Language and Thinking

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Adaptive Functions of Language Mental representations We manipulate them through language, thinking, reasoning and problem solving Include image, idea, concepts and principles Language Consists of a system of a system of symbols and rules for combining these symbols in ways that can generate infinite number of possible ideas and messages the jewel in the crown of cognition our reasoning, problem solving and thinking involves using language psycholinguistics: the scientific study of the psychological aspects of language, such as how people understand, produce and acquire language Properties of Language Language is Symbolic and Structured Uses sounds, written characters or some other system of symbols to represent objects, events, ideas, feelings and actions The symbols used in any given language are arbitrary Has a rule governed structure Language grammar: the set of rules that dictate how symbols can be combined to create meaningful units of communication Syntax: the rules that govern the order of words Language Conveys Meaning Once people learn symbols and rules, they are able to form and then transfer mental representations to the mind of another person Semantics: the meaning of words and sentences o Can be tricky Language is Generative and Permits Displacement Generativity: the symbols of language can be combined to generate an infinite number of messages that have novel meaning o English language has 26 letters, but by combining them results into half a million of words

Displacement: the fact that language allows us to communicate about events and objects that about events and objects that are not physically present o Language frees us from being restricted to focusing on events and objects that are right before us in the present The Structure of Language Language as having a surface structure and a deep structure Surface Structure: consist of the symbols that are used and their order Syntax of a language provides the rules for ordering words properly Deep Structure: the underlying meaning of the combined symbols, which brings-semantics Sometimes, a single surface structure can give rise to two deep structures as happens when people speak or write ambiguous sentences When you read or hear speech, you are moving from the surface structure to deep structure When you express your thoughts to other people, you must

transform deep structure(the meaning you want to communicate) into a surface structure that other can understand The Hierarchical Structure of Language Human language has a hierarchical structure Phoneme: the most elementary building block, the smallest unit of speech sound in a language that can signal a difference in meaning 100 phonemes in the human language, 40 in the English language phonemes have no inherent meaning but they alter meaning when combined with other elements next level of the hierarchy, phonemes are combined into morphemes o smallest units of meaning in a language o they are not always syllables o players: 2 syllables, 3 morphemes; fans: 1 syllable, 2 morphemes in every language, rules determine how phonemes can be combined into morphemes

English 40 phonemes can be combined into more than 100,00 morphemes Morphemes in turn, are the stuff of which words are formed o English morphemes can be combined into over 500 000 words, words into countless phrases and phrases into an infinite number of sentences Discourse: sentences are combined into paragraphs, articles, books, conversations and so fourth Understanding and Producing Language Context plays a key role in understanding language The Role of Bottom-up Processing Your brain must recognize and interpret patterns of stimuli-the sounds of speech, shapes of letters, movements that are detected by your sensory systems Extracting information from linguistic stimuli involves the joint influence of bottom up and top down processing Bottom up Processing Individual elements of a stimulus are analyzed and then combined to form a unified perception Analyzing the hierarchical structure of spoken language as a set of building blocks that involve the sue of phonemes to create morphemes and the combination of morphemes to create words reflects a bottom up approach The Role of Top-Down Processing Top down processing: sensory information is interpreted in light of existing knowledge, concepts, ideas and expectations Peoples unconscious expectations literally shape what they visually perceive Language involves top down processing because the words you write, read, speak or hear activate and draw on your knowledge of vocabulary, grammar and other linguistic rules Speech Segmentation Perceiving where each word within a spoken sentence begins and ends seems to occur automatically

When psycholinguists measure the sound energy produced as people utter sentences, they find that the decreases in energy output between words often are smaller than the decreases between segments within the same words In English, about 40% of words consist of 2 or more syllables that are stressed when spoken Psycholinguist have discovered: We use several cues to tell when on e spoken word ends and another begins We use the context provided by the other words in a sentence to interpret the meaning of any individual word Pragmatics: The Social Context of Language It takes more than having a vocabulary and arranging words grammatically to understand language and communicate effectively with other Involves pragmatics: a knowledge of the practical aspects of using language Occurs in a social context and pragmatic knowledge not only helps you understand what other people are really saying, but also helps you make sure that other people get the point of what youre communicating Pragmatics is another example of how top down processing influences language use Social Rules o Guides communication between people o Messages should be clear as possible, we usually adjust your speech rate, choice of words and sentence complexity depending on the situation

