unit 3

What is pragmatic reasoning theory?

Thinking about cause and effect in the world as part of experiencing everyday life

What is the falsification principle?

To test a rule, it is necessary to look for situations that falsify that rule - People choose cards that support the rule - Need to check situation/card that could falsify the rule (the 7)

What is a syllogism? What are the different types? How does whether they are abstract vs. concrete affect our ability to understand them?

Two premises and a conclusion: -Premise 1: All people sleep -Premise 2: I am a person -Conclusion: I sleep -reasoning from general facts and principles to specific circumstances Categorical -All birds are animals. -All animals eat food. -Therefore, all birds eat food. Conditional -If I study, then I get good grades. I do not get good grades. I do not study. In general, abstract reasoning is more difficult but, truth value can make it harder to judge validity

What is the think aloud protocol?

When you say aloud what you are thinking, and it shifts the way you perceive a problem

What are word frequency effects? How are these effects shown in lexical decision tasks and in eye tracking tasks?

Word frequency effect -Respond more rapidly to high-frequency words Eye movements while reading tend to look at low-frequency words longer

Why is word perception and speech segmentation difficult? How do we normally accomplish it?

Word perception is hard to seperate speech into individual words -very little space between words during a stream of speech -foreign language, understanding song lyrics. overcome by: -Phonological knowledge -Context -word frequency -word combination frequencies

What is the problem with trial-and-error problem-solving strategies?

Work well when there are only a few possible solutions

what is mental state? What is an example problem illustrating this obstacle?

a preconceived notion about how to approach a problem, which is determined by a person's experience or what has worked in the past Ex. Luchin's water jug experiment; Water-jug problem: given mental set inhibited participants from using simpler solution Ex. Matchstick problem

What is a phoneme?

shortest segment of speech that, if changed, changes the meaning of the word

What are other obstacles to problem solving?

situations produce mental sets, situation influence approach to problem

What is a morpheme?

smallest unit of language that has meaning or grammatical function e.g. boy-boyish-boyishness

How do we judge the validity of conditional syllogisms?

- also have two premises and a conclusion -first premise has an "if...then..." form more common in real world decisions -not strictly reasoning about category membership -premise 1: If a = b -premise 2: b = c -conclusion: c =a

What is the phonemic restoration effect? How is it an example of top-down processing? Be able to describe an experiment using this effect.

-"fill in" missing phonemes based on context of sentence and portion of word presented -in top-down processing, people got enough information from the sound and meaning of a sentence to believe that they heard a word, even though they really didn't -when you get enough information to start building a representation of what you're hearing, representation takes over, and you expect the word

What is the representative heuristic? What is an example?

-A mental shortcut that involves judging whether something belongs in a given category on the basis of resemblance to other members of that category Problem: This shortcut often ignores the base rate of events examples: thinking that because someone is wearing a suit and tie and carrying a briefcase, that they must be a lawyer, because they look like the stereotype of a lawyer

What is the availability heuristic? What is an example?

-A mental shortcut through which judgments are based on information that is most easily brought to mind Problem: Sometimes the most mentally salient event is not the most likely to happen ex: plane crashes can make people afraid of flying

What is the problem space/information processing approach to solving problems?

-A particular configuration of a problem is called a state -An operator gets you from one state to another -The problem as a whole is called the problem space

Why and what kinds of inferences does discourse/text processing allow us to make?

-Anaphoric (pronouns): Connect an object or person in one sentence to an object or person in another sentence -Instrumental (like Shakespeare writing example): Tools or methods -Causal (events linked causally): In one clause or sentence were caused by events that occurred in a previous sentence.

How did Noam Chomsky respond to Skinner ideas?

-Believed that language was coded through genes -thought that the basis of language is similar -children repeat things that they have never heard and have never been reinforced for

How did BF Skinner believe children learn language?

-Believed that language was learned through reinforcement -language is shaped, language isn't special developmentally

Describe how children are able to use deductive reasoning. How do they do on adapted versions of the Wason 4 card task?

-Children perform similarly to adults - Children perform better with concrete vs.abstract cover story - Children can use deductive reasoning depending on context

What are the three types of research design that can be used to study development or changes related to age?

-Cross-sectional research design -Longitudinal design follows groups over time -Combination: cohort-sequential design

What is the Lexical Decision Task?

-Decide if a letter string is a real word -Respond yes or no with two different buttons

What is satisficing?

