chap104test
Terms
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- language
- A system for communicating with others using signals that are combined according to rules of grammar and to convey meaning.
- grammar
- A set of rules that specify how the units of language can be combined to produce meaningful messages.
- phoneme
- The smallest unit of sound that is recognizable as speech rather than as random noise.
- phonological rules
- A set of rules that indicate how phonemes can be combined to produce speech sounds.
- morphemes
- The smallest meaningful units of language.
- morphological rules
- A set of rules that indicate how morphemes can be combined to form words.
- syntactical rules
- A set of rules that indicate how words can be combined to form phrases and sentences.
- deep structure
- The meaning of a sentence.
- surface structure
- How a sentence is worded.
- fast mapping
- The fact that children can map a word onto an underlying concept after only a single exposure.
- telegraphic speech
- Speech that is devoid of function morphemes and consists mostly of content words.
- nativist theory
- The view that language development is best explained as an innate, biological capacity.
- language acquisition device (LAD)
- A collection of processes that facilitate language learning.
- genetic dysphasia
- A syndrome characterized by an inability to learn the grammatical structure of language despite having otherwise normal intelligence.
- aphasia
- Difficulty in producing or comprehending language.
- linguistic relativity hypothesis
- The proposal that language shapes the nature of thought.
- concept
- A mental representation that groups or categorizes shared features of related objects, events, or other stimuli.
- family resemblance theory
- Members of a category have features that appear to be characteristic of category members but may not be possessed by every member.
- prototype
- The “best†or “most typical†member of a category.
- exemplar theory
- A theory of categorization that argues that we make category judgments by comparing a new instance with stored memories for other instances of the category.
- category-specific deficit
- A neurological syndrome that is characterized by an inability to recognize objects that belong to a particular category though the ability to recognize objects outside the category is undisturbed.
- rational choice theory
- The classical view that we make decisions by determining how likely something is to happen, judging the value of the outcome, and then multiplying the two.
- availability bias
- Items that are more readily available in memory are judged as having occurred more frequently.
- heuristic
- A fast and efficient strategy that may facilitate decision making but does not guarantee that a solution will be reached.
- algorithm
- A well-defined sequence of procedures or rules that guarantees a solution to a problem.
- conjunction fallacy
- When people think that two events are more likely to occur together than either individual event.
- representativeness heuristic
- A mental shortcut that involves making a probability judgment by comparing an object or event to a prototype of the object or event.
- framing effects
- When people give different answers to the same problem depending on how the problem is phrased (or framed).
- sunk-cost fallacy
- A framing effect in which people make decisions about a current situation based on what they have previously invested in the situation.
- prospect theory
- Proposes that people choose to take on risk when evaluating potential losses and avoid risks when evaluating potential gains.
- frequency format hypothesis
- The proposal that our minds evolved to notice how frequently things occur, not how likely they are to occur.
- means-ends analysis
- A process of searching for the means or steps to reduce differences between the current situation and the desired goal.
- analogical problem solving
- Solving a problem by finding a similar problem with a known solution and applying that solution to the current problem.
- functional fixedness
- The tendency to perceive the functions of objects as fixed.
- reasoning
- A mental activity that consists of organizing information or beliefs into a series of steps to reach conclusions.
- practical reasoning
- Figuring out what to do, or reasoning directed toward action.
- theoretical reasoning
- Reasoning directed toward arriving at a belief.
- belief bias
- People’s judgments about whether to accept conclusions depend more on how believable the conclusions are than on whether the arguments are logically valid.
- syllogistic reasoning
- Determining whether a conclusion follows from two statements that are assumed to be true.