence

Both genes and environment contribute to intelligence, but the relationship is complex. No agreement on the origin of intelligence. Do we essentially inherit our intelligence potential from our parents? Or is our potential primarily determined by our environment and upbringing? Remember that environmental factors influence which of the many genes we inherit are expressed. However intelligence is defined, the genetic range of intellectual potential is influenced by many genes, not by one single gene.

What is a common heuristic approach?

Break the problem into subgoals. For example, in writing a term paper, break the subject down into different sections. Or work backwards from the goal. Figure out the total budget amount, and then work backwards to figure out departmental needs. Flexibility is key.

Give an example of an additive model decision making strategies

Buying a house. The list of important factors would include the desired location, number of bedrooms, number of baths, lot size, etc. Each factor would be rated on an arbitrary scale of say 1 to 10. All factor scores would be added up for each house (or alternative) looked at, to see which house is best. If some factors are more important than others, they can be given additional weight. Maybe location is 2X as important as the other factors, so it gets 20 points instead of 10.

How do we learn concepts?

By learning the rules or features, which are often rigid. Attributes are a must. For rigid concepts, an example is solid, liquid or gas.

mental set

The tendency to persist in solving problems with solutions that have worked in the past. If we approach a problem with a rigid mental set, we may not see other possible solutions. It can happen more in areas where you are already knowledgeable or well-trained. They can both sometimes suggest a useful holistic, but they can also prevent us from coming up with new and possibly more effective solutions. Flexibility is key!

Eleanor Rosch study of color

Dani speaking people of New Guinea have two words for colors. Mili is used for the dark, cool colors of black, green, and blue. Mola is used for light, warm colors such as white, red, and yellow. According to the Whorfian hypothesis, the people who only have names for two classes of colors, should perceive them differently than English speaking people who have names for 11 basic colors. Subjects were shown a brightly colored chip. Then 30 seconds later, they were asked to pick out the color that they had seen from an array of other colors. Despite their lack of specific words for the colors they had seen, the Dani did as well as English speakers on the test. The Dani people used the same word to label red and yellow but they still distinguished between the two. This goes against the Whorfian hypothesis.

Animal communication and cognition

Chimps chitter to warn of snakes and chirp to let others know that a leopard is nearby. Prairie dogs make different sounds to warn of approaching coyotes, dogs, hawks, and even humans wearing different colored shirts. Insects have complex communication systems. Honeybees perform a dance to report information about the distance, location, and quality of a pollen source to their hive mates.

The single factor model of decision making

Decisions are based on a single factor. It is a good method for minor decisions. For example, the decision to buy the cheapest laundry detergent. Only consider the price.

Intellectual disability

Formerly called mental retardation. Neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by deficits in general mental abilities which results in impairments of adaptive functioning, such that the individual fails to meet standards of personal independence and social responsibility. Typically an IQ of 70 or below. Has difficulties in functioning in three areas: conceptual skills such as the use of language and the ability to understand time; social skills; and practical skills such as the ability to take care of personal hygiene and health.

Alfred Binet (1857-1911)

French psychologist. In the early 1900s the French government passed a law requiring all children to attend school. Faced with the need to educate children from a wide variety of backgrounds, the government commissioned him to develop procedures to identify students who might require special help. He would measure his young participants' breathing rates while they performed different tasks. It was the first systematic intelligence test, but he did not believe that he was measuring innate ability. Instead, he believed that his test could identify school children who could benefit from special help.

Name two obstacles to solving problems

Functional fixedness and mental set

Ways language influence his perception

Gibson. Indigenous people in the Amazon region of Brazil. An isolated tribe, called the Pirahã, less than 200, no language for #s. Rather than identifying quantities by exact numbers, people used relative terms like a few, more, and many. They were capable of learning to count, suggesting that this lack of number words did not affect their ability to perceive exact quantities. But they were unable to complete simple arithmetic tasks. This demonstrates how language categories can affect how individuals think about particular concepts. Thinking and language interact and influence each other, and both being influenced by culture.

