Exam 8: Thinking, Reasoning, and Language

People who learn multiple languages in childhood tend to develop greater __________ insight about how language is structured and used.

We know that various different breeds of dog tend to have similar behaviours and physical features, so when we think of a dog our thoughts tend to include those traits that dogs share. This broad idea of 'dog' is known as

Fetuses can hear inside the womb _______________ of gestation.

According to __________, our knowledge is organized and accessed in a manner that enables us to simulate our actual experiences.

Susan's car gets stuck in the snow, and no matter what she tries, her tires just keep spinning. She looks at the items in her trunk (her school books, some windshield washer fluid, groceries, and some kitty litter) and is frustrated because she doesn't seem to have anything to help her out of her situation. Susan is displaying __________ because she did not think of using kitty litter to sprinkle under her tires to help with traction.

Amanda asks a group of research participants to estimate the number of deaths each year due to homicide and diabetes. She finds that higher numbers report homicide, because they are more vivid examples, though over twice as many die from complications related to diabetes. This is one example of the dangers of the __________ in our judgments and decision making.

Our sensitivity to and memory for odours could be used as an argument against Benjamin Whorf's hypothesis about thought and language because

Hawaiian words tend to consist of repetitions of only a few phrases (such as kakahiaka for morning) because the language contains a very small number of

You are learning Russian in preparation for a trip next summer. Although you are doing a good job recognizing the written signs you need to know, you are having trouble with the sounds of the Russian language. Which of the following aspects of language is giving you trouble?

Which of the following provides evidence that our minds don't work exactly like modern computers?

The best predictor of whether someone will achieve fluency in a second language is

Cassandra has five chapters to read for her upcoming midterm, and she finds the thought of sitting down and reading hundreds of pages at once overwhelming. She decides to use the breaks in between her classes to read and take notes from 15 pages at a time to make the task seem more manageable. Cassandra is using what approach to solve her problem?

Between the ages of 2 and 3, children start adding _____________ to words, suggesting that their syntax skills are developing.

__________ refers to the process of selecting among a set of possible alternatives.

Which of the following is very difficult to explain, from a purely behaviourist view of language acquisition?

We often believe that things are true because they pop into our minds easily, which reflects our use of the __________ heuristic.

Much of our language uses arbitrary symbols What does this mean?

Adi is playing with another little boy, when the boy's grandmother comes over to say hello. When the little boy says 'Gramma!', Adi became very upset. He told the other boy that her name is not Gramma, because Adi thinks that only his grandmother can be 'Gramma'. Which common error does this represent?

According to famed linguist Noam Chomsky, what is contained within the Language Acquisition Device that he proposed is in our brains?

The communication between honeybees would not be classified as language because