Psych: Chapter 7: Thinking, Language, & Intelligence

Chapter 7:

Thinking, Language, & intelligence

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Chapter Content

Thinking- Mental Images/ Problem Solving & Decision Making Language & Thought Measuring Intelligence

Thinking

A broad term that refers to how we use knowledge to analyze situations, solve problems, and make decisions.

What is it we think with?

Thinking

Cognition

Mental activities involved in acquiring, retaining, and using knowledge. Other fundamental cognitive processes discussed are perception, learning, and memory, there are critical to acquire and retain new knowledge

Two important forms of mental representations are mental images and concepts.

The manipulation of mental representations of information to draw inferences and conclusions. Involves active mental process and is directed toward some goal, purpose, or conclusion.

Thinking With Concepts

Concept

Prototype

Examples

Mental catergory of objects or ideas based on properties they share Using concepts makes it easier to communicate with others (remember information and align new information Ex. the concept for food might include anything from a sardine to a rutabaga

The most typical instance of a particular concept According to Psychologist Eleanor Rosch, some members are better representatives of a concept than are others Protytpe theories of classification, determin whether an object is an instance of a concept by comparing it to the prototype we have developed rather than by logically evaluating the defining features

Examples of these concepts will be provided here.

Solving Problems

Thinking and behavior directed toward attaining a goal that is not readily available

Strategies

Heuristics: Rule of Thumb

Trial & Error

Insight

Algorithms

Obstacles to Solving Problems

Decision Making

Have you ever just felt like flipping a coin when faced with an important or complicated decision?

Elimination-By-Aspects Model Evaluate all the alternatives one characteristic at a time, starting with the features you consider most important. If the alternatives fail to meet the criterion, mark it off, even if it possesses other desirable attributes; the range of possibilities is narrowed down. Good decision makers adapt their strategies to the demands of the situation and will often use more than one strategy

Single-Feature Model To simplify the choice among many alternatives, you base your decision on a single feature. When the decision is a minor one, this method could be a good strategy to use. When the decision is complex, this method can increase the riskiness of the decision.

The Additive Model Better strategy for complex decision making. Generate a list of the factors that are most important to you. If a particular factor has strong advantages or appeal, you give it the maximum rating; finally, add up the ratings for each alternative. This strategy can reveal the best overall choice.

Decisions Involving Uncertainty

Estimating the Probability of Events

Representativeness Heuristic

Availabiligy Heuristic

Some decisions involve a high degree of uncertainty, but you need to make a decision. (ex. Imagine you are late for an appointment and are faced with speeding to make the appointment, or getting a ticket). You would estimate the probability of getting pulled over. We often estimate the likelihood and gamble on the odds

Strategy in which the likelihood of an event is estimated based on how readily available other instances of the event are in memory. When instances of an event are easily recalled, we consider the event more likely to occur. (ex. Less likely to speed if we remember that a friend recently received a speeding ticket).

Strategy in which the likelihood of an event is estimated by comparing how similar it is to the prototype of the event. Can lead to inaccurate judgments.

Obstacles

Unwarranted Beliefs

Confirmation Bias: The tendency to seek out evidence that confirms existing beliefs while ignoring evidence that might contradict or undermine those beliefs The Fallacy of Positive Instances: The tendency to remember uncommon events that seem to confirm our beliefs and to forget events that disconfirm our beliefs The Overestimation Effect: The tendency to overestimate the rarity of events..

Numerous studies have explored how people deal with evidence, especially when the information contradicts their beliefs. Once a belief is establised contradictory evidence often has little impact.

Is it true that people tend to cling to their beliefs even when they are presented with solid evidence that contradicts those beliefs?

What questions or comments do you have?

Language & Thought

Language

System for combingin arbitrary symbols to produce an infinite number of meaningful statements

Development

Characteristics

Effects on Perception

Linguistic relativity hypothesis-Differences among languages cause differences in the thoughts of their speakers. Many researchers discuss thinking and language as interacting each influencing the other and both being influenced by culture.

Main purpose is to communicate and express meaningful information in a way that can be understood by others. Requires the use of symbols, which can be written or spoken words. Highly structured that follows specific rules

Noam Chomsky: Every child is born with a biological predisposition to learn any language. Infant-directed speech: a style of speech used with babies; universal simplified, short sentences, high pitch Adult use of infant-directed speech seems to be instinctive Deaf mothers who use sign language modify their hand gestures when they communicate with infants and toddlers

American Sign Language (ASL)

• ASL is used by hearing-impaired people, meets all the formal requirements for language, including syntax, displacement, and generativity
• Similarities between spoken language and sign language have been confirmed by brain-imaging studies
• The same brain regions are activated in hearing people when they speak as in deaf people when they use sign language

The Bilingual Mind

• Bilingualism- Fluency in two or more languages
• Multilingual- Speaking more than two languages
• Polyglot- Speaking five or more languages
• Hyperglot- Speaking 10 or more languages

It was once thought that teaching children more than one language at a time was harmful and would cause confusion. Some research has found that there are neither benefit nor drawbacks to know more than one language. Research now suggests that bilingual people are better at taking the perspective of others such as imagining how another person might view a particular situation. Pays off in preserving brain function in old age.