Robert Sternberg (b. 1949)

He became interested in intelligence after he did poorly on his sixth grade intelligence test. He later realized anxiety had interfered. He did poorly in courses that required rote learning. President of American psychological Association. He devoted his career to studying nontraditional types of intelligence, such as creativity and wisdom, and developing new ways to measure these qualities.

Lewis Terman (1877-1956)

He translated and adapted Binet's test in the United States at Stanford University. It was called the Stanford-Binet intelligence scale, published in 1916, and for many years was the standard for intelligence test in the US. He adopted the suggestion of a German psychologist that scores be expressed in terms of a single number, the IQ.

Honeyguides and communication

Honeyguides, a type of bird in Mozambique, respond to vocalizations made by people searching for honey. They respond to specific sounds made by people seeking beehives, which are often hidden in the trees. The people foraging for honey were three times as likely to find honey if they made these sounds to request guidance from the birds. What's in it for the birds? They learned that humans have tools to open the hives and the birds eat leftover beeswax once the people have taken the honey.

Immigrants and intelligence testing

Immigrants were screened as they arrived at Ellis island. The result was sweeping generalizations about the intelligence of different nationalities and races. Some testing experts urged Congress to limit the immigration of certain nationalities to keep the country from being "overrun with a horde of the unfit." Yet language and cultural differences that may have affected the scores. Immigrants were asked to interpret pictures. When showed a group of children digging a hole, with a dead rabbit on the ground beside them, many immigrants, based on their experiences living in countries in which people eat rabbits, believed "that the children had killed the rabbit for dinner" and did not see that the children were holding a funeral for their pet.

Recent research on the importance of personality factors

Positive life outcomes such as health and financial success were found to be better associated with grades and achievement tests then with IQ. Why? Because personality traits such as the capacity to plan are closely linked with grades and achievement tests, and these traits on their own have been shown to be important predictors of life outcomes. But high intelligence can certainly contribute to success in life. But it is not enough. Although IQ scores reliably predict academic success, success in school is no guarantee of success beyond school. Willingness to work hard is particularly important.

Exemplars

Individual instances of a concept or category held in memory. Some reacher researchers believe we don't classify by comparing to the best example but that we store memories of individual instances of a concept.

Thinking critically about evidence

It is important to keep an open mind. Simply dismissing an idea as possible shuts out for consideration evidence for new and potentially promising ideas or phenomena. But it is important to gather and think about evidence that will help us avoid unwarranted beliefs and self-deception.

Animals and language?

Possibly. Researchers worked with the Bonobo chimpanzee in the mid 80s. Savage-Rumbaugh & Lewin. Kanzi understands elementary syntax in more than 500 spoken English words. He can respond to new, complex spoken commands, such as "put the ball on the pine needles". Commands are spoken by an assistant out of Kenzie's view, so he cannot be responding to nonverbal cues.

Can infants distinguish among the speech sounds of all the world languages?

Kohl; Werker & Desjardins. At birth infants can distinguish among the speech sounds of all the worlds languages, no matter what language is spoken in their homes. And shortly after birth, infants prefer speech over other sounds that humans make. But infants lose the ability to distinguish among all possible speech sounds by 10 to 12 months of age. Instead, they can distinguish only among the speech sounds that are present in the language to which they have been exposed. This, during the first year of life, infants begin to master the sound structure of their own native language.

The characteristics of language - a highly structured system

Language follow specific rules. Every language has its own unique syntax, or set of rules for combining words. Although you are usually unaware of these rules as you are speaking or writing, you immediately noticed when a rule has been violated. Word order rules are very important in determining the meaning of an English phrase. The boy ate the giant pumpkin is different from the giant pumpkin ate the boy.

Gardeners eight distinct, independent intelligences, plus a possible ninth

Linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, spacial, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalist. And the ninth is existential intelligence, or spiritual intelligence.

Dolphins and communication

Louis Herman. He trained bottle nose dolphins to respond to sounds and gestures, each of which stands for a word. This artificial language incorporates syntax rules, such as those that govern word order.