Pragmatics also depend on other aspects of the social context Language Functions, the Brain, and Sex Differences Language functions are distributed in many areas of the brain o Located in Brocas area and the Wernickes area People with damage in one or both areas typically suffer from aphasia: an impairment in speech comprehension and/or production that can be permanent or temporary

o Men who suffer left hemisphere strokes are more likely than women to show aphasic symptoms Acquiring A First Language Humans are born linguists, inheriting a biological readiness to recognize and eventually produce the sounds and structure of whatever language they are exposed to Biological Foundations Human children, despite their limited thinking skills, begin to master language early in life without any formal instruction Despite their differences at the phoneme level, all adult languages throughout the world-including sign languages seem to have common underlying structural characteristics Language acquisition thus represents the unfolding of a biologically primed process within a social learning environment Between 6-12 months of age, they begin to discriminate only those sounds that are specific to their native tongue Language acquisition device (LAD)-an innate biological mechanism that contains the general grammatical rules are common to all

languages o Noun phrases and verb phrases are arranged in a specific order Social Learning Processes Social learning plays a central role in acquiring a language Early on, parents attract their childrens attention and maintain their interest by conversing with them in what has been termed child directed speech, a high pitched intonation that seems to be used all over the world Skinner developed an operant conditioning explanation for language acquisition o Childrens language development is strongly governed by adults positive reinforcement or correction of inappropriate verbalizations o By 2nd grade, children acquire about 5000-6000 words o Parents do not typically correct their childrens grammar as language skills are developing because the parents

corrections focus primarily on the truth value or deep structure of what the child is trying to communicate Language acquisition support system (LASS)- represent factors in the social environment that facilitate the learning of a language o LAD and LASS interact in a mutually supportive fashion, normal language development occurs Developmental Timetable and Sensitive Periods As biological factors and experiential factors combine their influences, language acquisition proceeds according to a developmental timetable that is common to all cultures Telegraphic speech: by 2 years of age, children are uttering sentences that at first consist of a noun and a verb with a nonessential words left out as in a telegraph message There is a sensitive period from infancy to puberty during which the brain is most responsive to language input form the environment o Language deprived children who were found when they were past puberty seemed unable to acquire normal language skills despite extensive training o Importance of early language exposure applies to any

language, not just spoken language, sign languages is included Bilingualism: Learning A Second Language A second language is learned best and spoken most fluently when it is learned during the sensitive period of childhood The vocabulary of any language can be learned at any age, but mastery of the syntax or grammar depends on early acquisition Bilingual children show superior cognitive processing when compared with their monolingual peers, also perform better on perceptual tasks that require them to inhibit attention to an irrelevant feature of an object and pay attention to another feature o Greater flexibility in thinking an better performance on standardized intelligence test Learning a Second Language: Is Earlier Better? Children are language sponges There is a critical period for learning a second language that ends in childhood or possibly in early teenspsycholinguists theory

o If you start earlier, you would have more years of exposure to it that language than if you had first started to learn it in you late teens Studies have shown that that to sepak a second language with the fluency and accent of a native speaker, people must begin to acquire that language in childhood Linguistic Influences on Thinking Linguistic relativity hypothesis: that language not only influences but also determines what we are capable of thinkin If correct: people whose cultures have onlh a few words would have greater difficulty in perceiving the words since there isntt that many words to choose from Language can influence how we think, categorize information and attend to our daily experiences Language colour our perceptions, the decisions we make, and the conclusions we draw Language not only influences HOW WE THINK but also may influence HOW WELL we think in certain domains Language provides the foundation of many human behaviours and capabilities Thought, Brain and Mind The specific pattern of brain activity that composes a dominant subset varies from moment to moment as we experience different thoughts and respond to changing stimuli Patterns exist as patterns of neural activity At the psychological level, thinking may seem to be the internal language of the mind-inner speech Propositional thought-it expresses a proposition, or statement Im hungry its almost time for dinner Imaginal thought-consist of images that we can see, hear, or fell in our mind Motoric thought-relates to mental representations of motor movements such as throwing object Concepts and Propositions Propositions

