Psychology: Themes and Variations chapter 8 vocab Flashcards

Language and Thought
on pages 298 to 333

1140220828	Cognition	Mental processes or thinking.	0
1140220829	Language	Symbols that convey meaning, plus rules for combining those symbols, that can be used to generate an infinite variety of messages.	1
1140220830	Phomemes	The smallest speech units in a language that can be distinguished perceptually.	2
1140220831	Morphenes	The smallest units of meaning in a language.	3
1140220832	Semantics	The area of language concerned with understanding the meaning of words and word combinations.	4
1140220833	Syntax	A system of rules that specify how words can be arranged into sentences.	5
1140220834	Fast mapping	The process by which children map a word onto an underlying concept after only one exposure.	6
1140220835	Overextension	When a child incorrectly uses a word to describe a wider set of objects or actions than it is meant to.	7
1140220836	Underextensions	When a child incorrectly uses a word to describe a narrower set of objects or actions than it is meant to.	8
1140220837	Telegraphic speech	Content words; articles, prepositions, and other less critical words are omitted.	9
1140220838	Mean length of Utterance (MLU)	The average length of youngsters' spoken statements (measured in morphemes).	10
1140220839	Overregularizations	When grammatical rules are incorrectly generalized to irregular cases where they do not apply.	11
1140220840	Metalinhuistic awareness	The ability to reflect on the use of language.	12
1140220841	Bilingualism	The acquisition of two languages that use different speech sounds, vocabulary, and grammatical rules.	13
1140220842	Acculturation	The degree to which a person is socially and psychologically integrated into a new culture.	14
1140220843	Language acquisition device (LAD)	An innate mechanism or process that facilitates the learning of a language.	15
1140220844	Linguistic relativity	The hypothesis that one's language determines the nature of one's thought.	16
1140220845	Problem solving	Active efforts to discover what must be done to achieve a goal that is not readily attainable.	17
1140220846	Functional fixedness	The tendency to perceive an item only in terms of its most common use.	18
1140220847	Mental set	When people persist in using problem solving strategies that have worked in the past.	19
1140220848	Insight	When people suddenly discover the correct solution to a problem after struggling with it for a while.	20
1140220849	Problem space	The set of possible pathways to a solution considered by the problem solver.	21
1140220850	Trial and error	Trying possible solutions and discarding those that are in error until one works.	22
1140220851	Algorithm	A methodical, step-by-step procedure for trying all possible alternatives in searching for a solution to a problem.	23
1140220852	Heuristic	A guiding principle or "rule of thumb" used in solving problems or making decisions.	24
1140220853	Field dependence independence	Individuals' tendency to rely primarily on external versus internal frames of reference when orienting themselves in space.	25
1140220854	Decision making	Evaluating alternatives and making choices among them.	26
1140220855	Theory of bounded rationality	People tend to use simple strategies in decision making that focus only a few facets of available options and often result in "irrational" decisions that are less than optimal.	27
1140220856	Risky decision making	Making choices under conditions of uncertainty.	28
1140220857	Availability heuristic	Basing the estimated probability of an event on the ease with which relevant instances come to mind.	29
1140220858	Representativeness heuristic	Basing the estimated probability of an event on how similar it is to the typical prototype of that event.	30
1140220859	Conjunction fallacy	When people estimate the odds of two uncertain events happening together are greater than the odds of either event happening alone.	31
1140220860	Alternative outcomes effect	When people's belief about whether an outcome will occur changes depending on how alternative outcomes are distributed, even though the summed probability of the alternative outcomes is held constant.	32
1140220861	Gambler's fallacy	The belief that the odds of a chance event increase if the event hasn't occurred recently.	33
1140220862	Confirmation bias	The tendency to only seek information that is likely to support one's decisions and beliefs.	34
1140220863	Framing	How decision issues are posed or how choices are structured.	35