Howard Gardner

Many mental abilities are not adequately measured by traditional intelligence tests according to him. He explains different tasks call on different intelligences or combinations of intelligence. Performing music intelligently requires different intelligence than preparing a meal, or resolving a problem. He looked at the kinds of skills in products that are valued in different cultures. He also studied individuals with brain damage noting which mental abilities are spared and which are lost. To him, different mental abilities are biologically distinct and controlled by different parts of the brain.

Maria and the representativeness heuristic - leading to inaccurate judgments

Maria is a perceptive, sensitive, introspective woman. She's very articulate but measures her words carefully. Once she is certain she knows what she wants to say, she expresses herself easily and confidently. She has a strong preference for working alone. On the basis of this description, is it more likely that Maria is a successful fiction writer or that Maria is a registered nurse? Most people guess she is a successful fiction writer because it seems to mesh with what many people think of as the typical characteristics of a writer. But when you compare the number of registered nurses, which is very large, to the number of successful female fiction writers, which is very small, it is actually much more likely that Maria is a nurse. Thus this technique may produce faulty estimates.

universal grammar

Noam Chomsky's theory that all the world's languages share a similar underlying structure. According to Noam Chomsky, 1965, every child is born with a biological predisposition to learn language, any language. Infants are innately equipped not only to understand language but also to extract grammatical rules from what they hear. The key task in the development of languages is to learn a set of grammatical rules that allows the child to produce an unlimited number of sentences from a limited number of words.

persistence of unwarranted beliefs

Once a belief in a pseudoscience or paranormal phenomenon is established, the presentation of contradictory evidence often has little impact. Ironically, contradictory evidence can actually strengthen a person's established beliefs. In one study, participants were given the accurate information that the flu vaccine does not cause the flu. Those who are already worried about getting the flu from the vaccine were not reassured. In fact they were even less likely to say they would get the flu vaccine after learning this information.

Irene Pepperberg with Alex

Over 30 years, Irene and this African gray parrot revolutionized ideas about avian intelligence and animal communication. He had remarkable language abilities and also displayed an understanding of simple concepts, including an understanding of bigger and smaller, similar and different. Showing a green block and a green ball and asked "what is the same?" Alex would respond "color." He could accurately state quantities up to six.

wishful thinking bias

People also tend to believe evidence that confirms what they want to believe is true. Faced with evidence that seems to contradict hoped-for findings, people may object to the study's methodology. And, evaluating evidence that seems to confirm a wished-for finding, people may overlook flaws in the research or argument. For example, parents with children in day care may be motivated to embrace research from findings that emphasize the benefits of daycare for young children and discount findings that emphasize the benefits of home based care.

The nature of intelligence

Psychologists do not agree about the basic nature of intelligence, including whether it is a single general ability and whether it includes skills and talents as well as mental aptitude. The controversy over the definition of intelligence centers on 2 issues. 1. Is intelligence is single, general ability, or is it a better described as a cluster of different mental abilities? 2. Should the definition be restricted to the mental abilities measured by IQ and other intelligence test? Or should it be defined more broadly?

Which heuristic is more likely to be used?

Research suggests that the availability heuristic is most likely to be used when people rely on information held in their long-term memory to determine the likelihood of an event occurring. On the other hand, the representative heuristic is more likely to be used when people compare different variables to make predictions. These models may explain individual decisions but they do not offer a broad explanation of how we process information to make decisions.

The Triarctic Theory of Intelligence

Robert Sternberg's theory that there are three distinct forms of intelligence: analytic, creative, and practical. He believes that some of the Gardener's intelligences are more accurately described as specialized talents, whereas intelligence is a more general quality. This theory emphasizes both the universal aspects of intelligent behavior and the importance of adapting to a particular social and cultural environment.

Heuristics in problem solving

Rule of thumb. A problem-solving strategy that involves following a general rule of thumb to reduce the number of possible solutions. It may or may not work, but it can simplify the problem by reducing the number of solutions. And then, with this recently reduced number of possible solutions, other methods can be applied like trial and error. For example picking a restaurant first by checking online reviews.

