Psychology: Chapter 8 Thinking and Language

flexibility

The ability to overcome rigidity.

bilinguism

The ability to speak two languages.

overregulation

The application of normal grammar rules in situations to which they do not apply to.

phonemes

The basic sounds of a language.

thinking

The mental process to understand information. It's made possible through units of thought that includes symbols, concepts, and prototypes.

recombination

The mental rearrangement of elements of a problem.

language acquistion device

The natural tendency to acquire languages. The LAD enables the brain to undrestand and use grammare and it enables people to turn ideas into sentences.

metacognition

The planning, evaluting, and monitoring mental activities. (thinking about thinking).

psycholinguistics

The psychology of language.

circumstances

The situations or scenarios.

morphemes

The smallest units of meaning in a language. Perfixes and suffiexies can be added to words. They are made up of phenemes, and it does not always have to be a word.

semantics

The study of meaning. It involves the relationship between language and the things depicted in the language.

incubation effect

The tendency to arrive at a solution after a period of time away form the problem.

mental set

The tendency to respnd to a new problem with an approach that was successfully used with similiar problems.

functional fixedness

The tendency to think of an object as being useful only for the function that the object is usually used for.

reasoning

The use of information to reach the conclusions.

syntax

The ways, in which words and phrases are arranged into sentences (word order).

working backwards

To examine the final goal and to work backwards from there to ther present position to determine the best course of action.

difference reduction

To identify the goal, where you are in relation to it, and the direction you need to move to get closer to the goal. (reduce the difference between the present situation and the desired situation) .

means and analysis

We know that there are certain things we can do (means), and that they will have certain results (ends).

What 4 reasons explain why languages are dying?

* Speakers of native languages have ben forced to speak that language of a dominant culture. * People naturally want to purse a better way of life for themselves and their families. * The influence of dominant cultures and languages called "predator" languages by some linguist. * The remaining people that speak the language, have died.

deductive reasonign

A form of thinking in which conclusions are inferred from premises, the conclusions are true if the premises are true.

inductive thinking

A form of thinking that involves using individual cases or particular facts to reach general conclusions.

concept

A group used to categorize objects, people, or events that share similiar characteristics.

balance sheet

A lusting of varous reasons for or against making a particular choice.

analogies

A simialarity between two or more items, events, or situations. When people have successfully solved one problem they may try and use the same approach on another.

divergent thinking

A thought process that attempts to generalize multiple solutions to a problem, nondirected thinking.

reoresentativeness heuristic

A way that people make decisions about a sample according to the population that the sample appears to represent.

anchoring heuristic

A way that people make decisions based on certain ideas or standards they hold, ideas or standards that serve as an anchor for them.

availability heuristic

A way that people make decisions is on the basios of available information in their immediate consciousness.

premise

An idea or statemnet that provides the basic information that allows us to draw conclusions, and to make decisions.

exemplify

An idea that is to illustrate it's characteristics through examples.

symbol

An object or an act that stands for something else.

prototype

Ane example of a concept that best exemplifies that characteristics of that concept.

What are 3 things people use language for?

Communication. To understand . Knowledge.

convergent thinking

Directed thinking, thinking that is limited to available facts.

language

Is the communication of ideas through symbols that are arranged according to rules of grammar.

heuristics

Oftentimes, but not always, help us find the solution to a problem. Examples: trial and error.

What are the 3 basic elements of a language?

Phonemes (sounds). Morphemes (basic units, of the meaning). Syntax (grammar).

algorithm

Specific procedure, that when used properly and in the right circumstances, will always lead to the solution of a problem. Examples: formulas, systamatic searchs.