General

Psychology II
UNIT I
 COGNITION
• Thinking , or cognition (from a Latin word meaning “to know”), can be
defined as mental activity that goes on in the brain when a person is
processing information organizing it, understanding it, and
communicating it to others.
• When people think, they are not only aware of the information in the
brain but also are making decisions about it, comparing it to other
information, and using it to solve problems
 MENTAL IMAGERY
• Mental images (representations that stand in for objects or events and
have a picture like quality) are one of several tools used in the thought
process.
• Researchers have found that it does take longer to view a mental image
that is larger or covers more distance than a smaller, more com-pact one.
• People are even able to mentally rotate, or turn, images.
• A very important aspect of the research on mental rotation is that we
tend to engage mental images in our mind much like we engage or
interact with physical objects. When we rotate an object in our minds (or
in other ways interact with or manipulate mental images), it is not
instantaneous—it takes time, just as it would if we were rotating a
physical object with our hands.
 MENTAL IMAGERY

In this experiment, we will address

your ability to mentally rotate objects
in your mind. You will be presented
with two objects, and asked to
determine if the objects are the
same except for their orientation.
 MENTAL IMAGE PROCESS
• In the brain, creating a mental image is almost the opposite of seeing an actual image.
With an actual image, the information goes from the eyes to the visual cortex of the
occipital lobe and is processed, or interpreted, by other areas of the cortex that
compare the new information to information already in memory.
• . In creating a mental image, areas of the cortex associated with stored knowledge send
information to the visual cortex, where the image is perceived in the “mind’s eye” .
• Through the use of (fMRI), researchers have been able to see areas activated during
visual mental imagery tasks as compared to actual visual perception. During both types
of tasks, activity was present in the frontal cortex (cognitive control), temporal lobes
(memory), parietal lobes (attention and spatial memory), and occipital lobes (visual
processing). However, the amount of activity in these areas differed between the two
types of tasks.
• For example, activity in the visual cortex was stronger during perception than in
imagery, suggesting sensory input activates this area more strongly than memory input.
 CONCEPTS
• Concepts are ideas that represent a class
or category of objects, events, or activities.
• People use concepts to think about
objects or events without having to think
about all the specific examples of the
category.
• Concepts not only contain the important
features of the objects or events but also
they allow the identification of new
objects and events that may fit the
concept. Both of these animals are dogs. They both have fur, four legs, a
tail—but the similarities end there. With
so many variations in the animals we call “dogs,”
 CONCEPTS
• Concepts can have very strict definitions, such as
the concept of a square as a shape with four equal
sides. Concepts defined by specific rules or features
are called formal concepts and are quite rigid.
• People are surrounded by objects, events, and
activities that are not as clearly defined as formal
concepts These are of natural concepts, concepts
people form not as a result of a strict set of rules,
but rather as the result of experiences with these
A duck-billed platypus is classified as
concepts in the real world. a mammal yet shares features with
• Formal concepts are well defined, but natural birds, such as webbed feet and a bill,
concepts are “fuzzy” and it also lays eggs. The platypus is an
example of a “fuzzy” natural concept.
Courtesy of Dave Watts, Nature Picture
Library.
 CONCEPTS - PROTOTYPE
• Prototype is a concept that closely matches the defining
characteristics of the concept.
• When someone says “fruit,” We think of fruit like an apple, pear, or
orange and less likely to think of “guava” or “papaya unless that
person comes from a tropical area.
• So people who do have very different experiences with fruit, for
instance, will have different prototypes, which are the most basic
examples of concepts.
• prototypes develop according to the exposure a person has to objects
in that category.
 CONCEPTS - PROTOTYPE
• Culture also matters in the formation of prototypes.
• Research on concept prototypes across various cultures found greater
differences and variations in prototypes between cultures that were
dissimilar, such as Taiwan and America, than between cultures that
are more similar, such as Hispanic Americans and non–Hispanic
Americans living in Florida
• People tend to look at potential examples of a concept and compare
them to the prototype to see how well they match—which is why it
takes longer to think about olives and tomatoes as fruit because they
aren’t sweet, one of the major characteristics of the prototype of fruit
 SCHEMAS
• Concepts are one of the ways people deal
with all the information that bombards their
senses every day, allowing them to organize
