Cognition & Meta Cognition

(Thinking, Language, Intelligence)

Group Members
• Muhammad Zubair
• Ali Hassan
• Abul Kalam
• Zubair Ahmed
• Siraj
Introduction: Thinking, Language, and
Intelligence
• Cognition refers to the mental activities
involved in acquiring, retaining, and using
knowledge. Cognitive abilities such as analyzing
situation, solving problems, making decisions,
and using language are widely regarded as key
dimensions of intelligence.
The Building Blocks of Thought: Mental
Imagery and Concepts
• Thinking involves manipulating mental
representations of information in order to draw
inferences and conclusions
▫ A mental image is a mental representation of objects or
events that are not physically present
 We tend to scan a mental image in much the same way that
we visually scan an actual image. Sometimes thinking
involves the manipulation of mental images before we can
arrive at an answer.
 The mental images we use in thinking are not like
photographs. They are memories of visual images that are
actively constructed and potentially subject to error
The Building Blocks of Thought: Mental
Imagery and Concepts
• A concept is a mental category of objects, events, or
situations that share similar features or
characteristics
▫ A formal concept is a mental category that is formed
by learning the rules or features that define it
▫ A natural concept is a mental category formed as a
result of everyday experience
▫ A prototype is the most typical instance of a
particular concept
▫ Some researchers believe that we store memories of
individual instances, called exemplars, of a concept
Focus on Neuroscience
• Using scans, researchers compared brain activity during
perception of photographs and imagery of familiar faces and
places
▫ Imagining a face or place activated the same brain region that is
activated when perceiving a face or place (the parahippocampal
place area in the case of place and the fusiform area in the case
of a face).
▫ Compared to imagining a face or place, actually perceiving a face
or place evoked a stronger brain response.
▫ Because the brain responses between the 2 conditions were so
distinct, the researchers could determine what the participants
were imagining- faces or places- simply from looking at fMRI
scans
Solving Problems and Making Decisions
• Problem solving refers to thinking and behavior directed
toward attaining a goal that is not readily available.
▫ Problem Solving Strategies
 Trial and error involves actually trying a variety of
solutions and eliminating those that do not work
 An algorithm involves following a step-by-step procedure or
method that always produces the correct solution
 A heuristic involves following a general rule of thumb to
reduce the number of possible solutions to a problem
 One common heuristic is to break a problem in a series of sub-
goals
 Another heuristic involves working backward from the goal
Solving Problems and Making Decisions
• Strategies cont.
▫ Insight is the sudden realization of how a problem can be solved
▫ Intuition means coming to a conclusion or making a judgment
without conscious awareness of the thought process involved.
Bowers and colleagues have proposed a 2-stage model of
intuition:
 In the first stage, the guiding stage, you perceive a pattern in the
info being considered, but not consciously
 In the second stage, the integrative stage, a representation of the
pattern becomes conscious, usually in the form of a hunch or
hypothesis
 Such hunches are likely to be accurate only in contexts in which you
already have a board base of knowledge and experience
Solving Problems and Making Decisions
• Obstacles to Solving Problems: Functional
Fixedness and Mental Sets
▫ Functional fixedness is the tendency to view
objects as functioning only in their usual or
customary way
▫ Mental set is the tendency to persist in solving
problems with solutions that have worked in the
past
Solving Problems and Making Decisions
• Decision-Making Strategies
▫ Different cognitive strategies are sued when making
decisions, depending on the type and number of options
available to us
 1. With the single feature model, you base your decision on
a single feature. When the decision is a minor one, this
model can be a good decision-making strategy.
 2. With the additive model, you first generate a list of the
factors that are most important to you, then rate each
alternative on each factor using an arbitrary scale, such as
-5 to +5. Finally, you add up the ratings for each
alternative
Solving Problems and Making Decisions
• Strategies cont.
