Lecture 5 Thought and Language

Thought
Thought is an extension of perception and memory
- We form mental representations
- We recall representations using memory
- We mentally manipulate the representations to achieve some purpose
- Thinking is manipulating mental representations (images or words) for a purpose

Mental models
Mental models involve a representation that describes, explains, or predicts how things
work.

Examples include:
- Our model of the synapse
- Our understanding of how cars work
- Our model of memory systems (STM, LTM)

Summary:
Thinking means manipulating mental representatives for a purpose. Much of the time
people think using words, mental images (visual representations) and mental models
(representations that describe, explain or predict the way things work).

Concepts and categories

Objects are classified on the basis of their properties
- Categories: groupings based on common properties

- Concept: a mental representation of a category

• ‘Cat’: a small, furry, four-legged, independent animal

Process of categorization
- Categorization involves recognizing an object as a member of a category

- We categories objects by:

• Comparison with defining features (qualities that are essential for
membership of the category) (triangle can be defined as a two-dimensional
geometric figure with three sides and three angles, anything that does not fit
this definition is not a triangle)
 • Similarity/dissimilarity to prototypes (an abstraction across many instances of
a category)

Summary:
Although people sometimes categorises objects by comparing them with a list of
defining features, people typically classify objects rapidly by judging their similarity
to prototypes (abstract representations of a category) stored in memory.

Hierarchies of concepts
• Many concepts are hierarchically ordered, with subconcepts at varying levels of
abstraction. Efficient thinking requires choosing the right level of abstraction.

Levels of categorisation

- Superordinate: more abstract than basic, members share few specific features, level
of metaphor

- Basic: broadest, most inclusive, ‘natural’ level, quickest response, e.g., Bird

- Subordinate: more specific than basic, e.g., Magpie

Culture and categorisation
- Culture shapes our basic categorisation
• E.g., A tribe of Australian Aborigines includes women, fire, and dangerous
things in one category – natural to their culture, not to others.

- Culture can also affect the extent to which people rely on similarity or defining
features in categorisation.
• E.g., East Asians tend rely on similarity, Aust/NZ tend to rely on rules.

Reasoning
- The process by which people generate and evaluate arguments and beliefs

- Inductive: reasoning from specific observations to general propositions

• Relies heavily on probabilities

- Deductive: drawing a conclusion from set of assumptions or premises (e.g.,

syllogisms)
• The conclusion is true if the premise is true and reasoning logical.
Assumption.

Inductive reasoning
• Peter used PowerPoint slides in the last 4 lectures (specific observation)
• Peter will use PowerPoint slides in the remaining PY1101 lectures (general
proposition)
• Peter will use PowerPoint slides in all his lectures (an even general proposition)
• Not necessarily true – underlying premises probable, not certain
• Mahmood, a child at Rachel’s preschool, became sick with a bout of chickenpox.
Rachel’s mother became concerned that her daughter would also soon catch
chickenpox because she often played closely with Mahmood while at preschool.

Deductive reasoning
- It is a logical reasoning that draws a conclusion from a set of assumption or premises
that are based on the rules of logic

Syllogism example
Premise One: All dogs have fur
Premise Two: Barkley is a dog
Conclusion: Barkley has fur

Deductive reasoning can lead to certain rather than simply probably conclusion, as long as
the premises are correct, and the reasoning is logical.

Six-year-old Lim proudly told his teacher that his bird Sammy had feathers because ‘All birds
have feathers, and my Sammy is a bird’.
Reasoning by analogy
• Analogical reasoning is the process by which people understand a novel situation in
terms of a familiar one.
• The novel and familiar situations must each contain a number of elements that can
be mapped onto each other.
• For example, using war as an analogy for the workplace (similar elements: superiors,
subordinates, allies, goals, enemies, ‘killing’, etc.) (Or comparing COVID to SARS)
• In a group counselling session, Sorcha likened her self-discovery to the joy and
freedom she experienced when she first learned to drive a car.