-Decisions based on "good enough." -May match everyday decision-making best -Idea that people generally look to achieve satisfaction -a decision-making process in which an individual makes a choice that is satisfactory rather than optimal

What is the concrete Wason Four card problem? How does that affect performance?

-Each card has a beverage on one side and an age on the other -What is the minimum number of people you need to check to ensure that no one under age is drinking alcohol -When this problem is made more concrete, people are much better at solving it- about 75% of people can answer this version correctly -Again, this highlights the fact that people are better when the problem has more real world significance (they are less likely to forget about trying to falsify the rule)

What is the Wason Four card problem?

-Each card has a letter on one side and a number on the other.What is the minimum number of cards you need to turn over to test the rule: If there is a vowel on one side, then there is an even number on the other side -The E and the 7: The E to verify the rule and the 7 to attempt to falsify the rule. Part of this is due to the tendency Less than 10% of people can correctly answer this questions when it is posed in an abstract way like above, but what if we make it more concrete?Each card has a letter on one side and a number on the other.What is the minimum number of cards you need to turn over to test the rule: If there is a vowel on one side, then there is an even number on the other side

How does episodic memory develop in young children? Be able to describe the study by Hayne & Imuta using the hide-and-seek game

-Episodic memory allows us to mentally travel forward and backward in time, providing us the opportunity to re-experience events from our past and to consider events that have not yet taken place

How can emotions affect decision making?

-Expected emotions--Emotions that people predict that they will feel concerning an outcome -Immediate emotions--Experienced at the time a decision is being made

What are differences between novices and experts in problem solving?

-Experts solve problems in their field faster and with a higher success rate than beginners -experts are not better than novices when given problems outside of their field -experts less likely to be open to new ways of looking at problems

What is fixedness? What is functional fixedness? What are example problems that people are generally unable to solve reliably because of these obstacles?

-Fixedness: focusing on one aspect of a problem ex:Imagine someone needs a paperweight but is unable to find one. Instead of using a heavy object they can easily find in the room, they are fixated on their need for a paperweight Functional fixedness: in ability to see objects outside their normal uses; restricting use of an object to its familiar functions -Ex. candle lit, 5 feet off the ground -Ex. you have yourself, a table, and a pair of pliers -Ex. Nine dot problem - draw 4 straight lines passing through all 9 dots w/o lifting your pencil from the page

Describe a study that examines the development of implicit memory.

-Implicit memory is earliest to develop -Longitudinal study of children from 3 months to 3years (Vohringer et al., 2018) ~Infants learned sequence of presented faces as measured by how quickly looked to where next face would be -Implicit memory stabilizes at 9 months Explicit memory develops more slowly: -Most do not remember early years of life -Evidence infants can encode and rememberevents

What is infant instrumental conditioning? How did Rovee-Collier and colleagues use it to study learning and memory in infants and what did they find?

-Infant instrumental conditioning:kick leg move mobile -Quickly leads to vigorous leg kicking -Memory maintained for days (no reminders) to weeks (with reminders)

How does language production develop over the first few years of life?

-Infants begin by using cooing sounds around 6 weeks -At 4-5 months, babbling and vowel clusters -At age 2, telegraphic speech and 300 words -By three years words get longer, more complex -At age 6, vocabulary of 14,000 words

What did the nun study tell us about healthy aging?

-Longitudinal studies using nuns to track the aging process through examination of brain upon death -positive behavior and personality in the individual can even overrule the often devastating biology of aging, including the pathology of Alzheimer's

What is a means-end strategy? What is a hill-climbing strategy? What is a working backward strategy?

-Means-ends strategy: one solves a problem by considering the obstacles that stand between the initial problem state and the goal state example:having the target of completing the academic syllabus for a degree in six months -Hill-climbing strategy: a person generally picks what appears to be the most direct route to the goal at each step. If this choice proves to be incorrect, the person might choose an alternative method to see if it achieves the goal faster example: a maze,The maze contains an entrance and an end (respectively, the initial state and the goal state). Each line within the maze becomes an obstacle between the initial state and the goal state Working-backward strategy: Involves beginning with the goal state and working back to the initial state -The first step is to start with the final solution and work backwards to the beginning example:at the end of the day a person is left with 10 dollars in his wallet and he wants to know how much he started with. He can work backwards throughout the day, mentally adding back the purchases he made step-by-step

Describe how children are able to use inductive reasoning.