 Statements that express ideas Consist of concepts combined in a particular way Concepts Basic units of semantic memory-mental categories into which we place objects, activities, abstractions and events that have essential features in common Concepts can be acquired through explicit instruction or through our own observations of similarities and differences among various objects and events Many concepts are difficult to define explicitly Concepts are defined by prototypes o Most typical and familiar members of a category or class Concepts: Students, intelligent people Proposition: students are intelligent people; the use of prototypes is perhaps the most elementary method of forming concepts, it requires that we note only similarities among objects o Thus childrens early concepts are based on prototypes of the objects and people they encounter personally, they then decide whether or not new objects are similar enough to the prototype Reasoning One aspect of intelligent thinking is the ability to reason and think logically Helps us acquire knowledge, make sound decisions and solve problems Reasoning helps us avoid the hazards and time consuming efforts of trial and error Most people solve problems by developing solutions in their minds before applying them in the external world Deductive Reasoning Reason from the top down, from general principles to a conclusion about a specific case When people reason deductively, they begin with a set of premises and determine what the premises imply about a specific situation Basis of formal mathematics and logic

The underlying deductive principle may be stated: Given the general proposition if X, then Y if X occurs, then you can infer Ysyllogism Inductive Reasoning We reason from the bottom up, starting with specific facts and try to develop a general principle Scientist use induction when they discover general principle or laws as a result of observing a number of specific instances of a phenomenon Difference between Inductive and Deductive Reasoning o Certainty of the results o Deductive conclusions are certain to be true if the premises are true o Inductive reasoning leads to likelihood rather than certainty because some new observation can change the outcome of the conclusion Stumbling Blocks in Reasoning Ability to reason effectively is a key factor in critical thinking, sound decision making and problem solving Distraction by irrelevant information o People often fail to solve problems because they simply dont focus on the relevant information. Instead, they take into account irrelevant information that leads them astray Belief Bias o A tendency to abandon logical rules in favor of our own personal beliefs Emotions and Framing o When we valuate problems or making decisions, at times we may abandon logical reasoning in favor of relying on our emotions-trusting ones gut to guide us o Framing-the idea that the same information, problem or options can be structured and presented in different ways Influences how we perceive information and can interfere with logical reasoning-especially true when choices are framed to highlight potential positive or negative outcomes thereby triggering emotions that

may alter our perceptions of the risks associated with various choice options It can also enhance reasoning

Problem Solving People can systematically use inductive and deductive reasoinging to solve problems Understanding/Framing the problem o How we mentally frame a problem can make a huge difference in problem solving o A knack for framing problems in effective ways that differ from conventional expectations has been called outside the box thinking, it is a prized ability in many academic and work environments Generating Potential Solutions o Once we have interpreted the problem, we can begin to formulate potential solutions or explanations Determine which procedures and explanations will be considered Determine which solutions are consistent with the

evidence that has so far been observed. Rule out any solutions that do not fit the evidence Testing the Solution o Mental set: the tendency to stick to solutions that have worked in the past-can result in less effective problem solving Evaluating the Results The Role of Problem-Solving Schemas Problem solving schemas: mental blueprints or step by step scripts for selecting information and solving specialized classes of problems We all have learned many of them: schemas in cooking, drawing to studying Algorithms and Heuristics Two important strategies to problem solving Algorithms: formulas or procedures that automatically generate correct solutions Heuristics: general problem solving strategies that we apply to certain classes of situations

