Deck 9: Language and Thinking

Question 1

In French, the phrase "haven't the police found you yet?"is written "la police, ne t'a pas encore trouvé?"Since French speakers arrange words differently from English speakers, the literal translation is "the police, not you have yet found?"In other words, French and English speakers use different rules, called ___________, to govern word order.

A) morphemes
B) phonemes
C) syntax
D) displacement

Answer 1

syntax

Question 2

Oliver is filling out an online job application for an administrative position with a local law firm. He has never written a professional letter before, so he writes it the same way he'd write any e-mail. His first line reads, "Hey, how u doin? Parents say I gotta find a job, & the one on yr site looks kewl."What language rule has Oliver violated?

A) Chomsky's theory
B) pragmatics
C) speech segmentation
D) morphophonemics

Answer 2

pragmatics

Question 3

The brains of men and women appear to process language differently. Research shows that men who suffer left-hemisphere strokes are more likely than women to show severe aphasic symptoms, which suggests that

A) the corpus callosum is integral to language use.
B) more of women's language function is shared between the right and the left hemispheres.
C) men have fewer language-processing neurons than do women.
D) women rarely use their left hemispheres.

Answer 3

more of women's language function is shared between the right and the left hemispheres.

Question 4

"If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and talks like a duck, then it's a duck"best describes which of the following?

A) the Pinker heuristic
B) the illusory heuristic
C) the availability heuristic
D) the representativeness heuristic

Question 5

We develop a syllogism which states that all soccer players are men, Alex is a soccer player, therefore Alex is a man."Is this statement logically correct?

A) We don't know, because we don't know if Alex is really a man or a woman.
B) We don't know, because we don't know if Alex is really a soccer player.
C) The facts are true, but the logic involved may not be correct.
D) The logic is correct, but the facts involved may not be true.

Question 6

Dr. Katse tells students, "If I hit a glass with a feather, the glass will break. Now, imagine that I hit a glass with a feather. What happens?"Most students will say that the glass will not break, even though Dr. Katse has just told them it would, because in the real world feathers can't break glasses. This tendency to abandon logical rules in favor of personal beliefs is called

A) inductive reasoning.
B) a belief bias.
C) deductive reasoning.
D) a discourse.

Question 7

In 1965, Fred Smith wrote a management class paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. His professor gave him a C, because "the concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a C, [it] must be feasible."Smith ignored his professor's statement and founded Federal Express (FedEx), a company that is now worth more than $3 billion. Smith's professor wanted him to stick to business solutions that were proven, not come up with something "outside the box."In other words, Smith's professor was relying on a/an

A) mental set.
B) deductive approach.
C) inductive approach.
D) litmus test.

Question 8

Ingrid tried to darken her naturally blond hair with store-bought color and accidentally dyed it black. When she and her friend Minka go to the gym, she notices a woman looking in their direction. "Everybody's staring at me!"she says. "Ingrid,"Minka replies, "you pick out the one woman in the whole gym who's staring, just to prove your point!"By looking for evidence that confirms what she believes, rather than evidence that does not, Ingrid is relying on the

A) confirmation bias.
B) representativeness heuristic.
C) availability heuristic.
D) algorithm.

Question 9

If I had asked all of you on day 1 what grade you expect to earn in this class and compared it to the actual grade you receive at the end of the semester, I would expect to find a large discrepancy. This is due to what fallacy in thinking?

A) the confirmation bias
B) the priming bias
C) the framing bias
D) the overconfidence bias

Question 10

In 1970, Spencer Silver was trying to formulate a strong adhesive for the 3M Company, and one of his failed attempts resulted in an extremely weak adhesive. Four years later, frustrated by how often his markers fell out of his church hymnal, Arthur Fry coated them with the adhesive. The markers stayed in place but could be peeled out of the book without damaging the pages. Post-it Notes are now one of the top five-selling office products in the United States. If Silver and Fry had just thrown the adhesive out because it hadn't done what it was supposed to, they would have been demonstrating

A) functional fixedness.
B) divergent thinking.
C) the confirmation bias.
D) the availability heuristic.

Question 11

In 1970, Spencer Silver was trying to formulate a strong adhesive for the 3M Company, and one of his failed attempts resulted in an extremely weak adhesive. Four years later, frustrated by how often his markers fell out of his church hymnal, Arthur Fry coated them with Silver's adhesive. The markers stayed in place but could be peeled out of the book without damaging the pages. Post-it Notes are now one of the top five-selling office products in the United States. Fry's novel approach is a good example of

A) functional fixedness.
B) divergent thinking.
C) the confirmation bias.
D) the availability heuristic.

Question 12

Nadalia is a physician who works in the emergency room at a local hospital. In medical school, she learned a variety of schemas that help her decide who needs immediate care, what kinds of sicknesses patients have, and how best to treat them. Her patients rely on her to know what to do to help them. Based on this information, we can say that Nadalia has __________ in emergency medicine.

A) propositions
B) expertise
C) mental rotation
D) wisdom

Question 13

Nadalia is a physician who works in the emergency room at a local hospital. In medical school, she learned a variety of schemas that help her decide who needs immediate care, what kinds of sicknesses patients have, and how best to treat them. Her patients rely on her to know what to do to help them. As Nadalia's knowledge of emergency medicine develops, her brain functioning will change to increase her

A) processing efficiency.
B) short-term memory capacity.
C) mental rotation.
D) sensory memory time.