their perceptions of the world around them.
• This organization may take the form of
schemas, mental generalizations about
objects, places, events, and people, or scripts,
a kind of schemas that involves a familiar
sequence of activities.
• Concepts not only help people think, but also
they are an important tool in problem solving,
a type of thinking that people engage in every
day.
PROBLEM-SOLVING AND DECISION-
MAKING STRATEGIES
• Images and concepts are mental tools that can be used to solve
problems and make decisions.
• Problem solving occurs when a goal must be reached by thinking and
behaving in certain ways.
• Problems range widely. Problem solving is one aspect of decision
making, or identifying, evaluating, and choosing among several
alternatives.
• There are several different ways in which people can think in order to
solve problems.
TRIAL AND ERROR (MECHANICAL SOLUTIONS)
• One method is to use trial and
error, also known as a
mechanical solution.
• Trial and error refers to trying
one solution after another until
finding one that works.
• Mechanical solutions can also
involve solving by rote, or a
learned set of rules. One type of
This child may try one piece after
rote solution is to use an another until finding the piece that fits.
algorithm. This is an example of trial-and-error
learning.
 ALGORITHMS
• Algorithms are specific, step-by-step
procedures for solving certain types of
problems.
• Algorithms will always result in a correct
solution, if there is a correct solution to be
found, and you have enough time to find it.
Mathematical formulas are algorithms.
• When librarians organize books on
bookshelves, they also use an algorithm. Ex:
Alphabetical order.
• But algorithms aren’t always practical to use.
 HEURISTICS
• Unfortunately, humans aren’t as
fast as computers and need some
other way to narrow down the
possible solutions to only a few.
• A heuristic, or “rule of thumb,” is a
simple rule that is intended to
apply to many situations.
• Whereas an algorithm is very
specific and will always lead to a
solution, a heuristic is an educated
guess based on prior experiences
that helps narrow down the
possible solutions.
 TYPES OF HEURISTICS
• A Representativeness Heuristic is used for
categorizing objects and simply assumes that
any object (or person) that shares
characteristics with the members of a particular
category is also a member of that category.
• This is a handy tool when it comes to classifying
plants but doesn’t work as well when applied to
people.
• The representativeness heuristic can cause
errors due to ignoring base rates, the actual
probability of a given event.
 TYPES OF HEURISTICS
• Availability Heuristic is
based on our estimation of
the frequency or likelihood
of an event based on how
easy it is to recall relevant
information from memory
or how easy it is for us to
think of related examples.
TYPES OF HEURISTICS
• Working Backwards
is to work backward
from the goal. For
example, if you want
to know the shortest
way to get to the
new coffee shop in
town, you already
know the goal, which
is finding the coffee
shop. ng Backward.
TYPES OF HEURISTICS
• Subgoals: Sometimes it’s better to break a goal
down into subgoals, so that as each subgoal is
achieved, the final solution is that much closer.
• Applying one step at a time to achieve a solution
to a problem.
• Other examples of heuristics include making
diagrams to help organize the information
concerning the problem or testing possible
solutions to the problem one by one and
eliminating those that do not work.
TYPES OF HEURISTICS
• INSIGHT: When the solution to a problem seems
to come suddenly to mind, it is called in-sight.
• In humans, insight often takes the form of an
“aha!” moment—the solution seems to come in
a flash.
• A person may realize that this problem is similar
to another one that he or she already knows
how to solve or might see that an object can be
used for a different purpose than its original
one, like using a dime as a screwdriver.
PROBLEMS WITH PROBLEM
SOLVING AND DECISION MAKING
• Using insight to solve a problem is not always foolproof. Sometimes a
solution to a problem remains just “out of reach” because the
elements of the problem are not arranged properly or because people
get stuck in certain ways of thinking.
• People can become aware of automatic tendencies to try to solve
problems in ways that are not going to lead to solutions and in
becoming aware can abandon the “old” ways for more appropriate
problem-solving methods.
• Three of the most common barriers to successful problem solving are
functional fixedness, mental sets, and confirmation bias.
PROBLEMS WITH PROBLEM
SOLVING AND DECISION MAKING
• Functional Fixedness: One problem-solving difficulty involves thinking about
objects only in terms of their typical uses, which is a phenomenon called functional
fixedness.

• Mental Sets: Functional fixedness is actually a kind of mental set, which is defined
as the tendency for people to persist in using problem-solving patterns that have
worked for them in the past. Solutions that have worked in the past tend to be the
ones people try first, and people are often hesitant or even unable to think of other
possibilities.