o Means-ends analysis is one example of a heuristic o Means-ends analysis: we identify differences been the present situation and the desired state or goal and them a=make changes that will reduce these differences Sub goal analysis: formulating sub goals or intermediate steps towards a solution Uncertainty, Heuristics and Decision Making Representative heuristic: to infer how closely something or someone fits our prototype for a particular concept or class and therefore how likely it is to be a member of that class Availability heuristic: causes us to base judgments and decisions on the availability of information in memory (can lead us astray) o We tend to remember events that are most important and significant to us, usually this principle serves us well, keeping important information at the forefront in our memories, ready to be applied Confirmation and Overconfidence Confirmation bias Tends to look for evidence that will confirm what they currently believe rather than looking for evidence that could disconfirm their beliefs o When people have strong beliefs about something, they are very selective in the kinds of information they expose themselves to o They seek like minded people, compatible mass media sources Confirmation bias often contributes to a distorted sense of how correct our opinions and beliefs are Overconfidence: the tendency to overestimate ones correctness in factual knowledge, beliefs and decisions, is another reason why people do not challenge their beliefs o Widespread Overconfidence and confirmation bias can be potent adversaries in our search for correct predictions and decisions. When were confident in the correctness of our views and reluctant to seek

evidence that could prove them wrong we can easily be blinded to the truth Acquiring Knowledge: Schemas and Scripts Schema A mental framework, an organized pattern of though about some aspect of the world Concepts and categories represent types of schemas, and together they help you build a mental framework of your word Algorithms and heuristics are also types of schemas-problem solving schemas that provide you with mental frameworks for solving certain types of problems Script A type of schema A mental framework concerning a sequence of events that usually unfolds in a regular, almost standardized order Knowledge grows as you acquire new scripts, concepts and other types of schemas, as your existing schemas become more complex, and as you form connection between schemas The measurement of Intelligence Wechsler tests are the most popular individually administered intelligence tests in North America They provide a good illustration of how intelligence is assessed Weschler believed that intelligence tests should measure a wide array of different mental abilities Increasing the Informational Yield from Intelligence Tests The original Stanford-Binet yielded a single IQ score based mainly on verbal items, but todays test samples a wider range of abilities and provides, in addition to a composite IQ score, separate scores for verbal reasoning Theory Based Intelligence Tests Advances in the theory of intelligence have stimulate the development of new instruments to test the specific abilities dictated by the theories Kaufman Test has 3 crystallized subscale test and 3 fluid subscale test Crystallized intelligence scales require respondents to define words, listen to and answer questions about a detailed new story and study 2 sets of words and then produce a work that relates to both

Fluid intelligence subtest require respondents to break mystery codes, solve logic problems and associate words with complex drawings and then read sentences composed of the drawings This test is popular in education, job screening and clinical settings Should we Test for Aptitude or Achievement Achievement test It is designed to find out how much they have learned so far in their lives Good predictor of future performance in a similar situation Argument: everybody had the same opportunity to learn the material before being tested Aptitude test Containing novel puzzle like problems that presumably go beyond prior learning and are thought to measure the applicants potential for future learning and performance Difficult to construct a test that is independent of prior learning Most intelligence tests measure a combination of aptitude and achievement, reflecting both native ability and previous learning Raised major scientific and social issues concerning the meaning of test scores, the extent to which improvement can be fostered by educational experiences and the usefulness of the measures for describing mental competence and predicting performance in non test situations Psychometric Standards for Intelligence Tests Psychological Test A method for measuring individual differences related to some psychological concept or construct based on a sample of relevant behaviour in a scientifically designed and controlled situation Intelligence is the construct and scores obtained on the test are its operational definition Reliability: refers to consistency of measurement, refer to consistency of measurement over time, consistency of measurement by the items within the test itself, or consistency in scores assigned by different examiners Consistency over time measurement stability over time is defined as test-retest reliability which is assessed by administering the

measure to the same group of participants on two or more separate occasions and correlating the two or more sets of scores Internal consistency-do all the items on the measure seem to be measuring the same thing, as indicated by high correlations among them? Interjudge reliability: do different raters or scorers agree on their scoring or observations Validity: refers to how well a test actually measures what is designed to measure Construct validity: to what extent is the test actually measuring the construct of interest Content validity: do the questions or test items relate to all aspects of the construct being measured? Criterion-related validity-do scores on the test predict some present or future behaviour or validity outcome assumed to be affected by the construct being measured