-Noticing patterns and making generalizations - Children age 4-5 demonstrate use of categories -Young children use physical properties instead ofcategory membership when reasoning

What are heuristics? Advantages and disadvantages to using them?

-Often use shortcuts in reasoning to come to a conclusion faster -dis:Usually correct, but can lead to errors: Stereotypes -Because they rely on less information, heuristics are assumed to facilitate faster decision-making than strategies that require more information

What is the syntax-first approach to sentence processing?

-Parsing - mental grouping of words in a sentence into phrases -Grammatical structure of sentence determines parsing -late closure: parser assumes new word is part of the current phrase -syntax is first-pass, but then semantics may lead to correction

What is social exchange/evolution theory?

-People cooperate in a way that is beneficial to both people -We are especially good at detecting cheaters

What are framing effects? What are examples?

-Peoples preferences differ depending on whether problems are framed in terms of gains or losses Risk level can be influenced by framing effects - Risk-aversion strategy used when problem is stated in terms of gains -Risk-taking strategy when problem is stated in terms of losses -Thaler (1980)Which would you choose?-$1.00/gallon, 5¢ discount for cash -$0.95/gallon, 5¢ surcharge for credit card -More people will choose the first b/c "discount" better than "surcharge"

What is Broca's aphasia? What functions are impaired/preserved in these patients? Brain regions involved?

-Postmortems revealed aphasics had damage to inferior prefrontal cortex in left hemisphere -Broca's Area = adjacent to primary motor face area -Broca's aphasia leaves you with limited language

What brain regions are involved in reasoning and decision making? Whatresults if these regions are impaired?

-Prefrontal cortex (PFC)-Important for reasoning, planning, and making connections among different parts of a problem or story -As reasoning problems become more complex, larger areas of the PFC are activated -damage to PFC: Interfere with ability to act in a flexible manner-Struggle with higher thinking

What is inductive reasoning and when it is used?

-Reasoning from specific cases to a general principle -Example: I didn't study last test and I got an A, so I don't need to study to do well -Conclusion about what will happen, based on what has happened in the past -No guarantee of validity from logic (more guesswork) -Used to make scientific discoveries: Hypotheses and general conclusion

What types of memory continue to develop during adolescence?

-Strong development of working memory and central executive function during adolescence -Digit span increases through early teens -Executive function develops throughout early adulthood

What is the Warren experiment? How did this illustrate the phonemic restoration effect?

-Subjects listen to a recording of a sentence, and he would replace the first s in the word legislatures with a sound of a cough and asked his subjects to indicate where in the sentence the cough occurred -It showed that the phonemic restoration effect can be influenced by the meaning of the words that follow the missing phoneme

What is the difference between syntax vs semantics?

-Syntax: The rules for combining different types of words in sentences -syntax refers to grammar -Meaning (Semantics): Knowledge of the meaning of the words - and how they do and do not combine - is how you know the sentence above is nonsensical -semantics refers to meaning

How is animal communication different from human language? Be able to describe the types of language/communication animals have demonstrated(watch videos).

-The system of animal communication that comes closest to human language is that of songbirds -While many animals produce noise, there is debate over whether it actually means anything/could be considered a language -E.g.: a dog bark

What is the belief bias?

-The tendency to judge arguments based on what one believes about their conclusions rather than on whether they use sound logic -believable conclusion is more likely to be judgedas valid

What is confirmation bias? What is an example?

-The tendency to selectively look for information that conforms to our hypothesis and over look information that argues against it -ex:if we are convinced that a particular investment is good, we may ignore warning signs that it might not be

What are sunk costs? What are examples?

-Time, money, or other investment that is irretrievably spent, and therefore should not affect current decision making, yet it does -People have trouble "cutting their losses" Ex. standing in line Ex. losing money when trying to fix something

What is analogical problem solving? What are examples?

-Using a strategy from one problem to solve a similar problem -Ex: tower of hanoi problem and acrobat problem

How can the Tower of Hanoi problem be used to demonstrate their information processing approach?

-Using subgoals of freeing discs to get closer to the main goal -Might need to think ahead before choosing strategy

What is validity and truth in syllogisms?

-Validity: a syllogism is only valid if the conclusion follows logically from the premises -This does not necessarily mean the conclusion is true -a conclusion can be valid but not true -a conclusion can be true but not valid -if a conclusion is valid, and the premises are true, then the conclusion is true

What is prospect theory? How does the Deal or No Deal example show us an example of how people respond differently to loss vs. gain?

