Exam 9: Language and Thinking

Your friend was raised in Hong Kong and speaks fluent Chinese. It might not be surprising that he was able to grasp many mathematical principles at an early age because of the symbolic nature of the Chinese language. This situation would be consistent with the ________.

Research on whether there is a sensitive period for acquiring a second language suggests that there is __________.

The set of rules that dictate how symbols can be combined to create meaningful units of communication is called __________.

General problem-solving strategies that often involve short-cuts and may or may not generate the correct answer are called

When making decisions, why is disconfirming evidence important? How does overconfidence contribute to confirmation bias?

The four critical properties that are common to all languages are that they are symbolic, they have structure, they have meaning, and they are generative.

A headline in a newspaper reads "Suicide more common than thought". This is an example of a sentence that

You are deciding how you can make your favourite dessert taste even better. One possibility is adding more chocolate and another possibility is adding more cream. This example represents the _____________ stage of problem solving.

The way symbols are combined within a given language refers to _______________.

What are problem-solving schemas? Distinguish between algorithms and heuristics. Describe the means-ends and subgoal analysis heuristics.

Recent brain imaging studies examining sex differences during a language task indicate that

Harry makes a statement to a group of friends that, "people who drive red cars get more speeding tickets". The group agrees with the statement because a member of the group, "Jim", drives a red car and frequently gets speeding tickets. This is an example of making a decision based on

You absolutely must solve a problem and you must get the right answer. Thus, you should use

Consider the task of moving to a new city. If you make a list of all the things you have to do (pack, clean your old house, make arrangements to physically move your belongings, etc.), what concept best describes this process?

Zhang is having trouble answering this question. So he decides to move onto the next question and come back to this one later. Zhang is most likely using the strategy of

What is confirmation bias? Why does it occur, and how can it interfere with problem solving?

Knowledge of the practical aspects of using a language is called ________.

A mental image is a representation of a stimulus that originates from __________ your brain, rather than from __________ sensory input.

Men often show more severe aphasic responses than women to a stroke in the left hemisphere. Why might this be the case?

Two types of metacognition are metacomprehension and metamemory.