Thinking & Language

1. Thinking & Language Ms. Kamburov

2. Automatic vs. Effortful Processing Effortful Barely noticing what you are doing as you do it, taking little time or effort to understand something E.g. an expert piano player Also called controlled processing – requires a great deal of attention E.g. novice piano player, consciously playing each note Automatic

3. Serial vs. Parallel Processing Parallel Processing In serial processing, the brain solves one problem at a time & uses the solution of one problem as the input for the next problem Similar to a computer The brain solves many different independent problems at once Computers cannot as of yet do this. What if we develop super computers to use this way of problem solving? What happens to the need for humans? Serial Processing

4. How do we solve problems? • Preparation stage: you assess a problem • Production stage: search for possible solutions • Judgment: evaluating all possible solutions & selecting the best one • Incubation: sometimes added as a 4th stage, where the person takes a vacation from the problem. When he returns to the problem he may suddenly solve it with ease. • Think of when you take a M.C. exam and you don’t know the answer to a question. Do you dwell on it or move on and come back later? Metacognitive processing: deliberately and consciously taking oneself through a problem. Can you think of an example?

5. Assignment – solving your own problem – due Thursday • What do you plan to accomplish in your life within the next 10+ years? • How do you plan on getting there? • Find a famous person or someone you know that has accomplished this goal/a similar one. • Recreate their path. Has your plan changed after this?

6. Algorithmic Approach to Problem Solving • An algorithmic approach involves a set of rules which will guarantee a solution • What is an example of this? • Useful for deterministic problem models, where the outcome of each choice can be precisely predicted

7. Heuristic Approach to Problem Solving • Heuristic: problem solving strategy which is likely to produce a solution, but does not guarantee an answer • Mental shortcuts, rules-of-thumb • Useful for stochastic problem models, where the outcome of each decision is not discovered before the decision is made • What does this mean?

8. Heuristic Approach to Problem Solving • Representativeness heuristic: asking yourself how similar one event is to a class of events • E.g. a class you are considering taking, taught by the same teacher you have had before in a similar subject • Availability heuristic: judging the likelihood that an event will happen in terms of how readily you can bring an instance of this to mind • E.g. events that are more vivid or have happened more recently would be judged more likely to happen than others

9. Convergent vs. Divergent Thinking Divergent Determines one correct answer E.g. simple math Produces a variety of solutions E.g. writing, playing chess Convergent

10. Creativity • The ability to produce novel solutions or objects • A solution is novel to the person who thinks of it, but an idea/solution that only 1 person thinks of is objectively original • Can you be creative AND non-original? • Studies show that exceptionally creative people are more emotionally stable than others • Creativity does not correlate highly with intelligence tests • Torrance Test of Creative Thinking • http://www.newsweek.com/photo/2010/07/10/creativity-test.slide3.html

11. Insight • Insight: the sudden revelation of coming up with a solution to a problem • OR the sudden perception of relationships between parts of a problem (Gestalt) • Insight is unexpected & sudden, indicating that problem solving involves both conscious and unconscious processes

12. Functional Fixedness • Functional fixedness: a set of ideas that people have about the function and use of objects, preventing them from using the objects in new ways

13. Language & 4 Basic Units of Meaning • Phonetics: sound system of a language • Phonemes – smallest units of sound • Semantics: meanings of words • Phonemes combine to form morphemes – smallest units of meaning • Syntax: grammatical rules of a language • Prosody/pragmatics: intonation, accents, pauses, pronunciation

14. Identify the 4 Basic Units of Meaning • “Jenny went to the Oaks Mall yesterday. She didn’t buy anything, did she?”

15. Concepts • Logical concepts: formed by definition • Natural concepts: formed by experience with objects and events themselves • Prototypes: the best examples of a category • What do you think of when you think of a dog? What type of breed is it?

16. Honey …the wheaten terrier

17. How do we learn a language? • Babbling starts around 3 or 4 months of age • There may be a critical period for learning language. Kids who are not exposed to speech early in their lives have a hard time learning language later • Why is it so hard to learn a new language as an adult?

18. Linguist Noam Chomsky • Noticed that children learn language too quickly to simply be imitating • Language acquisition device: a built-in readiness to learn grammatical rules • Errors of growth: applying grammatical rules more broadly than is appropriate • E.g. “holded” instead of “held”

19. Whorfian Hypothesis • Language determines/influences thought • Referred to as the linguistic relativity hypothesis