Language – “Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?”

1. Language – “Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?”

2. Language Features • Language is arbitrary, that is, words, rarely sound like ideas that they convey • Language has a structure that is additive in a certain sense • i.e.; words are added together to form sentences, sentences to form paragraphs • Language has multiplicity of structure, meaning that it can be analyzed in a number of different ways • Language is dynamic, meaning that it is constantly changing and evolving

3. Language Subcomponents • Phonemes – smallest unit of speech sound in a given language that are still distinct in sound from each other • An example of a phoneme is the /t/ sound in the words tip, stand, water, and cat • Morphemes – smallest meaningful units of speech, such as simple words, prefixes, and suffixes.

4. Phonemes & Morphemes • Most morphemes are a combo of phonemes • i.e.; Farm is made up of 3 phonemes (sounds) and 1 morpheme (meaning)

5. Language • Grammar – set of that determine how sounds and words can be combined and used to communicate meaning • Syntax – word order • Semantics – word meaning or word choice

6. Language – Babies • Babbling – product of phonemes, not limited to the phonemes which the baby is exposed (4 months) • Holophrase – one word to convey meaning (1st B-day) • Overextension – Error in speech as a result of not knowing enough words • Telegraphic speech – verb and noun • i.e.; “eat cookie” • 2 – 3 years of age, language expands • 3 years old follow rules of grammar

7. Language - Babies • Overgeneralization (overregularization) – children apply grammatical rules without making appropriate exceptions • i.e.; “I goed to the store.”

8. Language • Nativists – biological predisposition for language (Noam Chomsky) • Prewired for language • Language acquisition device – grammar switches are turned on as children are exposed to their language • Critical period - (Feral Children) • Behaviorist – we develop language by imitating sounds we hear to create words (B.F. Skinner) • Learn language by association (reinforcement/ imitation)

9. Language • Noam Chomsky • Transformational grammar – generative grammar, especially of a natural langauge • Surface structure of language – superficial way in which words are arranged in a text or in speech • Deep structure of language – underlying meaning of words

10. Benjamin Whorf • Thinking affects our language, which in turn affects our thoughts. • Linguistic relativity hypothesis – speakers of different languages develop different cognitive systems as a result of their differences in language. • i.e.; Garo people of Burma – many words for rice, English only a few words to describe it. Why? Because rice has more meaning to the Garo people

11. Cognition • Cognition – thinking • Reasoning – drawing conclusion from evidence (deductive/inductive reasoning) • Deductive reasoning – draw a logical conclusion from general statement • i.e.; All politicians are trustworthy, Janet is a politician, Therefore, Janet is trustworthy • Inductive reasoning – drawing general inferences from specific observations • i.e.; You may notice that everyone who plays football is a good student. Not necessarily true, you are drawing inference based on common occurrence

12. Problem Solving and Creativity • Divergent Thinking – does a problem have one or more solutions • i.e.; brainstorming • Convergent Thinking – Problem solved by one answer • i.e.; narrowing many choices available

13. Problem Solving and Creativity • Heuristics – intuitive rules of thumb that may or may not be useful in given situation • Availability Heuristic – judge by what events come readily to mind • i.e.; many people feel air travel is more dangerous than car, because crashes reported are so vivid • Representativenss Heuristic – judge objects and events in terms of how closely they match the prototype of that event or object • i.e.; people view H.S. athletes as less intelligent

14. Problem Solving and Creativity • Algorithms – systematic, mechanical approaches that guarantee an eventual answer to a problem

15. Problem Solving and Creativity – Kohler’s Chimps • Insight – sudden understanding of a problem or a potential strategy for solving a problem • i.e.; Kohler’s chimps reached the Banana’s outside the cage by combining to sticks to reach out further than they would individually

16. Problem Solving and Creativity • Mental set – fixed frame of mind • Trouble solving problems this way • Functional Fixedness – tendency to assume that a given item is only useful for the task which it was designed for.