▫ 3. The elimination by aspects model requires that you
evaluate all the alternatives one characteristic at a time,
typically starting with the feature you consider most
important
▫ 4. Good decision makers adapt their strategy to the
demands of the specific situation. If there are few choices
and features to compare, people tend to use the additive
model. When the decision is complex, people often use
the elimination by aspects strategy to narrow the choices
and the additive model to make a final decision
Solving Problems and Making Decisions
• Decisions Involving Uncertainty: Estimating the
Probability of Events
▫ We tend to rely on 2 rule-of-thumb strategies to help
us estimate the likelihood of events
▫ 1. The availability heuristic is a strategy in which
the likelihood of an event is estimated on the basis of
how readily available other instances of the event are
in memory. The less accurately our memory of an
event reflects the actual frequency of the event, the
less accurate our estimate of the event’s likelihood
will be
Solving Problems and Making Decisions
▫ 2. The representativeness heuristic is a strategy in
which the likelihood of an event is estimated by
comparing how similar it is to our prototype of th
event. This strategy can produce faulty estimates
if
 We fail to consider possible variations from the
prototype, or
 We fail to consider the approximate number of
prototypes that actually exist
Solving Problems and Making Decisions
▫ 3. Four obstacles to logical thinking can account
for much of the persistence of unwarranted beliefs
in pseudosciences or other areas
 The belief-bias effect occurs when people accept only
the evidence that conforms to their belief, rejecting
or ignoring any evidence that does not
 Confirmation bias is the strong tendency to search
for info or evidence that confirms a belief, while
making little or no effort to search for info that
might disprove the belief
Solving Problems and Making Decisions
• Obstacles cont.
▫ The fallacy of positive instances is the tendency to
remember uncommon events that seem to
confirm our beliefs and to forget events that
disconfirm our beliefs
▫ The tendency to overestimate the rarity of events
is referred to as the overestimation effect
Language and Thought
• Language is a system for combining arbitrary symbols to
produce an infinite number of meaningful statements
- The Characteristics of Language
• Language requires the use of symbols, which may be sounds, written words, or
formalized gestures
• The connection between the symbol and its meaning is completely arbitrary, which
gives language tremendous flexibility
• The meaning of these symbols is shared by others who speak the same language
• Language is a highly structured system that follows specific rules. Every language has
its own unique syntax, or rules for combining words. The rules of language help
determine the meaning that is being communicated.
• Language is creative, or generative. That is, you can generate an infinite number of
new and different phrases and sentences.
• Another important characteristic of human language is displacement – the ability to
communicate meaningfully about ideas, objects, and activities that are not physically
present
Language and Thought
• How Language Influences Thinking
- Language can influence thinking in many ways
1. The nuances of words influence our social perceptions
of others, reinforcing or minimizing negative stereotypes.
Language that promotes stereotypical thinking can
encourage discrimination.
2. Using the masculine generic pronouns he and his
influences people to mentally visualize a male, even when
they “know” that he supposedly includes both men and
women. Thus, using he to refer to both men and women
in speech and writing tends to increase male bias.
Language ad Thought
• Culture and Human Behavior
▫ The linguistic relativity hypothesis, or Whorfian
hypothesis, argues that differences among
languages cause differences in the thoughts of
their speakers.
 Research does not support Whorf’s contention that
language determines perception and the structure of
thought
 Research does support the idea that language can
influence perception and thought.
Animal Communication: Can Animal Learn Language
▫ Clearly, animals communicate with one another, but are they capable of
mastering language?
 In the mid-1980s, researchers taught a bonobo chimpanzee (Matata)
to press symbols on a computer keyboard. Through observation, but
no formal training, her infant son (Kanzi) learned about 150 spoken
English words and an elementary understanding of syntax. His
language comprehension is roughly equivalent to that of a 2 ½ -year-
old human infant.
 Research with other species, including bottle-nosed dolphins and gray
parrots, has produced evidence that nonprimates also can acquire
limited aspects of language.
 Recent studies conducted under carefully controlled conditions have
produced some compelling demonstrations of animal language
learning.
 Collectively, animal language research reflects an active area of
psychological research referred to as animal cognition, or comparative
cognition.
Measuring Intelligence
• The use of mental images and concepts, problem
solving and decision making, and the use of
language, all make up aspects of what we
commonly call intelligence. Formally,
intelligence is the global capacity to think
rationally, act purposefully, and deal effectively
with the environment.
Measuring Intelligence
• The Development of Intelligence Tests
▫ Intelligence tests attempt to measure general
mental abilities rather than accumulated
knowledge or aptitude for a specific subject or
area.
Measuring Intelligence
• Intelligence tests cont:
▫ Alfred Binet: Identifying students who needed help
 Alfred Binet was a French psychologist who, with the help of
French psychiatrist Theodore Simon, devised a series of tests
to measure different mental abilities.