Problem solving
• Problem solving refers to the process by which we transform one situation into
another to meet a goal.

Problems vary by definition:

- Well-defined problems are ones where the initial state, goal state, and operators are
easily determined (e.g., stats problems).
- Ill-defined problems occur when both the information needed to solve the problem
and the criteria for determining when the goal state has been met are vague (e.g.,
leader tasked with ‘improving morale’).

Problems-solving strategies
- Problem solving would be a lengthy and difficult process if individuals had to try
every potential operator in every situation so need problem solving strategies:
• Algorithms are systematic procedures that will produce a solution to a
(simple) problem. (E.g. counting the number of guests coming to a BBQ and
multiplying by two to determine how many sausages to buy)
 • Mental simulation is the mental rehearsal of the steps needed to solve a
problem. (E.g. picturing alternative routes to get to three different stores
after work before the shops close)
• Hypothesis testing is making an educated guess about a problem and then
testing it.

Barriers to problem-solving
• Functional fixedness is the tendency to fix on a function for an object and to ignore
other possible uses. (E.g. a phone has many purposes)
• Mental set is the tendency to keep using the same problem-solving techniques that
have been successful in the past.
• Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for confirmation of what we already
believe.
• Optimistic bias is the tendency to underestimate risk and overestimate positive
effects of behaviour (often used to explain health behaviours). (E.g. cigarette
smokers often use the excuse of knowing smokers who have lived to a ‘ripe old age’
and use this information to support their illogical belief that smoking will not
negatively influence their health)
• Barriers can be overcome by restructuring the problem rather than persisting with
past strategies that don’t work for the current problem.

Decision making
Decision making: The process by which an individual weigh the pros and cons of different
alternatives in order to make a choice
- Weighted Utility Value: a combined judgement of the importance of an attribute and
the extent to which a given option satisfies it which indicates not just how well an
option met a certain criterion but how important that criteria is to making your
decision (E.g. in making a decision for your lunch order, if you only have $5 in your
pocket means that the cost of the different lunch order options had to be given a
higher weighting)
- Expected Utility: a combined judgement of the weighted utility and the expected
probability of obtaining an outcome. (E.g. the salad special might be such good value
that they are all sold out and you have no chance of purchasing it)
Explicit cognition
Heuristics are cognitive shortcuts for selecting amongst alternatives, without carefully
considering each one (sometimes irrational)
- Representative heuristic: we match an object to its category (E.g. People are very
surprised to learn that Graham, who is a professional football player, was also dux of
his senior year in high school. They assumed he had focused more on his sporting
talents than on his scholastic abilities) OR (Steve wear shorts, slipper, like to read
poetry. Is he a professor or a taxi driver?)

- Availability heuristic: we decide that the events that we can easily recall are common
and typical (E.g. Susanne enjoys living in the city of Melbourne and takes a car trip
into the country every second weekend to help her relax, but is afraid to fly to Cairns
for a holiday because of a potential cyclone.)

• After seeing news reports about people losing their jobs, you might start to believe
that you are in danger of being layed-off. You start lying awake in bed each night
worrying that you are about to be fired.
• After seeing several television programs on shark attacks, you start to think that such
incidences are relatively common. When you go on vacation, you refuse to swim in
the ocean because you believe the probability of a shark attack is high.
• After reading an article about lottery winners, you start to overestimate your own
likelihood of winning the jackpot. You start spending more money than you should
each week on lottery tickets.

- Bounded reality: people are rationale within the bounds imposed by their
environment, goals and abilities – leads to satisficing (E.g. choosing a place for
dinner, we do not go through every restaurant by the phone book but a list of
restaurants that come to our mind and choose the one that seems most satisfying at
the moment)

Implicit and everyday thinking

Implicit cognition involves the unconscious:
- Behaviourists suggest that people can learn, generalise and discriminate stimuli
without conscious thought

- Psychodynamic theory suggests that unconscious motives and emotions impact on

problem solving and decision making

- Implicit learning and problem solving

People learn, generalise and discriminate stimuli all the time without conscious thought like
‘You have to stop looking at an attractive woman if her boyfriend catches you’

Emotion, motivation and decision making. Reason and emotion (people are much more
likely to be upset if they miss a winning lottery ticket by one digit than by all six because
they feel like they ‘just missed it’.
 - Implicit cognition includes analytical decision making and intuitive decision making.
Analytical decision making occurs when individuals use their conscious awareness to access
and employ symbolically encoded rules in a systematic manner. This relies on non-conscious
thought and emotion.