The characteristics of language - Symbols

Symbols include sounds, written words, or, as in American sign language, formalized gestures. Some may be similar in form to the meaning they signify, such as the English words boom and pop. But for most, the connection between this and the meaning is completely arbitrary. Ton is a small word that stands for a large quantity, whereas nanogram is a large word that stands for a very small quantity. Because the relationship between this and its meaning is arbitrary, language is tremendously flexible. New words can be invented (selfie) and word meanings can change (troll). The meaning is shared by others who speak the same language. People agree on the connection between the sound and what it symbolizes. A foreign language sounds meaningless because we do not share the memory of the connection between the arbitrary sounds in the concrete meanings they symbolize.

World War I and Group intelligence testing

The US military was faced with the need to rapidly screen 2 million army recruits. Using a group intelligence test designed by one of Terman's students, army psychologist developed the army alpha and beta tests. The army outfit test was administered in writing and the army beta test was administered orally to recruits and draftees who could not read. After the war, these tests were adapted for civilian use. After this there was a tremendous surge in intelligence testing. They were designed to test virtually all ages and types of people, including preschool children, prisoners, and newly arriving immigrants. However, the indiscriminate use of the test also resulted in skepticism and hostility.

Linguistic relativity hypothesis

The Whorfian hypothesis. The hypothesis: the differences among languages cause differences in the thoughts of their speakers. A person's language determines the very structure of his or her thoughts and perceptions. Do the Arctic regions have many different words for snow? Not really; generally, people with expertise in a particular area tend to perceive and make finer distinctions than non-experts do. Experts are also more likely to know the specialized terms that reflect those distinctions. Furthermore, we don't claim that an expert sees a different reality than a non-expert. Our perceptions and thought processes influence the language we use to describe those perceptions. This is the opposite of this theory. The linguistic relativity hypothesis has not been supported.

Validity

The ability of a test to measure what it is intended to measure. One way to establish this is by demonstrating its predictive value. For example if a test is designed to measure mechanical aptitude, people who received high scores should ultimately prove more successful in mechanical jobs than people who received low scores.

Reliability

The ability of a test to produce consistent results when administered on repeated occasions under similar conditions. One method to determine this is to administer to similar, but not identical, version of the test at different times. Another is to compare the scores on 1/2 of the test with the scores on the other half of the test. It is considered this if the test and retest test scores are highly similar when such strategies are used.

Standardization

The administration of a test to a large, representative sample of people under uniform conditions for the purpose of establishing norms. All participants take the same version of the test under uniform conditions, and the scores of this group establish the norms, where the standards against which an individual score is compared and interpreting. For IQ test, the norms closely follow a pattern of individual differences called the normal curve, or normal distribution. In this bell shaped pattern, most scores cluster around the average score.

insight

The sudden realization of how a problem can be solved. We are usually not aware of the thought processes that lead to this. It usually involves perceiving a pattern in the information you are considering, but not consciously being aware of it. Your expertise in an area combined with your memories of related information lead to a hunch. It is a new idea that integrates new information with existing knowledge stored in long-term memory. Once a hunch is formed, conscious analytical thought processes take over. An example can be the realization that an object can be used in a novel way. Chances are likely to be accurate only in the context in which you already have a broad base of knowledge and experience.

intelligence

The global capacity to think rationally, act purposely, and deal effectively with the environment. David Wechsler. This is much broader than book smarts. It is reflected in effective, rational, and goal directed behavior.

Thinking

The manipulation of mental representations of information in order to draw inferences and conclusions. Typically, active mental processes directed toward some goal, purpose or conclusion. It is involved in all conscious mental activity. Acquiring new knowledge, reasoning, planning and daydreaming.

prototype

The most typical instance of a particular concept. Items are often compared to the prototype. Apple as a fruit is a prototype, and a coconut may be compared to an apple to determine if it is also a fruit.

functional fixedness

The tendency to view objects as functioning only in their usual and customary week. It can prevent us from seeing alternative ways. For example, single use plastic bags. These are now being used to make "plarn"' or plastic yarn. This is used to make waterproof sleeping mats for the homeless. The organization New Life for Old Bags estimates that it takes between 600 and 700 plastic bags to create one 6' x 2' sleeping mat.

production vocabulary

The words that an infant or child understands and can speak.

comprehension vocabulary

The words that are understood by an infant or child.

