Thinking, Language and Intelligence

Thinking, Language and Intelligence Cognition—Mental Activities involved in acquiring, storing, retrieving, and using knowledge

Thinking—Brain Connections • Prefrontal cortex—associates complex ideas, makes plans, forms and initiates attention, and allocates our attention • Also involved in multitasking bahaviors.

Thinking—Cognitive Building Blocks • Mental Images—a mental representation of a previously stored sensory experience, including visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile, motor and gustatory imagery • Concept—Mental representation of a group or category that shares similar characteristics

Concepts • Artificial Concepts—concepts created from logical rules or definitions; rules for inclusion are sharply defined • Natural Concepts—prototypes—a representation of the “best” or most typical example of a category • Hierarchies—concepts are grouped as subcategories within broader concepts

Three-Step Process to Solving Problems • Step 1: Preparation • Identify given facts • Separate relevant from irrelevant facts • Define the ultimate goal • Step 2: Production—Generate Hypotheses • Algorithm—a set of steps that, if followed correctly, will eventually solve the problem • Heuristic—strategies, or simple rules, used in problem solving and decision making that do not guarantee a solution but offer a likely short cut to it

Three-Step Process to Solving Problems • Step 3: Evaluation • Does one or more of the hypotheses generated meet the criteria set forth in Step 1? If yes, then the problem is solved, if no, return to Step 2 and produce more solutions.

Barriers to Solving Problems • Mental Sets—Persisting in using problem-solving strategies that have worked in the past rather than trying new ones • Functional fixedness—Tendency to think of an object functioning only in its usual or customary way • Confirmation bias—tendency to seek out and pay attention only to information that confirms preexisting positions or beliefs, while ignoring or discounting contradictory evidence

Barriers to Solving Problems • Availability heuristic—judging the likelihood or probability of events based on how readily available are other instances in our mind • Representativeness heuristic—estimating the probability of something based on how well the circumstances match our previous prototype

Creativity • The ability to produce valued outcomes in a novel way • Originality, fluency and flexibility are characteristics associated with creative thought • Divergent thinking—thinking that produces many alternatives or ideas; a major element of creativity • Convergent thinking—narrowing down a list of alternatives to converge on a single correct answer

Language • A form of communication whereby we put together sounds and symbols according to specified rules.

Language—Building Blocks • Phoneme—smallest basic unit of speech or sound (i.e., p in pansy; ng in sting) • Morpheme—smallest unit of language that carries the meaning; formed from a combination of phonemes

Language—Building Blocks • Grammar—rules that specify how phonemes, morphemes, words, and phrases should be combined to express thought • Syntax—grammatical rules that specify how words and phrases should be arranged in a sentence to convey meaning • Semantics—meaning, or the study of meaning, derived from words and word combinations

Language and Thought • Determination vs. Influence • Words and language do have the power to form our perceptions, however, do words and language determine our thoughts?

Language Development • Noam Chomsky and the nativist school of thought suggest that language is an innate predisposition and that children possess a Language Acquisition Device (LAD) which is an innate mechanism that enables a child to analyze language and extract the basic rules of grammar. To support this, Chomsky pointed to the fact that all children go through similar stages of language acquisition.

Language Development • Cooing—vowel-like sounds infants produce beginning around age 2-3 months • Babbling—vowel/consonant combinations that infants begin to produce at about age 4-6 months • Toward the end of the first year of life, babbling begins to sound more like the language of the home and sounds are related to meaning

Language Development • Overextension—overly broad use of a word to include objects that do not fit the word’s meaning (occurs around age 12-20 months) • Around age 2, children use Telegraphic Speech—two or three-word sentences of young children that contain only the most necessary words • As children continue to learn the use of language, they tend to Overgeneralize—apply the basic rules of grammar even to cases that are exceptions to the rule

Animals and Language • Why should humans have all the fun? • Why not “Huked on foniks” for non-humans as well?

Intelligence • General capacity to profit from experience, acquire knowledge, and adapt to changes in the environment. • Spearman (1923) proposed that intelligence is a single factor called general intelligence (g) which underlies all intellectual behavior. On the basis of Spearman’s work, tests were used in the military, schools, and business.

Intelligence • Fluid Intelligence—aspects of innate intelligence, including reasoning abilities, memory, and speed of information processing, that are relatively independent of education and tend to decline as people age • Crystallized Intelligence—Knowledge and skills gained through experience and education that tend to increase over the life span.

Multiple Intelligences • Gardner’s Theory—human beings have eight (possibly nine) distinct intelligences. From individual combinations of these intelligences, each person can develop his/her own profile of intelligence.

Linguistic Intelligence Spatial Intelligence Bodily-kinesthetic Intelligence Intrapersonal Intelligence Logical-mathematical Intelligence Musical Intelligence Interpersonal Intelligence Naturalistic Intelligence Spiritual Existential Intelligence Gardner’s Theory

Sternberg’s Triarchic (Three-Part) Theory • Sternberg proposed a theory of “successful” intelligence. He placed importance on the thinking processes used to arrive at answers. • Analytic Intelligence • Creative Intelligence • Practical Intelligence • Sternberg stressed that mental abilities need to be applied in real-world situations.

Test Construction • Standardization—Establishing the norms and uniform procedures for giving and scoring a test • Reliability—a measure of the consistency and stability of test scores when the test is readministered • Validity—ability of a test to measure what it was designed to measure

IQ Tests and Assessing Intelligence • Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale developed to test the intellectual ability of U.S. born children ages 3-16 • Intelligence Quotient (IQ)—a subject’s mental age divided by chronological age and multiplied by 100. • Wechsler Tests—developed for adults, children and preschool children—scoring or verbal and performance areas.

Intelligence Extremes • Mental Retardation—ranges from mild to profound, may be caused by genetics, environment or unknown causes • Mild—IQ 50-70 • Moderate—IQ 35-49 • Severe—IQ 20-34 • Profound—IQ below 20

Intelligence Extremes • Mental Giftedness • IQ greater than 135 • Terman found that high IQ was not a guarantee of success but did offer more intellectual opportunities, i.e., greater number of engineers, physicians, etc. but no less number of alcoholics, suicide, etc. than the general population

Intelligence and Culture • Is one race or ethnicity more intelligent than another? i.e., is there genetic heritage of intelligence passed on within races and ethnicities? • Do IQ tests measure without cultural bias? • Stereotype Threat—a person experiences doubt about his or her performance due to negative stereotypes about his or her group’s abilities

Nature vs. Nurture • Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart determined that heredity and environment are important, inseparable factors in intellectual development. • Heredity gives us our innate capacities • Environment influences whether an individual will reach full potential.

Thinking, Language and Intelligence