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What questions or comments do you have?

Measuring Intelligence

Intelligence- The global capacity to think rationally, act purposefully, and deal effectively with the environment. Intelligence tests try to measure general mental abilities, rather than accumulated knowledge or aptitude for a specific subject or area.

Intelligence Testing

Binet

Wechsler

WWI/Group Intelligence

Testing Immigrants at Ellis Island

Measures of Various Aspects

What Makes a Good Test?

Standardization Administration of a test to a large, representative sample of people under uniform conditions for the purpose of establishing norms that follow the normal curve or normal distribution Reliability Ability of a test to produce consistent results when administered on repeated occasions under similar conditions Validity Ability of a test to measure what it is intended to measure.

Achievement test: a test designed to measure a person’s level of knowledge, skill, or accomplishment in a particular area Aptitude test: a test designed to assess a person’s capacity to benefit from education or training

• IQ formula = MA/CA × 100
• Example: A bright child of a chronological age (CA) of 10 scores at a mental age (MA) of 13 for an IQ of 130
• 13/10 × 100 = 130

Genetics and Environmental Impact on Intelligence

Genetics and the environment play an important role when it comes to intelligence but the relationship is a complex one. It was once believed that genes provided an unchanging, permanent blueprint for human development. It’s now known that environmental factors influence which of the many genes we inherit are expressed or activated. Given the complexity of genetic and environmental influences, scientists estimate in several ways how much of intelligence is due to genetics and how much to the environment. The genetic range of potential is influenced by many genes, not by one single gene. No one knows how many genes might be involved Twin Studies: Studies compare IQs of individuals who are genetically related. Identical twins: share exactly the same genes because they developed from a single fertilized egg that split into two Any dissimilarities between them are attributed to environmental factors rather than hereditary differences. Fraternal twins are like any other pair of siblings because they develop from two different fertilized eggs.

Stereotypes Undermine Performance

A workshop on creativity

Stereotype Threat: a psychological predicament in which the fear that you will be evaluated in terms of a negative stereotype about a group to which you belong creates anxiety and self-doubt, lowering performance.

• Members of any group can experience a decline in performance due to stereotype threat
• Fear that the stereotype might be confirmed creates psychological stress, self-doubt, and anxiety
• Physiological arousal and distracting thoughts interfere with concentration, memory, and problem-solving abilities

Some research has not found support for the existence of stereotype threat in all situations Some believe there is a publication bias in the original research, suggesting that only studies that support stereotype threat are published Others consider the possibility that stereotype threat is limited to certain circumstances or that it is occurring all of the time, even for those who are not reminded of the relevant stereotype.

• Suggestions that can enhance your ability to think creatively:
• Choose the goal of creativity.
• Reinforce creative behavior.
• Engage in problem finding.
• Acquire relevant knowledge.
• Try different approaches.
• Exert effort and expect setbacks.

THANKs!

Your time and attention are greatly appreciated!!!

• Functional fixedness-the tendency to view objects as functioning only in their usual or customary way. Often prevents us from seeing the full range of ways in which an object can be used, which can be used to interfere with our ability to find a solution.
• Mental set-tendency to persist with solutions that have worked in the past. If the solution worked in the past, why wouldn’t it work again? If we approach it with a rigid mindset, we might not see other possible solutions.

Animal Communication

Animal cognition or comparative cognition: study of animal learning, memory, thinking, and language

• Animals communicate with one another, but are they capable of mastering language?
• Bonobos, dolphins, and parrots can respond to spoken commands and questions, but not nearly as well as humans.
• Birds and elephants can demonstrate cooperation, social status, and complex memories of the past.
• Dogs are not as cognitively unique as compared with other species, but they do have exquisite sensitivity to human action.

Involves following a specific rule, procedure, or method that inevitably produces the correct solution (Ex, mathematical formulas such as for converting temperatures) While algorithms may guarantee an eventual solution, an algorithm is not always practical

Involves following a general rule of thumb to reduce the number of possible solutions; these are not guaranteed to solve a given problem, but they tend to simplify problem-solving by reducing the number of possible solutions Ex. you might choose a restaurant based on the number of starts online reviews. The strategy is better than choosing at random, but it could have declined after gaining all the stars.

The more closely an item matches the prototype of a concept, the more quickly we can identify it as an example of that concept. Because bats, walruses, and the rather peculiar-looking African long-tailed pangolin do not fit our prototype for a mammal, it takes us longer to decide whether they belong to the category “mammal” than it does to classify animals that are closer to the prototype.

Takes us longer to recognize that an olive or a coconut is a fruit because they are so dissimilar from our prototype of a typical fruit, like an apple or an orange. It’s easier to identify cars and trucks as vehicles than wheelbarrows and elevators.

Almost 3% of people report experiencing intense and vivid mental imagery Most of us fall somewhere in the middle. Cognitive scientist Adam Zeman does not consider extremes a disorder, just an intriguing variation in human experience.

