Psychology Ch. 9 - Language and Thought
Order by
38 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 language | a system for communicating with others using signals that are combined according to rules of grammar and convey meaning |
| grammar | a set of rules that specify how the units of language can be combined to produce meaningful messages |
| phonemes | the smallest unit of sound that is recognizable as speech rather than as random noise |
| phonological rules | a set of rules that indicate how phonemes can be combined to produce speech sounds |
| morphemes | the smallest meaningful units of language |
| morphological rules | a set of rules that indicate how morphemes can be combined to form words |
| syntactical rules | a set of rules that indicate how wordscan be combined to form phrases and sentences |
| deep structure | the true meaning of a sentence |
| surface structure | how a sentence is worded |
| fast mapping | the fact that children can map a word onto an underlying concept after only a single exposure |
| telegraphic speech | speech that is devoid of function morphemes and consists mostly of content words |
| nativist theory | the view that language development is best explained as an innate, biological capacity |
| language acquisition device (LAD) | a collection of processes that faciliate language learning |
| genetic dysphasia | a syndrome characterized by an inability to learn the grammatical structure of language despite having otherwise normal intelligence |
| aphasia | difficulty in producing or comprehending language |
| linguistic relativity hypothesis | the proposal that language shapes the nature of thought |
| concept | a mental representation that groups or categorizes shred features of related objects, events, or other stimuli |
| family resemblance theory | members of a category have features that appear to be characteristic of category members but may not be possessed by every member |
| prototype | the "best" or "most typical" member of a category |
| exemplar theory | a theory of categorization that argues that we make category judgments by comparing a new instance with stored memories for other instances of the category |
| category specific deficit | a neurological syndrome when one has an inbility to recognize objects that belong to a particular category though the ability to recognize objects outside the category is undisturbed |
| rational choice theory | we make decisions by determining how likely something is to happen, judging the value of the outcome, and then multiplying the two |
| availability bias | items that are more readily available in memory are judged as having occurred more frequently |
| heuristics | a fast an efficient strategy that may facilitate decision making but does not guarantee that a solution will be reached; "mental shortcut" |
| algorithm | a well defined sequence of procedures or rules that guarantees a solution to a problem |
| conjunction fallacy | when people think that two events are more likely to occur together than either individual event |
| representativeness heuristic | a mental shortcut that involves making a probability judgment by comparing an object or event to a prototype of the object or event |
| framing effects | when people give different answers to the same problem depending on how the problem is phrased |
| sunk-cost fallacy | whe people make decisions about a current situation based on what they have previously invested in the situation |
| prospect theory | people choose to take on risk when evaluating potential losses and avoid risks when evaluating potential gains |
| frequency format hypothesis | the proposal that our minds evolved to notice how frequently things occur, not how likely things are to occur |
| means-end analysis | a process of searching for the means or steps to reduce the differences between the current situation and the desired goal |
| analogical problem solving | solving a problem by finding a similar problem with a known solution and applying that solution to the current problem |
| reasoning | a mental activity that consists of organizing information or beliefs into a series of steps to reach conclusions |
| practical reasoning | figuring out what to do (reasoning directed toward action) |
| theoretical reasoning | reasoning directed toward arriving at a belief |
| belief bias | when people's judgments about whether to accept conclusions depend more on how believable the conclusions are than on whether the arguments are logically valid |
| syllogistic reasoning | whether a conclusion follows from two statements that we assume to be true |
First Time Here?
Welcome to Quizlet, a fun, free place to study. Try these flashcards, find others to study, or make your own.