17. Problem Solving and Creativity • Confirmation bias – search for info that supports a particular point of view, which hinders problem solving • Hindsight bias – tendency after the fact to think you knew what the outcome would be • i.e.; Monday morning QB’s • Belief perseverance – Individual only sees the evidence that supports a particular position, despite evidence presented to the contrary • Framing – way a question is phrased, can alter the objective outcome of problem solving/decision making • Loftus Palmer – car accident study

18. Problem Solving and Creativity • Creativity – process of producing something novel yet worthwhile.

19. Intelligence and Psychological Testing

20. Standardization and Norms • Psychometricians – measurement of mental traits, abilities, and processes • Measurement of some constructs (behavior that distinguishes among people) • i.e.; we can not measure happiness in feet • Standardization – group of people who represent the entire population • Norms – standards of performance against which anyone who takes a given test can be compared

21. Standardization and Norms • Flynn Effect – supports the need to standardize because data indicate that the population has gotten smarter over the past 50 years • i.e.; IQ of 100 may mean something different in different years

22. Reliability and Validity • Reliability – measure consistent a test is in the measurement it provides • i.e.; An individual would get a similar score if they took the test on separate occasions • Test-retest – two sets of scores are compared and a correlation coefficient is computed between them • Split-half – one group takes half the test (odd questions) another group takes the other half (even), and equivalent form (different but similar tests covering same concepts)

23. Reliability and Validity • Validity – refers to the extent that a test measures what it intends to measure • i.e.; Develop a new IQ test you want to know if it was valid, you might compare your results to those that the same participants had achieved on other IQ measures • Predictive Validity – correlation between the test and future performance • i.e.; ACT • Content Validity – measures the degree to which the test measures what it is supposed to measure • i.e.; AP Psychology Exam – College Board • Construct Validity – (True Validity) – the degree which the test indeed measures what it is supposed to test

24. Types of Tests • Projective – ambiguous stimuli, open to interpretation • Rorschach Inkblot Test • Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) • Inventory-type – participants answer a standard series of questions • Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) • No free response typically

25. Types of Tests • Power Tests – gauge abilities in certain areas • Extremely difficult, really hard to get all right • Speed tests – Very easy to answer, but timed makes it difficult to answer • Achievement Tests – assess knowledge gained • i.e.; AP Test • Aptitude Test – evaluate person’s abilities • Road test before driver’s license

26. Intelligence • Intelligence – goal-directed adaptive thinking • Difficult to measure all aspects of intelligence • Alfred Binet – French Psychologist who first began to measure intelligence • Stanford-Binet Scale • Originally measure child development – overtime became 1st intelligence test

27. Intelligence • Intelligence Quotient (IQ) – • Mental age/chronological (physical) age X 100 • Under 20 (Profound) • 20-34 (Severe) • 35-49 (moderate) • 50 - 70 (mild) Mental Retardation • 130 Gifted • 145 sometimes considered geniuse • Most common children intelligence test • Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale • Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-R) • Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)

28. Intelligence • Charles Spearman • General intelligence (g factor) • Specialized abilities (s) • Factor analysis – statistical procedure that id common factors among groups of items by determining which variables have a high degree of correlation (used to id, g)

29. Intelligence • Louis Thurstone – researcher in the field of intelligence, posited that we need to think of intelligence more broadly, because intelligence can come in many different forms • Howard Gardner – multiple intelligences • Verbal & Mathematical • Musical • Spatial • Kinesthetic • Environmental • Interpersonal (people perceptive) • Intrapersonal (insightful, self-awareness) • Naturalistic

30. Intelligence – Triarchic Theory • Robert Sternberg – stats intelligence could be more broadly defined as having 3 major components: • Analytical - facts • Practical – “street smarts” • Creative intelligence – seeing multiple solutions • 3 separate and testable intelligences

31. Intelligence • John Horn and Raymond Cattell – identified two intelligence factors • Fluid intelligence – those cognitive abilities requiring speed or rapid learning that tends to diminish with adult aging • Crystallized intelligence – learned knowledge and skills, such as vocabulary, which tends to increase with age

32. Intelligence • Emotional intelligence – ability to perceive, express, understand, and regulate emotions which is similar to Gardner’s interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligences • Peter Salovey and John Mayer

33. Motivation and Emotion

34. Motivation & Emotion • Motivation – psychological process that directs and maintains behavior toward a goal • Motives – needs/desires that energize behavior • Social motives – learned motives acquired as part of growing up in a particular culture • Emotion – psychological feeling that involves • Physiological arousal • Conscious experience • Overt behavior

35. Theories of Motivation • Darwin – Natural Selection • Survival & reproduce • Instincts – inherited behavior, done automatically • Ethologist (Animal behaviorist) • Konrad Lorenz – worked with baby geese • Imprinting – forming of attachment to first moving object they see/hear after birth • Sociobiology – relate social behaviors to evolutionary biology • Look at mating behaviors in males as opposed to females

