Hobbits and Orcs

• 3 hobbits and 3 orcs are on one side of the river. There is a boat that can hold two creatures. If there are ever more orcs than hobbits on either side, they will eat the hobbits. How do you get the creatures across the river?

Bridge problem

• The bridge is going to collapse shortly, and 4 hikers need to cross.
• A maximum of two people can cross at a time, carrying a flashlight that must be returned.
• Each hiker walks at a different speed- 1 minute, 2 minutes, 5 and 10 minutes
• How fast can you get them across?

Chapter 8: Thinking, Language & Intelligence

Cognition – the mental activities of acquiring, storing, retrieving, and using knowledge

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Components of Thinking - Problem Solving

Trial and Error: Trying one solution after another in no particular order

Means-End Analysis: Given a current state and a goal state, an action is chosen to reduce the difference between the two.

Insights: Sometimes answer just comes to us out of nowhere when we are not focusing hard on it

Ex: Coming up with a jumbled word ITIGKHNN

Components of Thinking - Problem Solving

Algorithm: A systematic procedure that guarantees a solution, � although it may take longer than a Heuristic approach.

-Penny Jump

Pythagorean theorem

Heuristics: Using a rule of thumb strategy to problem solve and make decisions.

-Often comes from our past experiences and personal judgments.

-Usually quicker, but more error-prone, than algorithms.

-Sometimes called “mental shortcuts”

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Ex: If you are having difficulty understanding a problem, try drawing a picture.

If you can't find a solution, try assuming that you have a solution and seeing � what you can derive from that ("working backward").

If the problem is abstract, try examining a concrete example.

Decision Making

Definition: The process of choosing among a number of alternatives

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• Representativeness Heuristic – When we make a decision based on how much a new situation or object resembles our old prototypes

�(Ex: classical music loving wine drinker- truck driver or Ivy League professor)

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• Availability Heuristic – When we base a decision on what we have most available in our memory. Things that come to mind are presumed to be more common.

(Ex: letter “k”…more frequent 1^st or 3^rd letter)

(overestimate things like violent crime and teen pregnancy)

Errors Made in Problem Solving

• Functional Fixedness: Inability to use familiar objects in new ways
• Ex: Need a flashlight? Use your cell phone.
• Ex: Someone who does not show functional fixedness is a robber who uses women’s hosiery placed over his head to distort his facial features ☺

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• Mental Set: When people continue to use problem-solving strategies that have worked in the past rather than trying new one
• Irrelevant Information: When someone becomes fixed on information given in the problem that does not impact the solution

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• Unnecessary Constraints: The inability to solve a problem because we place constraints on the solution that really don’t exist

Faulty Decision Making

Confirmation Bias – A tendency to seek out information that confirms our previously held beliefs

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Belief Perseverance – The tendency to hold onto our belief even in the face of evidence against our belief…our beliefs distort our logic

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Overconfidence – The tendency to count on our own estimates and beliefs too much

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Framing Decisions – The way we are presented the information needed for making the decision can impact what we decide� Ex: coat for $100 or same coat for $150 at 33% off

Components of Thinking - Concepts

• Concepts

Definition: A mental grouping of similar objects, people, events, etc.

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Function: Help us to order our world into categories and communicate with fewer words

Prototype- Best example of a concept (robin for a bird, not ostrich)

Language

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All Language shares 3 things in common

• Semanticity: Meaning of symbols and sounds
• Generativity: Combine words in new ways
• Displacement: Communicate objects not present

Language and the Brain

• As a child grows, his/her language develops. Usually, understanding language occurs before the production of language.

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Wernicke’s Area understand speech

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Broca’s Area

produce speech

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English is difficult!

• A farm can produce produce.
• The dump was so full it had to refuse refuse.
• The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
• The present is a good time to present the present.
• At the Army base, a bass was painted on the head of a bass drum.
• The dove dove into the bushes.
• I did not object to the object.
• The insurance for the invalid was invalid.
• The bandage was wound around the wound.
• They were too close to the door to close it.

Parts of Language

• Phonemes: Smallest unit of sound that can be understood as part of a language � (40 in English) - Ex: The m of mat, the b of boy, or the ch in church
• Morphemes: Smallest unit of sound that conveys a meaning in a language. Can be individual or combinations of phonemes

Firefighters- how many phonemes? Morphemes?