 As conceived by Binet, mental age is a measure of intelligence
in which an individual’s mental level is expressed in terms of
the average abilities of a given age group.
 Binet did not believe that he was measuring an inborn or
permanent level of intelligence. He believed that intelligence
was too complex a quality to describe with a single number.
Measuring Intelligence
• Intelligence Tests continued
▫ Lewis Terman and the Stanford-Binet Intelligence
Test
 Lewis Terman was an American psychologist who
translated and adapted the Binet-Simon intelligence
test for use in the United States. His revision was
called the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale.
 Intelligence Quotient (IQ) was derived by dividing
the individual’s mental age by the chronological age
and multiplying the result by 100.
Measuring Intelligence
• Intelligence tests continued
▫ World War I and group intelligence testing
 When the United States entered World War I in 1917,
the U.S. military was faced with the task of quickly
screening 2 million recruits. The Army Alpha test
was administered in writing, and the Army Beta test
was administered orally to recruits and draftees who
could not read.
 At the end of the war, these group intelligence tests
were adapted for civilian use, quickly became widely
used, and, in some cases, were used indiscriminately.
Measuring Intelligence
• Intelligence Tests continued
▫ In 1921, Terman identified 1,500 California children with IQs above 140
and began a longitudinal research study to see how genius-level
intelligence would affect the course of their lives.
 These children tended to be socially well adjusted. They were taller,
stronger, and healthier than average children and had fewer illnesses and
accidents.
 As adults (as a group), their incomes were very high, two-thirds graduated
from college, and many became successful professionals.
 Personality factors seemed to account for the difference in the level of
accomplishment of the 100 most successful and the 100 least successful
men. The most successful were more goal-oriented, had greater
perseverance, and had greater self-confidence.
 IQ scores reliably predict academic success, but success in school is not
guarantee of success beyond school.
Measuring Intelligence
• David Wechsler and the Wechsler Intelligence
Scales
▫ American psychologist David Wechsler developed
the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS),
which was first published in 1955.
 The WAIS had two advantages over the Stanford-Binet
 It was specifically designed for adults, rather than for
children
 It provided scored on 11 subtests measuring different
abilities. The subtest scores are grouped to provide an
overall verbal score and an overall performance score.
Measuring Intelligence
• David Wechsler continued
▫ The WAIS’s design reflected Wechsler’s belief that intelligence
involves a variety of different mental abilities.
 The subtest scores proved to have practical and clinical value
 Wechsler’s test provided an overall, global IQ score, but he changed
the way that the IQ score was calculated – comparing an individual’s
scores with the scores of others in the same general age group. The
average score for a particular age group was statistically fixed at 100.
 Revised in 1981 and again in 1997, the WAIS today is known as the
WAIS-III and remains the most commonly administered intelligence
test. Wechsler also developed two tests for children: The Wechsler
Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) and the Wechsler Preschool
and Primary School of Intelligence (WPPSI)
Measuring Intelligence
• Principles of Test Construction
▫ Achievement tests are designed to measure a
person’s level of knowledge, skill, or
accomplishment in a particular area
▫ Aptitude tests are designed to assess a person’s
capacity to benefit from education or training.
Their overall goal is to predict a person’s ability to
learn certain types of information or perform
certain skills.
Measuring Intelligence
▫ Test Construction continued
• The three basic requirements of good test design are standardization,
reliability, and validity.
▫ Standardization is the administration of a test to a large, representative
sample of people under uniform conditions for the purpose of
establishing norms.
 The scores of this group establish the norms, or the standards against which
an individual score is compared and interpreted.
 These norms closely follow the normal curve (normal distribution), a bell-
shaped distribution of individual differences in a normal population in
which most scores cluster around the average score.
▫ Reliability is the ability of a test to produce consistent results when
administered on repeated occasions under similar conditions.
▫ Validity is the ability of a test to measure what it is intended to measure.
The Nature of Intelligence
• There is considerable disagreement about the
nature of intelligence, including how intelligence
should best be defined
• A. Theories of Intelligence
▫ Much of the controversy centers on two key issues:
Is intelligence a single, general ability, or is it a
cluster of different mental abilities? Should the
definition of intelligence by restricted to the mental
abilities measured by IQ and other intelligence tests,
or should intelligence by defined more broadly
The Nature of Intelligence
• 1. British psychologist Charles Spearman
advanced the theory that a factor he called
general intelligence, or the g factor, was
responsible for people’s overall performance on
tests of mental ability.