Intelligence

Chapter 10

Intelligence in Historical Perspective Sir Francis Galton: Quantifying Mental Ability Galton showed through the study of family trees that eminence and genius seemed to occur within certain families His research convinced him that eminent people had inherited mental constitutions: that made them more fit for thinking than their less successful counterparts dismissed the fact of coming from a a privileged environment Based his research though the reaction speed, hand strength, and sensory acuity, he even measured the size of peoples skulls, believing that skull size reflected brain volume and hence intelligence Galtons approach to mental skills was disproved because his measures of nervous-system efficiency proved unrelated to socially relevant measures of mental ability, such as academic and occupational success Alfred Binets Mental Tests French psychologist, Alfred Binet was commissioned by Frances Ministry of Public Education to develop the test that was to become the forerunner of all modern intelligence tests Binet was interested in solving a practical problem rather than supporting a theory o Problem: certain children seemed unable to benefit from normal public schooling. Educators wanted an objective way to identify these children as early as possible so that some form of special education could be arranged for them 2 assumptions in the test: o mental abilities develop with age o the rate at which people gain mental competence is a characteristic of the person and is fairly constant over time mental age: the mental level(or age) at which a child is performing as determined by a standardized interview in which the child responds to a series of questions o ex)if an 8 year old child could solve problems at the level of the average 10 year old, the child would be said to have a mental age of 10

William Sterns intelligence quotient(IQ) test was the ratio of mental age to chronological age multiplied by 100 (mental age/chronological age) x 100 a child who was performing at exactly his or her age level would have an IQ of 100 IQ test doesnt really work for adults because his test would show an actual decline at older ages Binets Legacy: An Intelligence Testing Industry Emerges Stanford-Binet-this test had become widely accepted in North America as the gold standard for measuring mental aptitude The Stanford-Binet contained mostly verbal items, and it yielded a single IQ score o Became the prototype for the army alpha, a verbally oriented test that was used to screen large numbers of US army recruits for intellectual fitness

Terman He built a test that can be measure verbal and non verbal abilities He developed an intelligence test for adults and for children that measured both verbal and non verbal intellectual skills Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale(WAIS) & Weschler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) It has gone under several revisions Most popular individually administered intelligence tests in North America Intelligence is the ability to acquire knowledge, to think and reason effectively and to deal adaptively with the environment. Because cultural environments differ in the skills most important for adaptation, cultural conceptions of intelligence may differ markedly The Psychometric Approach: The Structure of Intellect Psychometrics: The statistical study of psychological tests The psychometric approach to intelligence tries to identify and measure the abilities that underlie individual differences in performance It tries to provide a measurement based map of the mind Factor Analysis

Researchers administer diverse measures of mental abilities and correlate them with one another o If certain tests are correlated highly with one another, if they cluster mathematically then performance on these tests probably reflects the same underlying mental skill o If the test within a cluster correlate highly with one another but much less with tests in other clusters, then these various test clusters probably reflect different mental abilities o Main goal: researchers hope to determine the number of test clusters and to use this information to infer the nature of the underlying abilities Factor analysis: reduces a large number of measures to a smaller number of clusters, or factors with each cluster continuing variables that correlated highly with one another but less highly with variables in other clusters o A factor allows us to infer the underlying characteristic that presumably accounts for the links among the variables in the cluster o Can identify clusters

The G Factor: Intelligence as General Mental Capacity Intellectual performance is determined partly by a g factor or general intelligence and partly by whatever special abilities might be required to perform that particular task The g factor cuts across virtually all tasks, it constitutes the core of intelligence o Your math skill would depend mainly on your general intelligence but also on your specific ability to learn mathematics The g factor is the core of what we call intelligence o G matters a great deal as a predictor of both academic and job performance o The same general mental ability is significantly related to success in both areas of life o Measures of the g factor predict job success even better than do measures of specific abilities tailored to individual jobs