Stages of Language Development - to year 1

These appear to be universal. Kuhl. In virtually every culture, infants follow the same sequence of language development and at roughly similar ages. 3 mo - infants begin to coo - vowel sounds, varying pitch, aaaahhh, oooooo 5 mo - begin to babble - they add consonants to the vowels and string the sounds together, babababa; infants all over the world use the same sounds when they babble, including sounds that do not occur in the language of their parents and other caregivers. 9 mo - They begin to babble more in the sound specific to their language. It seems to be a biologically programmed stage of language development. <1 year - Before this, most infants can understand simple commands, such as bring daddy the block, even though they cannot say those words. Infants acquire comprehension of words more than twice as fast as a learn to speak new words

Simon and Binet

They devised a series of tests to measure different mental abilities. He did not test subject abilities, like reading or math, that the students might have been taught. They focused on elementary mental abilities, such as memory, attention, and the ability to understand similarities and differences. They arranged the questions on the test in order of difficulty, with the simplest tasks first. The brighter children performed like older children and the less bright like younger children. This led to the idea of a mental level, or mental age that was different from a child's chronological age. Also, they believed that intelligence was too complex to describe with a single number. He refused to rank "normal" children on the basis of their scores, believing that such rankings would be unfair. He recognized that factors such as motivation might affect the child's score. He noted that an individual score could vary from time to time.

problem solving

Thinking and behavior directed towards attaining a goal that is not readily available. To do this, one must first correctly identify the problem.

Obstacle #1 to logical thinking - the belief-bias effect

This involves only accepting evidence that confirms belief and rejecting or ignoring evidence that doesn't support the belief. There was a study on ESP with both believers and nonbeliever (2 attempts at telepathic communication, one clearly worked, the other didn't - both were staged) Both believers and non-believers agreed the experiment showed that the staged ESP worked, but only the nonbelievers agreed that the failed esp experiment was in fact a failure of esp to work. The ESP believers ignored or discounted the evidence in the unsuccessful ESP attempt.. Russell and Jones.

Practical Intelligence (Sternberg)

This involves the ability to adapt to the environment and often reflects what is commonly called "street smarts".. What is required to adapt successfully in one particular situation or culture may be very different from what is needed in another situation or culture. The behaviors that reflect this can vary depending on the particular situation, environment, or culture.

Additive model of decision making

This is a better model for more complex decisions. It systemically evaluates the important features of each alternative. Make a list of important factors for each alternative and rate each one on an arbitrary scale. Add together, or make adjustments by weighting them if some factors are more important than others. This strategy can often reveal the best overall choice.

Creative Intelligence (Sternberg)

This is the ability to deal with novel situations by drawing on existing skills and knowledge. The intelligent person effectively draws on past experiences to cope with new situations, which often involves finding an unusual way to relate old information to new.

Analytical Intelligence (Sternberg)

This is the mental processes used in learning how to solve problems, such as picking a problem-solving strategy and applying it. IQ conventional intelligence test measures mental abilities, they do not evaluate the strategies used to solve problems which Sternberg considers important in determining analytical intelligence.

Obstacle #2 to logical thinking - confirmation bias

This is the strong tendency to search for information or evidence that confirms of belief, while making little or no effort to search for information that might disapprove the belief. For example, we tend to visit websites that support our own viewpoints and read blogs and editorial columns written by people who interpret events from our perspective. At the same time, we avoid the sides, blogs, and columns written by people who don't see things our way.

Obstacle #4 to logical thinking - the overestimation affect

This is the tendency to overestimate the rarity of events. Suppose a psychic comes to your classroom of 23 students. Using his abilities, he senses that two people in the class were born on the same day. A quick survey finds that in fact two people do share the same birthday. But what are the odds that two people in a class of 23 would have the same birthday? It is actually 1 in 2. This is an over estimation of the rarity of the event.