-Value of outcomes based on individual differences -People tend to overweigh low-probability outcomes -example, suppose that you have a choice between being given $50, and a 50% chance of winning $100. Most people will take the $50, even though the expected value of the two options is exactly the same.

What is the McGurk effect?

-Vision indicates one phoneme, sound indicates another -Most people hear what is visually perceived, or fusethe two phonemes and perceive a third phoneme

What are two main problem types?

-Well-defined problem: ~Initial state, goal state, and methods available to you are understood ~Math, physics, chess -Example:- Solving a sudoku Initial State: incomplete Goal State: complete Method: filling in numbers -Ill-defined problem: Initial state, goal state, and/or methods are ill-defined- Problems in everyday life -Example:- How to get into graduate school?Initial State: not in graduate school Goal State: accepted into program Methods: ???????, some are known but a lot of unknowns

What is Wernicke's aphasia? What functions are impaired/preserved in these patients? Brain regions involved?

-Wernicke's aphasia causes you to speak in a jumbled "word salad" that others can't understand -Damage to left auditory association cortex("planum temporale") -Speech effortless and melodic, but often devoid of meaning - "word salad" -Poor comprehension

When do you use problem solving?

-When you have a goal, and you are currently not at that goal 1-it is purposeful (goal directed) 2-it involves controlled processes and is not totally reliant on automatic processes 3-a problem only exists when someone lacks the relevant knowledge to produce an immediate solution

What is lexical ambiguity?

-Words often have more than one meaning -Bank, bug, bark, ring, etc. -Interpretation constrained by context

What is loss aversion?

-a cognitive bias that describes why, for individuals, the pain of losing is psychologically twice as powerful as the pleasure of gaining -ex:The loss felt from money, or any other valuable object, can feel worse than gaining that same thing

Be able to describe how we might use concepts like elimination-by-aspects strategies, focusing on easier to evaluate criteria, or using past experiences to help us make decisions

-elimination by aspects by identifying the most important attributes or criteria for their decision, and then systematically eliminating options that do not meet each criterion, in order of importance

What is the Gestalt approach to problem solving?

-focused on how people represent a problem in their mind. -They devised a number of problems to illustrate how solving a problem involves a restructuring of this representation and to demonstrate factors that pose obstacles to problem solving

What are some of the potential reasons for childhood amnesia?

-infantile and childhood amnesia are likely related to hippocampal immaturity -Early episodic memories could be rapidly forgotten because the hippocampus is too immature to efficiently form, store, and recall them

Describe the two processes/systems that are involved in the Dual Process framework of reasoning and decision making

-intuitive thinking is quick, automatic, and unconscious, whereas analytical thinking is the opposite (i.e., slow, controlled, and conscious) -ex:dual processing theories of moral decision-making suppose that moral judgments are based on competition between a quick and automatic process and a slow process that is based on reasoning

How can the statement of the problem affect one's ability to solve it? What are examples?

-it can influence the way we solve problems like the acrobat problem -Easier to solve when information is provided that points toward the correct representation of the problem -Ex. Mutilated-checkerboard problem

Describe a general model for making decisions? How might you walk through the steps with an example decision?

-setting goals:Currently have no working computer; want to have a new working computer -gathering information:Looking up the different types of computers (e.g., desktop versus laptop) -structuring the decision: Making a list of pros and cons of buying a laptop and a desktop -making a final choice:After evaluating the list, you decide that having a computer to take to class with you is the most important feature, so you choose a laptop -evaluation:After carrying the laptop around for a while, you develop back pain and realize that a desktop may be abetter choice in the future

What is deductive reasoning?

-top-down reasoning -Start with a general assertion and ask what specifically follows from that assertion - Logic ->are we logical? -Reasoning from general facts/principles to specific circumstances - All people sleep. I am a person. Therefore, I sleep.

What is the Metcalfe & Wiebe insight experiment - what did it tell us about how these types of problems may be solved differently?

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What examples did Dan Ariely give in his TED talk about how we may not be in charge of all our decisions? Be able to describe his experiment with the economist and the experiment with the doctors

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When do earliest autobiographical memories typically occur? How has this been measured?

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What is the situation model?

A model that shows that we comprehend sentences by experiencing a story or having a mental image in our head

What are advantages and problems with Expected Utility Theory?