36. Drive Reduction Theory • Drive reduction theory – behavior is motivated reducing drives such as sex, hunger, thirst. • Need = motivated stated caused by lack of • Drive = psychological tension induced by need • Homeostasis – body’s tendency to maintain an internal steady state of metabolism (sum total of all chemical processes that occur in our bodies)

37. Incentive Theory • Push – primary motives to satisfy basic biological needs • Pull – environmental factors (little to do with biology) • Incentive – either positive/negative environmental stimulus that motivates behavior pulling us to a goal. • Secondary motives are motives learned by society pull

38. Arousal Theory • Arousal – level of alertness, wakefulness, activation caused by nervous system • Yerkes-Dodson – law states that we usually perform most activities best when moderately aroused, and efficiency of performance is usually lower when arousal is to high/low.

39. Maslow’s Hierarch of Needs

40. Physiological Motives: Hunger • Hypothalamus = hunger • Lateral hypothalamus – brings on hunger • Stimulate = even a well fed animal will eat • Lesion = starving animal will have no interest in food • Ventromedial hypothalamus - depresses hunger • Stimulate = animal will stop eating • Lesion = animal will continue to want to eat

41. Hypothalamus Leptinv. Set Point • Leptin – hypothalamus sense rise in leptin and will curb eating and increase activity • Set Point – Hypothalamus acts as a thermostat • Were meant to be a certain weight

42. Eating Disorders • Anorexia Nervosa – don’t eat • Bulimia – Eating but purging

43. Social Motivation • Achievement motive – desire to meet some internalized standard of excellence • Intrinsic – desire to perform an activity for its own sake • Extrinsic – desire to perform an activity to obtain a reward such as money, applause, and attention • Overjustification effect – promising a reward for doing something they already like to do results in them seeing the reward as the motivation for performing

44. Social Conflict Situations • Approach-approach conflicts • 2 positive options, only one you can choose • i.e.; accepted to both Harvard and Yale • Avoidance-avoidance conflicts • 2 negative options, must choose one • i.e.; Rock and a hard place • Approach-avoidance conflicts • Whether or not to choose an option that has both a positive/negative consequence • i.e.; Order a rich dessert ruins your diet but satisfies your chocolate craving

45. Social Conflict Situations • Multiple approach-avoidance conflict • Most complex form of conflict • Several courses of action that have both positive and negative aspects. • i.e.; if you take the bus to the movies, you’ll get there in time to get a good seat and see the coming attractions, but you won’t have enough money to buy popcorn. • i.e.; If your parents drive you, you’ll have to help make dinner and wash the dishes • i.e.; if you walk there you may be late, but you can afford popcorn, and you wont have to do the dishes

46. Theories of Emotion • Emotion – conscious feeling of pleasantness or unpleasantness accompanied by biological activation and expressive behavior. • Emotion has both cognitive, physiological, and behavioral components

47. Theories of Emotion – James-Lang Theory • When we see a vicious looking dog growl at us, our sympathetic nervous system kicks in, we begin to run immediately, and then we become aware that we are afraid • What’s this mean? We can change our feelings by changing our behavior • Consistent with facial-feedback hypothesis, our facial expressions affect our emotional experiences • i.e.; smiling induces positive moods

48. Theories of Emotion – Cannon-Bard Theory • Theorized that the thalamus simultaneously sends info to both the limbic system (emotional center), and the frontal lobes (cognitive center) about an event • i.e.; we see a vicious growling dog, our bodily arousal and our recognition of the fear we feel occur at the same time • Thalamus relays sensory info to amygdala and hypothalamus

49. Theories of Emotion – Opponent – Process Theory • When we experience an emotion, an opposing emotion, will counter the first emotion, lessening the experience of that emotion. When we experience the first emotion on repeated occasions, the opposing emotion becomes stronger and the first emotion becomes weaker, leading to an even weaker experience of the first emotion • i.e.; About to jump out of an airplane for the first time, we tend to feel extreme fear along with low levels of elation. On next jump we experience less fear and more elation

50. Theories of Emotion Schachter-Singer Two-Factor Theory • Our emotional experiences depend on our interpretation of situations. Their studies suggest we infer emotion from arousal, then label it according to our cognitive explanation for the arousal. • i.e.; if we feel aroused and someone is yelling at us, we must be angry