4 th Edition Copyright 2004 Prentice Hall8-1 Psychology Stephen F. Davis Emporia State University...

Copyright 2004 Prentice Hall 8-1

4th Edition

PsychologyStephen F. Davis

Emporia State University Joseph J. Palladino

University of Southern IndianaPowerPoint Presentation by H. Lynn Bradman

Metropolitan Community College-Omaha


4th Edition

Thinking, Language, and

Intelligence

Chapter 8


Thinking

• Behavioral psychologists believed thinking could be equated with muscle movements of the vocal apparatus; however, research has shown that this is not correct.


Thinking

• Cognitive psychology is the study of thinking.

• Thinking involves manipulation of information that can take the form of images or concepts.

• Visual imagery is the experience of seeing without the object or event actually being viewed.


Thinking

• Concepts are mental representations that facilitate thinking and reduce the number of elements we must consider.

• Concepts may be defined by their properties.

• We usually identify specific examples as members of a concept by judging their degree of similarity to a prototype, or best example, of the concept.


Thinking

• We usually identify specific examples as members of a concept by judging their degree of similarity to a prototype, or best example, of the concept.


Thinking

• An algorithm is a method of solving problems that involves systematically exploring all possible solutions until the correct one is reached.

• Algorithms can be time-consuming and do not work for problems that are not clearly defined.


Thinking

• Heuristics are educated guesses or rules of thumb that are used to solve problems.

• Although the use of heuristics does not guarantee a solution, it is more time-efficient than using algorithms.


Thinking

• Try the nine dot problem!

• Connect the nine dots without lifting your pencil from the paper


Thinking

• Rigidity is the tendency to rely on past experiences to solve problems.

• One form of rigidity, functional fixedness, is the inability to use familiar objects in new ways.

• Likewise, set effect predicts that we will attempt to use solutions that have been successful in the past, even when they are not the most effective.


Thinking

• Now try this problem


Thinking

• The representativeness heuristic predicts that we will base decisions on the similarity of characteristics of the situation to previously established concepts.


Thinking

• The availability heuristic involves judging the probability of events by the readiness with which they come to mind.


Thinking

• The way in which information is presented can dramatically alter our decision making; this effect is called framing.


Thinking

• We also make decisions by comparing the information we have received to some standard.

• Heuristics facilitate good decisions but may sometimes result in bad ones.


Thinking

• Creativity depends on divergent thinking, rather than the convergent thinking assessed in tests of intelligence.

• Creative people have a high capacity for hard work, a willingness to take risks, and a high tolerance for ambiguity and disorder.


Thinking

• The business community is interested in enhancing creativity to develop and market products and services.

• The methods used to enhance creativity include engaging in humorous and playful activities.


Thinking

• Which would you judge to be creative


Language

• Between birth and the beginning of formal schooling, children learn to speak and understand language.

• Phonemes are the individual sounds of a language; morphemes are its smallest meaning-bearing elements.

• An understanding of the proper order of words in phrases and sentences demonstrates an understanding of syntax


Language

• There are two major theories of language acquisition: – the notion that language is a learned

response acquired like any other behavior – and the view that children are innately

predisposed to acquire language through a built-in language acquisition device (LAD)


Language

• American Sign Language (ASL) relies on hand shapes, hand motions, and the positions of the hand in front of the body.


Language

• The linguistic relativity hypothesis suggests that our use of words (and syntax) can influence and even guide thought processes.


Language

• Although using the male pronoun he to refer to both men and women may be convenient, it can lead people to think that only men are being considered.

• Several organizations have developed guidelines for using language in a gender-neutral manner.


Intelligence

• Francis Galton initiated the intelligence testing movement by developing tests based on the assumption that level of intelligence is related to sensory abilities.


Intelligence• Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon developed an

intelligence test to evaluate French schoolchildren.

• They proposed the concept of mental age which compared a child's performance with the average performance of children at a particular age.

• The intelligence quotient (IQ) is the ratio of mental age divided by chronological age and multiplied by 100.


Intelligence

• Binet's tests became the widely used Stanford-Binet test.

• Another set of tests, the Wechsler Scales, yield verbal and performance appraisals of Intelligence.


Intelligence

• The three characteristics of a good psychological test are reliability, validity, and standardization.

• Reliability refers to the consistency of scores obtained on repeated administrations of the test.

• Validity refers to a test's ability to measure what it was designed to measure.


Intelligence

• Standardization refers to uniformity in testing procedures and test scoring.

• Norms provide the distribution of scores of a large sample of people who have previously taken a test.


Intelligence

• Intelligence test scores are distributed in the shape of a bell curve.

• The majority of the scores are clustered around the middle, with fewer scores found at either extreme.


Intelligence

• According to Charles Spearman, we all possess general intelligence (along with specific abilities.

• Robert Sternberg and Howard Gardner propose that we have several types of intelligence, most of which are not measured by current intelligence tests.


Intelligence

• Intelligence tests have been used to deny entry into the United States.

• The eugenics movement proposed that the intelligence of an entire nation could be increased if only the more intelligent citizens had children.


Intelligence

• The heritability of intelligence is an estimate of the influence of heredity in accounting for differences among people.

• The heritability of intelligence tends to increase with age


Intelligence

• Yet, even clearly inherited conditions, such as PKU, can be modified by altering a person's environment.


Intelligence

• Correlations between the IQ scores of identical twins suggest that intelligence is strongly influenced by heredity.


Intelligence• The closer the family

relationship, the higher the correlation between the intelligence scores of family members.

• Studies of adopted children suggest that environmental factors also have an effect on intelligence.


Intelligence

• Claude Steele has offered evidence that when taking standardized tests, African Americans may experience stereotype vulnerability.

• This notion suggests that something as simple as a question about one's race may have more significant meaning to African Americans than to other people.

4 th Edition Copyright 2004 Prentice Hall8-1 Psychology Stephen F. Davis Emporia State University...

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Transcript of 4 th Edition Copyright 2004 Prentice Hall8-1 Psychology Stephen F. Davis Emporia State University...