Advantages for utility approach: -Specific procedures to determine the "best choice" Problems for utility approach: -Not necessarily money, people find value in other things -Many decisions involve payoffs that cannot be calculated -People are not always rational -People don't always select optimal choice

What are advantages and disadvantages to being an expert?

Advantages:-knowledge is organized so it can be accessed when need to work on a problem -information is also organized more effectively in long term memory -Focus on deep structure Disadvantages: -experts are not better than novices when given problems outside of their field -experts less likely to be open to new ways of looking at problems

What is an algorithm? What is a heuristic?

Algorithm: A prescribed problem-solving strategy that always leads to the correct solution in problems with a single correct solution Heuristic: A problem-solving strategy that does not always lead to the correct solution

What is the debate of nature vs. nurture in language development? Who arethe two prominent scientists involved and what were their takes?

B.F. Skinner (1957) Verbal Behavior: -Language learned through reinforcement -Noam Chomsky (1957) Syntactic Structures: -Human language coded in the genes -Underlying basis of all language is similar -Children produce sentences they have never heard and that have never been reinforced

Why is it important/informative to study development of cognitive processes?

Cognitive development means how children think, explore and figure things out. It is the development of knowledge, skills, problem solving and dispositions, which help children to think about and understand the world around them

How are different types of memory changed (or not changed) with healthy aging? (working memory, semantic memory, episodic memory, implicit memory)

Declines in some types of memory - Working memory = slight decline, more interference? - Episodic memory No decline in other types of memory: -Semantic memory - Implicit memory

How is the strength of argument determined?

Determined by the facts used to create argument

What are three methods that can be used to examine cognitive processes in infants and young children? Be able to describe an example of how the methods can be used and what they can tell us.

Habituation: -Decrease in response after repeated exposure -example, a new sound in your environment, such as a new ringtone, may initially draw your attention or even be distracting. Over time, as you become accustomed to this sound, you pay less attention to it and your response will diminish Preferential looking and listening: -Visual and auditory stimulation Violation-of-expectation technique -ex: a preference for their mother's face over a stranger's face, or for their mother's voice over a stranger's voice Eye tracking: -Can measure where and how long an infant looks -Used to demonstrate infant-directed face preference

What is Expected Utility Theory? What is an example?

If they have all relevant information, they will make a decision that results in the maximum expected utility -Utility: outcomes that are desirable because they are in the person's best interest -Ex. Choose the option with the largest financial payoff --50% chance to win $500 --25% chance to win $1100

What are Insight/AHA problems?

Insight: understanding how to approach a problemInsight experience: the Aha moment, process of restructuring the problem. -Most problems require insight but few have the Aha moment

What are Garden Path sentences and how are they used?

It is a special type of sentence that creates a momentarily ambiguous interpretation because it contains a word or phrase that can be interpreted in multiple ways, causing the reader to begin to believe that a phrase will mean one thing when in reality it means something else -As people read a sentence, their grouping of words into phrases is governed by a number of processing mechanisms, called heuristics.

How does language develop over the first year in terms of language comprehension/understanding? How early can language experience be measured? Be able to describe a study that examines language/memory before birth

Language experience begins before birth - At 38 weeks, fetus' heartbeat habituates to hearing familiar studies compared with new stories (DeCasper et al.,1994) One-month old infants can distinguish phonemes Recognize name by 6 months Recognize names of objects, foods, body parts by 12 months

What is Lexical Priming?

Lexical priming: stimulus activates are presentation of the stimulus -Respond more rapidly if activation is still present when stimulus is presented again -using this task determines which meaning is activated

What is the Stanfield & Zwann study and how does it relate to the situation model?

Participants heard sentences and were then asked to indicate whether the picture was the object mentioned in the sentence. Participants responded "yes" more rapidly for the orientation (in a) and the shape (in b) that was more consistent with the sentence

What are the differences between being Risk aversive vs Risk taking? Whatdetermines which strategy we use?

Risk-aversion strategy used when problem is stated in terms of gains ex:when it comes to investments, an individual may prefer to go with the investment that has the lowest risks even though it may not bring in the most return -Risk-taking strategy when problem is stated in terms of losses

What is the interactionist approach to sentence processing?

Semantics(meaning) influence processing as one reads a sentence

What are surface features vs structural features?

Surface features get in the way and structural features must be used

What is language?

System of communication using sounds or symbols that enables us to express feelings, thoughts, ideas, and experiences