Chapter 8: Cognition: thinking, decision making, and languages
Thinking and reasoning
Thinking: any mental activity or processing of information including learning, remembering,
perceiving, communicating, believing and deciding.
Cognitive economy: tendency of cognitive processes to minimize processing effort and resources
(heuristic)
We use inferences: steps in reasoning moving from premise to conclusion: mental shortcuts
(heuristic)
Cognitive bias: systematic error in thinking
- Representativeness heuristic: heuristic that involves judging the probability of an event by
its superficial similarity to a prototype (stereotyping). When we fall for this heuristic we
don’t use base rate: how common a certain characteristic is in the general population.
- Availability heuristic: heuristic that involves estimating the likelihood of an occurrence
based on the ease with which it comes to our mind
- Hindsight bias: our tendency to overestimate how well we could have predicted something
after it has already occurred
- Confirmation bias: our tendency to seek out evidence that supports our hypothesises and to
dismiss evidence that doesn’t
In top-down processing, we fill in the gaps of missing information with our previous experience and
background knowledge (chunking).
Concepts: our knowledge and ideas about a set of objects, actions, and characteristics that share
properties. Schemas are concepts we have already stored mentally.
Decision making and problem solving
Decision making: the process of selecting among a set of possible alternatives.
System 1/intuitive thinking: Our brain on autopilot, making quick decisions
System 2/analytical thinking: when you’re taking the time and effort to think about or reason
through something
Framing: the way a question is formulated that can affect the decisions people make.
Neuroeconomics: field in psychology interested in how the brain works while making financial
decisions.
Problem solving: generating cognitive strategy to accomplish a goal.
- We use algorithms: step-by-step learned procedures used to solve a problem
- Break it down in a set of sub-problems
- We use analogies: using the similarity between two distinct topics
Obstacles
- Salience of Suface Similartities. Salience = how attention grabbing something is. Sometimes
the surface abilities of a problem distract from the underlying problem.
- Mental set: phenomenon of becoming stuck in a specific problem-solving strategy, inhibiting
our ability to generate alternatives. (frontal and parietal lobes).
, - Functional fixedness: difficulty conceptualizing that an object typically used for one purpose
can be used for another.
The computer model of our mind isn’t completely compatible with reality, because a computer can’t
draw conclusions from past experience or context as well as humans can.
How does language work
Language: largely arbitrary system of communication that uses symbols in rule-based ways to create
meaning.
Levels of language
1. Phonemes: category of sounds our vocal apparatus produces: sound of our language
Sounds are influenced by elements of the vocal track: lips, teeth, tongue, vibration of vocal
cords, etc. Every language has only a subset of them.
2. Morphemes: smallest meaningful unit of speech.
By stringing phonemes together, you get words, like “dog”. Morphemes can create
semantics: meaning derived from words and sentences (re-write).
3. Syntax: grammatical rules that govern how words are composed in meaningful strings
Making a sentence using rules (order/morphological markers: -ed, -s, -ing). Syntax isn’t
followed perfectly.
4. Extralinguistic information: elements of communication that aren’t part of the content of
language but are critical to interpreting its meaning. (facial expression/tone of voice).
5. Dialects: language variation used by a group of people who share geographic proximity or
ethnic background. These aren’t separate languages, but merely variations in pronunciation,
vocabulary and/or syntax.
How did language come to exist?
We use language to communicate deeply complicated information. The need for language in our
ancestors outweighed the disadvantages of this complex system. It probably started with sounds
associated with things. (zoom, beep, miauw).
How do children learn language?
They start at the fifth month in the belly. During their first year they experiment with phonemes
through babbling: intentional vocalization that lacks specific meaning. Babies can recognize all
phonemes at first, but then quickly adjust to the ones needed in their language. Comprehension of
words proceeds production. After their first birthday they start to produce words. Common mistakes
are overextending or underextending the meaning of words. One-word stage: early period of
language development when children use single word phrases to convey an entire thought. Around
the time they are two they can produce two-word strings. Several months later the phrases become
more difficult and they start to use morphological markers as well. There is a critical period in which
children have to learn a language, afterwards they aren’t able to acquire these skills fully. Homesign:
sty stem of signs invented by children who are deaf and born with hearing parents and therefore
receive no language input. After the age of 7 it becomes increasingly difficult to learn a second
language.
Special cases of language learning
Sign language: language developed by members of a deaf community that uses visual rather than
auditory communication
, Bilingual: proficient and fluent at speaking and comprehending two distinct languages. During
childhood development only syntax is stalled momentarily in both languages. These children have
metalinguistic insight: awareness of how language is structured and used.
Theoretical accounts of language acquisition
1. “Pure” nature and nurture
Children learn through imitation, but it can’t be only through imitation since language is
generative: allowing infinite number of unique sentences to be created by combining words
in novel ways.
Nativist: account of language that suggest that children are born with basic knowledge of
how language works. The language acquisition device: a hypothetical organ in the brain in
which nativists believe knowledge of syntax resides. These claims are hard to falsify.
2. Social pragmatics
Social pragmatic: account of language acquisition that proposed that children infer what
words and sentences mean from context and social interactions. However, this requires
children to have a social understanding of the world (what does pointing mean).
3. General cognitive processing
They learn through cognitive abilities such as perceiving, recognizing and learning. However,
children are better than adults at learning languages while adults are better at learning in
general. There are two areas in the brain dedicated to language (Broca’s and Wernicke’s
area).
Non-human communication
Animals often use communication in the context of sex and violence. They communicate through
dances, facial expressions, scent marking etc.
Humans have tried to teach animals language but were largely unsuccessful. The bonobo came
close. They had a similar learning process as humans and could use symbols to communicate, but
they could not use syntax. A parrot could speak and solve cognitive tasks, but was closely resembled
with repetition.
Communication and the mind
Linguistic determinism: view that all thought is represented verbally and that, as a result, language
defines our thinking. Some studies have pointed out that language areas are activated when we read
or speak, but not especially during thought. This suggest thought can occur without language.
Linguistic relativity: view that characteristics of language shape our thought processes.
Reading language has become an automatic skill for most. We almost can’t put a break on it.
Whole world recognition: reading strategy that involves identifying common words based on their
appearance without having to sound the out.
Phonetic decomposition: reading strategy that involves sounding out words by drawing
correspondences between printed letters and sounds.
Speed-reading helps to increase our reading speed, but it decreases our comprehension of what
we’ve read.