• 2. American psychologist Louis L. Thurstone
believed that there were seven different “primary
mental abilities,” each a relatively independent
element of intelligence
The Nature of Intelligence
• 3. Howard Gardner, a contemporary American
psychologist, contends that there are “multiple
intelligence”– 8 independent intelligences—the importance
of each being determined by cultural values.
• 4. Robert Sternberg, agrees with Gardner that
intelligence is a much broader quality that is reflected in
the narrow range of mental abilities measured by a
conventional IQ test.
▫ a. Sternberg’s triarchic theory of intelligence emphasizes
both the universal aspects of intelligent behavior and the
importance of adapting to a particular social and cultural
environment
The Nature of Intelligence
▫ b. Sternberg has proposed a different conception of
intelligence, which he calls successful intelligence, which
involves 3 distinct types of mental abilities: analytic,
creative, and practical
 1. Analytic intelligence refers to the mental processes used
in learning how to solve problems, such as picking a
problem-solving strategy and applying it.
 2. Creative intelligence is the ability to deal with novel
situations by drawing on existing skills and knowledge
 3. Practical intelligence involves the ability to adapt to the
environment and often reflects what is commonly called
“street smarts.”
The Nature of Intelligence
• B. The Roles of Genetics and Environment is
Determining Intelligence
▫ Virtually all psychologists agree that both heredity
and environment are important in determining
intelligence level’ however, the relative quantities
of each continue to be debated
• 1. What is known
▫ a. Environmental factors influence which genes
are switched on, or activated.
The Nature of Intelligence
▫ b. Individuals inherit a potential range for a trait,
and environmental factors determine how close
they come to realizing that genetic potential
▫ c. The genetic range of intellectual potential is
influenced by many genes, not by a single gene
• 2. Twin studies: Sorting out the influence of
genetics vs. environment
▫ a. The heredity-environment issue has been
explored by comparing the IQ scores of individuals
who are genetically related to different degrees:
The Nature of Intelligence
 1. Identical twins share exactly the same genes. Any
dissimilarities between them must be due to environmental
factors rather than to hereditary differences
 2. Genetically, fraternal twins are like any other pair of
siblings
 3. The closer the genetic relationship, the more similar the
IQ scores
 4. Environmental influences are demonstrated by the fact
that identical twins raised in different homes have different
IQ scores and genetically unrelated people raised in the
same home have IQs that are much more similar than are
those of 2 unrelated people from randomly selected homes
The Nature of Intelligence
▫ b. Researches have scientifically estimated
heritability, which is the percentage of variation
within a given population what is due to heredity
▫ c. The currently accepted heritability estimate for
intelligence is about 50% for the general
population; that is, about 50% of the difference in
IQ scores within a given population is due to
genetic factors. Remember that these estimates
apply only to groups—not to specific indivduals
The Nature of Intelligence
• 3. Group Differences in IQ scores
▫ a. Much controversy surrounds the difference in
average IQ scores for different racial groups.
▫ b. In early childhood, there are no isgnificant
differences in IQ among European-American,
Japanese, and Chinese schoolchildren, yet by
middle school Asian students tend to score much
higher than American students on both math and
reading tests. The difference seems to be due to
their different educational systems.
The Nature of Intelligence
▫ c. The most controversy has been caused by the
differences in average IQ scores between black and
white Americans. As a group, black Americans once
scored about 15 points lower than white Americans
as a group; however, this gap has narrowed over the
past few decades to 10 points or less
▫ d. Group differences do not predict individual
differences in IQ scores. The range and degree of IQ
variation within each group is much greater than the
10-point average difference between black Americans
and white Americans
The Nature of Intelligence
• 4. Difference within groups vs differences between groups
▫ a. It is possible to estimate the degree of difference within a
specific group that is due to heredity, but not the difference
between groups that is due to heredity
▫ b. A study by Sandra Scarr and Richard Weinberg explored
the relationship between racial IQ differences and the
environment in which children are raised. The researchers
found that black children raised by high-SES white families
had higher average IQ scores than the average scores of both
black and white children. They concluded that IQ differences
are due not to race but rather to the socioeconomic conditions
and cultural values to which children are exposed.
