Unit 6

Language: our spoken, written or gestured words and the way we combine them to communicate.

• Phonemes: in a spoken language, the smallest distinctive sound unit.
• Morphemes: in a language, the smallest unit that carries meaning. Can be a word or part of a word(prefix or suffix).
• Grammar: system of rules in a language that enables us to communicate and understand others.
• Semantics: the set of rules by which we derive meaning in a language. Adding -ed at the end of words meaning past tense.
• Syntax: the rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentence.
• Language Development
• Balling Stage (3-4 months): the infant make spontaneous sounds.
• One-word Stage (1-2 years): uses one word to communicate big meanings.
• Two-word Stage (2 years): uses two words to communicate meanings-called telegraphic speech.
• Skinner: though that we can explain language development through social learning theory.
• Psychologist
• Chomsky: we acquire language too quickly for it to be learned. We have this "learning box" inside our heads that enable us to learn any human language.
• Whorf's Linguistic Relativity: the idea that language determines the way we think.

Thinking

• Cognition: another term for thinking, knowing, and remembering.
• Concepts: a mental grouping of similar objects, events, dead, or people.
• Prototypes: a mental image or best example of a category.
• Algorithms: a methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem.
• Heuristics: a rule-of-thumb strategy that often allows us to make judgements and sole problems efficiently. 
• Insight: a sudden and often novel realization of the solution to a problem.
• Confirmation Bias: a tendency to search for information that confirms one's preconceptions.
• Match Problem
• Fixation: the inability to see a problem from a new perspective.
• Mental Set: a tendency to approach a problem in a particular way, especially if it has worked in the past.
• Functional Fixedness: the tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual functions.

Types of Heuristics (That often lead to errors)

• Representativeness Heuristic: a rule of thumb for judging the likelihood of things in terms of how well they match our prototype.
• Availability Heuristic: estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in our memory.
• Overconfidence: the tendency to be more confident that correct.
• Framing: the way an issued is posed.
• Belief Bias: the tendency for one's preexisting beliefs to distort logical reasoning.
• Belief Perseverance: clinging to your initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited.
• Artificial Intelligence