Intuitive decision making occurs when people make judgements about a problem using their
‘gut’, in a rapid and non-conscious way. This is quicker because it involves conscious
information processing.

Connectionism
Parallel Distributed Processing assumes that
• Thought processing occurs in parallel
• Meaning of a mental representation is distributed throughout the brain
(neural networks)
• Current perception activates neural networks (and multiple, individual nodes)

- Parallel Constraint satisfaction is the tendency to settle on a cognitive solution that

satisfies as many constraints as possible (best fit of data)
The neuropsychology of thinking
The frontal lobes are critical for the processing of thought
• Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex: plays a central role in working memory and explicit
manipulation of representations (conscious thought) (Top of the brain to the side of
the brain)
Associating complex ideas, allocating attention, making plans and forming and executing
intentions

• Ventromedial prefrontal cortex: plays a role in the use of emotional reactions to

guide decision making and behaviour (Bottom of the brain to the middle of the
brain)
Emotional control over decision making and many aspects of social functioning

Language
• A system of symbols, sounds, meanings, and rules of combination that allows for
communication among humans
• Culture influences language and how people think about and perceive the world, and
engage in problem solving and decision making.
• Whorfian hypothesis of linguistic relativity argued that language shapes thought
• For example, the Hanunoo people of the Philippines have 92 names for rice
which allows them to think about rice in more complex ways than Australians
and New Zealanders.
Elements of language

Discourse
- The way people ordinarily speak, hear, read and write in interconnected sentences

- People represent discourse at multiple levels:

• Exact wording
• Gist or general meaning
• Suspended reality (different time or place)
• Communication (story telling, idea sharing)
• Conversation
Non-verbal communication
- Nonverbal communication includes:
• Vocal intonation
• Body language (crossed arms)
• Gestures (often involving the hands)
• Physical distance
• Facial expressions
• Touch
• Nonverbal vocalisations (throat clearing)
• More recent addition of emoticons/emoji used in social media

Language development
The case for nurture:
• Skinner (a behaviourist) argued that children imitate the utterances of their
parents
• Skinner suggests that children receive differential reinforcement for speech
sounds
• Parents use positive reinforcement and shaping to teach language
• A baby who happens to gurgle Muh after his mother says ‘say Mummy’ will
be more likely to say Muh in the future and to imitate sounds his mother
produces and subsequently reinforces

The case for nature:

• Chomksy argued that language acquisition appears to be universal across
culture (could not be accounted for by learning)
• Children can use complex grammatical rules long before they develop other
mental processes (mathematics)
• Language Acquisition Device (LAD): an innate set of neural structures for
acquiring language
Summary:
Skinner argued that verbal behaviour, like all behaviour is selected by its consequences,
although empirical data have generally supported this view

Chomsky argued that the speed and similarity of language acquisition around the world
suggest a shared set of linguistic principles, or universal grammar that is innate.

When children converse with others, they spontaneously develop linguistic construction
that resemble other languages eve if their parents do not provide them. The existence of
specialised neural circuits for language also supports a strong innate component to language
acquisition. Recent connectionist thinking proposes that language emerges in children from
the interaction of innate tendencies and implicit learning

A critical period for language acquisition

Critical periods assume that an organism must develop a function within a limited time
frame or it will not develop at all.
• Children easily learn second languages, adults have great difficulty.
• Isolated children have language impairments (e.g., Genie).
 • After age 12, near native fluency is difficult to achieve.

Infant language
Language in non-humans