The Nature of Intelligence
▫ c. In a survey of intelligence test scores around the
world, 14 nations were found to have shown
significant gains in average IQ scores in just one
generation. Such changes in a population can be
accounted for only by environmental changes,
because the amount of time is far too short for
genetically influenced changes to have occurred.
The Nature of Intelligence
• C. Cross-Cultural Studies of Group
Discrimination and IQ Differences
▫ The effect of social discrimination on intelligence
test scores has been shown in numerous cross-
cultural studies
▫ 1. The average IQ is lower for members of a
discriminated-against minority group, even when
that group is not racially different from the
dominant group.
The Nature of Intelligence
▫ 2. Stereotype threat
 a. According to psychologist Claude Steele, stereotype
threat occurs when members of a particular group
fear that they will be evaluated in terms of a negative
stereotype about their group. This fear creates
anxiety and doubt and lowers performance.
 b. Numerous studies show that performance on tests
are surprisingly susceptible to stereotype threat.
 c. Simply having the test administrator say that a
particular test is racially fair or gender neutral has
been shown to reduce the effects of stereotype threat.
The Nature of Intelligence
▫ 3. Are IQ tests culturally biased?
 a. If standardized intelligence tests reflect white, middle class
cultural knowledge and values, minority group members might
do poorly on the tests not because of lower intelligence but
because of unfamiliarity with the white, middle class culture
 b. It is generally recognized that it is virtually impossible to
design a completely culture-free test. A test will tend to favor
the people from the culture in which it was developed.
 c. Cultural differences in test taking behavior may also affect
test performance. In addition, such cultural factors as
motivation, attitudes toward test taking, and previous
experiences with tests can affect performance and scores on
tests.
What is metacognition?
• “thinking about thinking”
• Knowledge and understanding of what we know
and how we think, including the ability to
regulate our thinking as we work on a task
Why is metacognition important?
• ...if it happens of its own accord anyway?

• Shapes active rather than passive learners

• Gives pupils sense of control over learning
• Learning how to learn.
• Helps to promote “deep learning”
Metacognition – turning pupils into
experts
Novice problem-solvers Experts
Why is metacognition important?
• Learning how to learn.
• Helps to promote “deep learning”
• A key component of Assessment for Learning
▫ emphasises the child’s active role in his/her own learning, in that
the teacher and child agree what the outcomes of the learning
should be and the criteria for judging to what extent the
outcomes have been achieved…This level of involvement in
shaping their own learning can heighten children’s awareness of
themselves as learners and encourage them to take more personal
responsibility for, and pride in, their learning
NCCA, 2007
Metacognition
• Knowledge and active control over one’s own
cognitive processes when engaged in learning
▫ metacognitive knowledge
▫ metacognitive regulation
Metacognitive Knowledge
▫ Knowledge about human learning and
information processing
▫ Knowledge about the learning task at hand and its
corresponding processing demands
▫ Knowledge about cognitive and metacognitive
strategies and their appropriate use
Metacognitive Regulation
▫ processes that can be applied in order to control
cognitive activities and achieve cognitive goals
▫ planning and monitoring cognitive activities and
further revision depending on the result of these
activities
Elements of Metacognition
• Metamemory
▫ Knowledge about memory systems and memory
strategies
• Metacomprehension
▫ Learner‘s awareness about what he/she knows /
does not know
Elements of Metacognition
• Self-regulation
▫ Learner‘s adjustment to errors
▫ Covers social interaction
• Schema Training
▫ Helps learner‘s to develop their own cognitive
structures from understanding information and
experiences
Metacognition
• Student’s perception of themselves has an impact of
their performance, achievements and self-
management of their own learning.
• Metacognition influences the student’s orientation
to learning tasks and problem solving.
• Performing the task or solving the problem
influences their belief in their personal and
academic abilities, therefore metacognition allows
students to believe in themselves.
Metacognitive Strategies
• Blakely & Spence (1990)
▫ Connecting new information to former knowledge
▫ Selecting thinking strategies deliberately
▫ Planning, monitoring and evaluating thinking
processes

 Utilising these strategies a learner can identify a problem,

research alternative solutions, evaluate and decide on a final
solution.
Metacognitive Strategies
• Macpherson (2002)
▫ Metacognitive explanation
▫ Scaffolded instruction
▫ Cognitive choaching
▫ Head-to-hands
▫ Co-operative learning