Hyperphantasia

Mental representation of objects or events that are not physically present. Visual pictures People can also form mental representations that involve senses other than vision. Ex. taste of a chocolate milkshake, smell of freshly popped popcorn, feel of clothing sticking to you

Mental Images

A little less than 1% of people report not being able to create mental images at all

Aphantasia

The more closely an item matches the prototype of a concept, the more quickly we can identify it as an example of that concept. Because bats, walruses, and the rather peculiar-looking African long-tailed pangolin do not fit our prototype for a mammal, it takes us longer to decide whether they belong to the category “mammal” than it does to classify animals that are closer to the prototype.

Takes us longer to recognize that an olive or a coconut is a fruit because they are so dissimilar from our prototype of a typical fruit, like an apple or an orange. It’s easier to identify cars and trucks as vehicles than wheelbarrows and elevators.

• The sudden realization of how a problem can be solved. Insight can occur when you recognize how the problem is similar to a previously solved problem or the sudden realization that an object can be used in a novel way to solve the problem.
• Rarely occurs through the conscious manipulation of concepts or information.

Problem-solving strategy that involves attempting different solutions and eliminating those that do not work (ex. when trying to fine-tune a recipe, you might use trial and error to get the right ratios). When solving a larger problem, trial and error could be too time-consuming.

Typically, people will attack a problem in an organized or systematic way. The strategy selected can be influenced by the nature of the problem and your level of experience, familiarity, and knowledge about it.

Deaf babies whose parents use ASL babble with their hands, rather than their voices (Petitto & Marentette, 1991; Petitto et al., 2001). Just as hearing babies repeat the same syllables over and over, deaf babies will repeat the same hand gestures. Hearing babies born to deaf parents exposed to only signs also babble with their hands (Petitto et al., 2004).

Students Needing Special Help

• He focused on elementary mental abilities
• Did not focus on reading or math, but rather memory, attention, and the ability to understand similarities and differences
• Developed the goal to help identify “slow” children who could benefit from special help
• Arranged questions in order of difficulty, simplest tasks first
• Invented the concept of mental age
• Measure of intelligence in which a mental level is expressed in terms of the average abilities of a given age group
• Lewis Terman- A psychologist from Stanford University translated and adapted Binet’s test to publish the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale.
• Despite Binet insisting that such test not be used for regular intelligence testing.
• Adopted the concept of intelligence quotient (IQ)
• Measure of general intelligence derived by comparing an individual’s score with the scores of others in the same age group
• Number was derived by dividing the individual’s mental age by the chronological age and multiplying the result by 100

The French government passed a law in the 1900’s requiring all children to attend school. They were faced with needing to educate children from a wide varieties of backgrounds, so they commissioned Alfred Binet (1857-1911) to develop procedures to identify children who might need special help.

• Did not believe that he was measuring an inborn or permanent level of intelligence.
• He believed that his tests could help identify children who could benefit from special help.
• He also believed that intelligence was too complex a quality to describe with a single number.
• He refused to rank “normal” children on the basis of their scores believing that such rankings would be unfair.
• He recognized that many factors such as a child’s level of motivation, might affect the child’s score.
• He noted that an individual's score could vary from time to time.

So, it is ironic that Binet’s tests have become the basis for modern intelligence tests

• The Army needed to develop mass testing option for millions of recruits.
• Two versions:
• Army Alpha test was administered in writing.
• Army Beta test was administered orally to recruits and draftees who could not read.
• This may have led to overuse of tests and discrimination.
• Indiscriminate use of the tests resulted in skepticism and hostility.

• According to one intelligence “expert” of the time, 80 percent of the Hungarians, 79 percent of the Italians, and 87 percent of the Russians were “feeble-minded.”
• The new science of “mental testing” was used to argue for restrictions on immigration.

David Wechsler (1896-1981)

• Was in charge of testing adults of widely varying cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds and ages at a large hospital in NYC
• Dissatisfied with Stanford–Binet and other intelligence tests
• Designed the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) first published in 1955
• Specifically designed for adults
• Measured 11 subsets of different abilities (verbal and performance scores), which had practical and clinical value
• Provided overall, global IQ score, but changed calculation; compared an individual’s score with the scores of others in the same general age group
• Subtest scores proved to have practical and clinical value
• Most recently
• WAIS-IV (Fourth Edition) (Fifth edition is slated to be released in 2024)
• WISC- Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children
• WPPSI- Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence

The Extremes of Intelligence

• Intellectual disability: neurodevelopmental disorder in which deficits in mental abilities impair functioning such that standards of personal independence are not met
• Individuals generally have an IQ of 70 or below
• Intellectual giftedness: condition in which individuals have an IQ of 130 or higher and exceptional abilities in areas related to intelligence
• Leta Hollingworth (1886-1939)
• Studied intellectual giftedness
• Coined term gifted
• Emphasized roles of education and environment; not just genetics, in development of giftedness

Genetics, Environments, and IQ Scores Pg 258