G is clearly the most important dimension uncovered in the study of cognitive abilities to date Intelligence as Specific Mental Abilities Human mental performance depends not on a general factor but rather on seven distinct abilities called primary mental abilities Educators tend to find the specific-abilities notion of intelligence more attractive and useful than the general mental abilities o Main focus is to identify the specific mental skills involved in learning subjects such as reading, math, and science Crystallized and Fluid Intelligence Crystallized intelligence(gc) o The ability to apply previously acquired knowledge to current problems o Vocab and information tests are good measures of crystallized intelligence o It depends on the ability to retrieve previously learned information and problem solving schema Fluid intelligence (gf) o The ability to deal with novel problem solving situations for o o which personal experience doesnt provide a solution Involves inductive reasoning and creative problem solving skills Dependent primarily on the efficient functioning of the central nervous system rather than on prior experience and cultural context People high in fluid intelligence can perceive relations among stimulus patterns and draw inferences from relationships Requires the abilities to reason abstractly, think logically and

o o

manage information in working short term memory so that new problems can be solved on the blackboard of the mind Long term memory contributes strongly to crystallized intelligence, whereas fluid intelligence in particularly dependent on efficient working memory o We use our crystallized intelligence by calling up appropriate information and schemas from long term memory

Long term memory remains strong even as we age, performance on tests of crystallized intelligence improves during adulthood and remains stable well into late adulthood Carrolls Three-Stratum model: A Modern Synthesis Establishes three levels of mental skills-general (g skills), broad (fluid intelligence, crystallized intelligence, general memory and learning, broad visual perception, broad auditory perception, broad retrieval ability, broad cognitive speediness, processing speed) and narrow-arranged (specific cognitive, perceptual and speed tasks used in studies of cognitive ability)in a hierarchical model Cognitive Process Approaches: The Nature of Intelligent Thinking Cognitive process theories-explore the specific information processing and cognitive processes that underlie intellectual ability Triarchic Theory of Intelligence: addresses both the psychological processes involved in intelligent behaviour and the diverse forms that intelligence can take o Divides the cognitive processes that underlie intelligent behaviour into 3 specific components Metacomponents: are the higher order processes used to plan and regulate task performance o They include problem solving skills such as identifying problems, formulating hypotheses and strategies, testing them logically and evaluating performance feedback o Fundamental source of individual differences in fluid intelligence o Intelligent people spend more time framing problems and developing strategies than do less intelligent people, who have a tendency to plunge right in without sufficient forethought Performance components: the actual mental processes used to perform the task o Include perceptual processing, retrieving appropriate memories and schemas from long term memory and generating responses

Knowledge-acquisition components: allow us to learn from our experiences, store information in memory and combine new insights of the previously acquired information o Underlie individual differences in crystallized intelligence Sternberg believes that there is 3 different classes of adaptive problem solving 1. Analytical intelligence: involves the kinds of academically oriented problem solving skills measured by traditional intelligence tests 2. Practical intelligence: refers to the skills needed to cope with everyday demands and to manage oneself and other people effectively 3. Creative intelligence: comprises the mental skills needed to deal adaptively with novel problems Broader Conceptions of Intelligence: Beyond Mental Competencies Gardners Multiple Intelligences 1. Linguistic intelligence: the ability to use language well, as writers do 2. Logical mathematical intelligence: the ability to reason mathematically and logically 3. Visuospatial intelligence: the ability to solve spatial problems or to succeed in a field such as architecture 4. Musical intelligence: the ability to perceive pitch and rhythm and to understand and produce music 5. Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence: the ability to control body movements and skillfully manipulate objects, as demonstrated by a highly skilled dancer, athlete or surgeon 6. Interpersonal intelligence: the ability to understand and relate well to others 7. Intrapersonal intelligence the ability to understand oneself 8. Naturalistic intelligence: the ability to detect and understand phenomena in the natural world, as a zoologist r meteorologist might Emotional Intelligence Involves the abilities to read others emotions accurately, to respond to them appropriately, to motivate oneself, to be aware of ones own emotions and to regulate and control ones own emotional responses The Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test(MSCEIT) includes specific tasks to measure each branch

o Perceiving emotions, using emotions to facilitate thought, understanding emotions, managing emotions o The scoring method for the MSCEIT tasks yields high reliability among expert scorers; it produces scores for each branch as well as total emotional intelligence score Increasing the Informational Yield From Intelligence Tests

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