Introduction to Psychology

PSY 101
Thought & Language
Lecturer: Catherine Sesay
 FORMING CONCEPTS
• Concept
• a way to group or classify objects, events, animals, or people based on some
features, traits, or characteristics that they all share in common
• Exemplar model
• form a concept of an object, event, animal, or person by defining or making
a mental list of the essential characteristics of a particular thing
 FORMING CONCEPTS (CONT.)
• Prototype theory
• form a concept by creating a mental image that is based on the average
characteristics of an object
• Functions of concepts
• organize information
• group things into categories an thus better organize and store information in
memory
• avoid relearning
• can be used to classify and categorize things, you can easily classify new
things without having to relearn what that thing is
 SOLVING PROBLEMS
• Problem solving
• involves searching for some rule, plan, or strategy that results in our
reaching a certain goal that is currently out of reach
• Different ways of thinking
• algorithms
• are fixed set of rules that, if followed correctly, will eventually lead to a
solution
 SOLVING PROBLEMS (CONT.)
• Different ways of thinking
• Heuristics
• rules of thumb, or clever and creative mental shortcuts, that reduce the number of
operations and allow one to solve problems more easily and quickly
• Availability heuristic
• says that we rely on information that is more prominent or easily recalled and overlook
other information that is available but less prominent or notable
 SOLVING PROBLEMS (CONT.)
• Different ways of thinking
• Artificial intelligence
• means of programming machines (computers, robots) to imitate human thinking and
problem-solving abilities
• Three strategies for solving problems
• changing one’s mental set
• functional fixedness
• refers to a mental set that is characterized by the inability to see an object as having a
function different from its usual one
 SOLVING PROBLEMS (CONT.)
• Using analogies
• a strategy for finding a similarity between the new situation and an old,
familiar situation
• Forming subgoals
• a strategy that involves breaking down the overall problem into separate
parts that, when completed in order, will result in a solution
 THINKING CREATIVELY
• How is creativity defined?
• Creative thinking
• combination of flexibility in thinking and reorganization of understanding to produce
innovative ideas and new or novel solutions
• Creative individual
• someone who regularly solves problems, fashions products, or defines new questions
that make an impact on his or her society
THINKING CREATIVELY (CONT.)
• How is creativity defined?
• Psychometric approach
• uses objective problem-solving tasks to measure creativity,
focuses on the distinction between two kinds of thinking—
convergent and divergent
• Convergent thinking
• means beginning with a problem and coming up with a single
correct solution
• Divergent thinking
• means beginning with a problem and coming up with many
different solutions
THINKING CREATIVELY (CONT.)
• How is creativity defined?
• Case study approach
• analyzes creative persons in great depth and thus provides
insight into their development, personality, motivation, and
problems
• Cognitive approach
• tries to build a bridge between the objective measures of the
psychometric approach and the subjective descriptions
provided by case studies
• cognitive approach identifies and measures cognitive
mechanisms that are used during creative thinking
LANGUAGE: BASIC RULES
• Four rules of language
1. Phonology
• specifies how we make the meaningful sounds that are used
by a particular language
• phonemes
• basic sounds of consonants and vowels
2. Morphology
• system that we use to group phonemes into meaningful
combinations of sound and words
• morphene
• smallest meaningful combination of sounds in a language
 LANGUAGE: BASIC RULES (CONT.)
• Four rules of language
3. Syntax, or grammar
• set of rules that specifies how we combine words to form meaningful phrases and
sentences
4. Semantics
• specifies the meaning of words or phrases when they appear in various sentences or
contexts
 LANGUAGE: BASIC RULES (CONT.)
• Understanding language
• Chomsky’s theory of language
• Norm Chomsky
• says that all languages share a common universal grammar and that children inherit a
mental program to learn this universal grammar
p313 SPEECH CENTERS
 LANGUAGE: BASIC RULES (CONT.)
• Understanding language
• Mental grammar
• allows us to combine nouns, verbs, and objects in an endless variety of meaningful
sentences
• innate brain program
• makes learning the general rules of grammar relatively easy
LANGUAGE: BASIC RULES (CONT.)
• Different structure, same meaning
• Surface structure
• refers to the actual wording of a sentence, as it is spoken
• Deep structure
• refers to an underlying meaning that is not spoken but is
present in the mind of the listener
• Transformational rules
• procedures by which we convert our ideas from surface
structures into deep structures and from deep structures
back into surface ones
 ACQUIRING LANGUAGE
• Language stages
• refers to all infants going through four different periods or stages—babbling,
single words, two-word combinations, and sentences
1. begins about 6 months, is the first stage in acquiring language
2. single word
• second stage in acquiring language, which occurs at about 1 year of age
 ACQUIRING LANGUAGE (CONT.)
• Language stages
2. single word (cont.)
• parentese (motherese)
• way of speaking to young children in which the adult speaks in a slower and
higher than normal voice, emphasizes and stretches our each word, uses
very simple sentences, and repeats words and phrases
3. two-word combinations
• represents the third stage in acquiring language, occurs at about 2 years of
age
 ACQUIRING LANGUAGE (CONT.)
• Language stages
4. sentences
• represents the fourth stage of acquiring language, occurs at about 4 years of
age
• Telegraphic speech
• distinctive pattern of speaking in which the child omits articles (the),
prepositions (in, out), and parts of verbs
 ACQUIRING LANGUAGE (CONT.)
• What are innate factors?
• genetically programmed physiological and neurological features that
facilitate our making speech sounds and acquiring language skills
• Innate physiological factors
• special adapted vocal apparatus (larynx and pharynx) that allows us to make sounds and
form words
• Innate neurological features
• left hemisphere of the brain is prewired to acquire and use language, whether spoken
or signed
 ACQUIRING LANGUAGE (CONT.)
• What are innate factors?
• Innate developmental factors
• critical language period
• time from infancy to adolescence when language is easiest to learn
• more difficult to learn anytime after adolescence
ACQUIRING LANGUAGE (CONT.)
• What are environmental factors?
• refer to interactions children have with parents, peers,
teachers, and others who provide feedback that
rewards and encourages language development, as
well as provides opportunities for children to observe,
imitate, and practice language skills
• Social cognitive learning
• emphasizes the acquisition of language skills through
social interactions, which give children a chance to
observe, imitate, and practice the sounds, words, and
sentences they hear from their parents or caregivers
 REASON, THOUGHT & LANGUAGE
• Two kinds of reasoning
• Reasoning
• means thinking, is a mental process that involves using and applying knowledge to solve
problems, make plans or decisions, and achieve goals
• Deductive reasoning
• begins with making a general assumption that you know or believe to be true and then
drawing specific conclusions based on this assumption
REASON, THOUGHT & LANGUAGE (CONT.)

• Two kinds of reasoning

• Inductive reasoning
• making particular observations that you then use to draw a
broader conclusion
• Theory of Linguistic Relativity
• states that differences among languages result in similar
differences in how people think and perceive the world