Obstacle #3 to logical thinking - the fallacy of positive instances

This is the tendency to remember uncommon events that seem to confirm our beliefs and to forget events that disconfirm our beliefs. Often, the occurrence is really nothing more than a coincidence. For example, you find yourself thinking of an old friend. A few moments later the phone rings and it's him. You remember this seemingly telepathic event but forget all the times that you've thought of your old friend and he did not call. You remember the positive instance but failed to notice the negative instances when the anticipated event did not happen.

What are the four main problem-solving strategies?

Trial and error, algorithms, heuristics, and insight and intuition. Usually we attack a problem in an organized and systematic way. Strategy used is influenced by the nature of the problem, your degree of experience, familiarity, and knowledge about the problem. The key to finding a solution is flexibility in the approach to problem-solving. And sometimes there is no single "best" solution.

Elimination-by-aspects model of decision making

Tversky. This kind evaluates all our top alternatives one at a time, in order of importance. Then it eliminates alternatives as criteria are not met. For example, if looking to buy a laptop, first eliminate those with insufficient power (your greatest concern), then the ones that do not meet display requirements, etc., until you have one left. Eliminate in order of importance.

sign language

Used by hearing-impaired people, it meets all the formal requirements for language, including syntax, displacement, and generativity. The similarities between spoken language and sign language have been confirmed by brain imaging studies. The same brain regions are activated in hearing people when they speak as deaf people when they use sign language.

WAIS

Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale. This had two advantages over the Stanford-Binet test. First, it was specifically designed for adults, rather than for children. Second, his test provided scores on 11 subtests measuring different abilities. The subtest scores are grouped to provide an overall verbal score and performance score. The verbal score represented scores on subtests of vocabulary, comprehension, knowledge of general information, and other verbal tasks. The performance score reflected scores of largely nonverbal subtests, such as identifying the missing part in incomplete pictures, arranging pictures to tell a story, or arranging blocks to match a given pattern. It provided an individualized profile of participants' strengths and weaknesses on specific tasks. Practical/clinical value - help identify learning disabilities, autism. Cultural influences. Global IQ score too - for average age groups. 2/3 of all scores between 85 and 115 (the range considered to be normal intelligence. Still used today. Revised in 1981, 1997, 2008. WAIS-IV now. And for kids, WISC and WPPSI.

balanced proficiency

When speakers are equally proficient in two languages. Studies have found that these people are better able to control attention and inhibit distracting information then are monolingual people who are fluent in just a single language b/c both languages are constantly active to some degree in the brain of a bilingual speaker, even in a situation where only 1 language is spoken. Thus, a person must be a "mental juggler" and the resulting cognitive workout pays off in increased mental agility. Social benefits too, as research suggests these people are better at taking the perspective of others. And it preserves brain function in old age, as it helps build up a cognitive reserve that can help protect against cognitive decline in late adulthood.

The characteristics of language - displacement

You can communicate meaningfully about ideas, objects, and activities that are not physically present. You can refer to activities that will take place in the future, that took place in the past, or that will take place only after certain conditions are met. You can also carry on a conversation about abstract ideas (what is justice) or strictly imaginary topics(If you were to spend a year in space...).

motherese (parentese)

infant-directed speech. People in every culture, especially parents, use this style of speech with babies. It is characterized by very distinct pronunciation, a simplified vocabulary, short sentences, high pitch, and exaggerated intonation and expression. Characteristics appear to be universal. Kenyans were reliably able to identify when recorded English speakers were communicating with a child versus an adult, even though they couldn't understand the words being said. They also understood the general intent of what was being said to the child. For example, they could tell when a parent was trying to get the infant's attention. It's use seems to be instinctive - deaf mothers who use sign language modify their hand gestures when they communicate with infants and toddlers in a way that is very similar to the infant directed speech of hearing mothers.

Algorithms vs. Heuristics

step-by-step vs. rule-of-thumb