• Grammar: Set of rules that enables us to use our language
• Semantics – Refers to aspects of meaning assigned to language�(Ex: adding “ed” means it happened in the past)
• Syntax – The system of rules we use to string words together into proper sentences �(Ex: adjectives come before nouns)

Pic: Units of Language

Language Development (Year One)

• Infant – Crying

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• 4 to 6 months – Babbling

(sounds present in all languages)

• 9 months – Finite babbling

(narrow to sounds reflected back to them)

• 1 year – One-word stage
• Overextension: Applying a word to a wide variety of similar items �(Ex: using “horse” to refer to any four-legged animal)
• Underextension: Using a word to define only one object as though it were a proper name �(Ex: using “bird” to refer to only the child’s pet and not to wild birds in the yard or other winged creatures)
• Overgeneralization- Misuse of rules “goed” “sheeps”
• Holophrasic Speech: Using one word to mean an entire sentence �(Ex: “shoe” means “Will you tie my shoe?”)

Language Development (Past 1st Year)

• 18-24 months – Two-word stage

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• 2 years old – Capable of relating past and present

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• 3 years old – Uses simple sentence structure and can tell a simple story

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• 4 years old – Five-word sentences are characteristic of this age group

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• 5 years old – Capable of complex syntax

Theories of Language Acquisition

• Skinner – Learned through association, reinforcement and social imitation

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• Chomsky – Believed that language acquisition is innate- Language acquisition devise

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*Possibly a combination of the two

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Thinking and Language

Whorf’s Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis

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Definition: Language and thinking are interrelated � “Language itself shapes man’s basic ideas”

Examples

• Hopi have no past tense, so they do not readily think about the past

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• English has many words for self-focused emotions such as anger

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• Japanese have many words for interpersonal emotions such as sympathy

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• Bilinguals may show different personalities when taking the same personality test in their two languages

Language Acquisition as we get older…

English is difficult!

There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England.��Quicksand works slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

�If you have a bunch of odds & ends and get rid of all but one, what do you call it?��If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?��Why do people recite at a play and play at a recital?  Ship by truck and send cargo by ship?  Have noses that run and feet that smell? How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

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You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which an alarm goes off by going on.��If Dad is Pop, how come mom isn't Mop?  

Intelligence Debate

• Nature to the left of me, nurture to the right.

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History of Intelligence Testing

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• Alfred Binet- late 1800s
• French Government
• Mental age based
• Fear test would be abused

History of Intelligence Testing

• Terman (Stanford-Binet Scale)
• revised the Binet scale
• created the term IQ
• “IQ” determined by taking: MA/CA x 100
• Extended the test to also assess IQ in adults

• Wechsler
• Developed a more accurate test for adults
• First to use standard deviation, bell curve
• Examples of some of the test developed by Wechsler include
• Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)
• Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC)

WAIS Subtests

Extremes of Intelligence

• Mental Retardation
• mild (IQ scores of 50-70) Makes up 85%
• About a 6^th grade education
• They usually live in a supervised community
• moderate- (IQ scores of 35-50) 10%
• about a second grade education
• Need very supervised work conditions
• severe (IQ 20-35) 4%
• Regular supervision due to communication and physical issues.
• profound (IQ below 20)
• These individuals have very little sensorimotor capability and will always require supervision
• Gifted�generally considered an IQ of 130 or exceptional skill in a category

Kinds of Intelligence

• Spearman - “g” and “s”
• “g”-general intelligence
• “s”-specific abilities

Kinds of Intelligence

• Gardner - Theory of Multiple Intelligences
• He believed that intelligence could be broken down into seven categories:

Kinds of Intelligence

• Sternberg - Triarchic Theory
• He believed that intelligence could be broken down into three categories
• creative intelligence-ability to solve problems with novel solutions
• practical intelligence-”common sense”
• analytical intelligence-ability to analyze a problem into its integral components

Kinds of Intelligence

Raymond Cattell

• Fluid Intelligence: innate, inherited intelligence including reasoning and problem solving abilities, and speed of info-processing

- tends to decline with age

• Crystallized Intelligence: specific knowledge and skills gained through experience & education�- tend to increase over life span

Flynn Effect

• Flynn Effect-

IQ scores have risen 15 points in the last 5 decades. Write down three reasons this could be true.

Basics of Intelligence testing

• Most of the research comes from IQ tests
• Tests relate well to school, not to job performance
• No gender differences, but racial (stereotype threat)
• Preschool programs (Head Start), initial gains, but fade with time
• Identical Twin Study- Twins raised together or a part have higher correlation than others
• Adoption studies- First adoptive, then biological

Types & Characteristics of Tests

Types

• Aptitude: person’s capability
• Achievement: person’s knowledge of subject

Characteristics

• Validity: the ability of the test to measure what you say it will measure
• Reliability: the ability of the test to measure a construct with consistency
• Standardization: specific directions and norms

Types of Validity & Reliability of Tests

Validity

• Content: Complete range of material
• Criterion: Compare to other tests of the same measure (high on SAT, high on ACT)
• Predictive: future performance (MCAT)
• Construct: theoretical or hypothetical construct (depression, intelligence)

Reliability

• Test-retest:

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• Alternate form:

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• Inter-rater:

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