• Confirmation Bias: Another barrier to effective decision making or problem solving

is confirmation bias, the tendency to search for evidence that fits one’s beliefs
while ignoring any evidence to the contrary. This is similar to a mental set, except
that what is “set” is a belief rather than a method of solving problems.
REASONING
• As Sherman defined, “reasoning is a
process of thinking during which the
individual is aware of a problem
identifies, evaluates, and decides
upon a solution”.
• Reasoning is used not only when we
want to solve an immediate problem
but also when we anticipate future
problems.
• Reasoning plays a significant role in
one’s adjustment to the
environment.
Types of Reasoning
• Inductive reasoning:It is a specialized thinking aimed at the discovery or
construction of a generalized principle by making use of particular cases, special
examples and identifying of elements or relations.

• Deductive reasoning:It is the ability to draw some logical conclusions from

known statement or evidences. Here one starts with already known or
established generalized statement or principle and applies it to specific cases.

• Abductive reasoning:Abductive reasoning typically begins with an incomplete set

of observations and proceeds to the likeliest possible explanation for the set.
Abductive reasoning yields the kind of daily decision-making that does its best
with the information at hand, which often is incomplete.
Language
• Language is a system for combining symbols (such as words) so that
an infinite number of meaningful statements can be made for the
purpose of communicating with others.
• Language allows people not only to communicate with one another
but also to represent their own internal mental activity.
• Grammar is the system of rules governing the structure and use of a
language.
• According to linguist Noam Chomsky, humans have an innate ability to
understand and produce language through a device he calls the
language acquisition device, or LAD. He defined the LAD as an innate
“program” that contained a schema for human language.
• The children matched the language they heard against this schema
and, thus, language developed in a well-researched sequence.
Language
• While humans may learn the specific language (English, Spanish,
Mandarin, etc.) through the processes of imitation, reinforcement,
and shaping, the complexities of the grammar of a language are,
according to Chomsky, to some degree “wired in” to the developing
brain.
• The LAD “listens” to the language input of the infant’s world and then
begins to produce language sounds and eventually words and
sentences in a pattern found across cultures.
• Grammar includes phonemes (the basic sounds of language)
morphology (the study of the formation of words), rules for the order
of words known as syntax, and pragmatics (the practical social
expectations and uses of language).
 Language
• PHONEMES: Phonemes are the basic units of sound in a language.
• Phonemes are more than just the different ways in which we pronounce single
letters
• Th, sh, and au are also phonemes. Phonemes for different languages are also
different, and one of the biggest problems for people who are trying to learn
another language is the inability to both hear and pronounce the phonemes of
that other language.
• Although infants are born with the ability to recognize all after about 9 months,
that ability has deteriorated and the infant recognizes only the phonemes of the
language to which the infant is exposed.
Language
• MORPHEMES: Morphemes are the smallest units of meaning within a
language. For example, the word playing consists of two morphemes,
play and ing.
• SYNTAX: Syntax is a system of rules for combining words and phrases
to form grammatically correct sentences.
• Syntax is quite important, as just a simple mix-up can cause sentences
to be completely misunderstood.
• For example, “John kidnapped the boy” has a different meaning from
“John, the kidnapped boy,” although all four words are the same.
Language
• SEMANTICS: Semantics are rules for determining the meaning of words and
sentences. Sentences, for example, can have the same semantic meaning while
having different syntax: “Johnny hit the ball” and “the ball was hit by Johnny.”
• PRAGMATICS: The pragmatics of language has to do with the practical aspects of
communicating with others, or the social “niceties” of language.
• pragmatics involves knowing things like how to take turns in a conversation, the use
of gestures to emphasize a point or indicate a need for more information, and the
different ways in which one speaks to different people.
• Part of the pragmatics of language includes knowing just what rhythm and
emphasis to use when communicating with others, called intonation. When
speaking to infants, adults and children are changing the inflection when they use
the higher pitch and stress certain words differently than others.
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN
LANGUAGE AND THOUGHT
• Two very influential developmental psychologists, Jean Piaget and Lev
Vygotsky, theorized that concepts preceded and aided the
development of language. For example, a child would have to have a
concept or mental schema for “mother” before being able to learn
the word “mama.”
• Each child would be talking about something totally unrelated to the
speech of the other, in a process Piaget called collective monologue.
Piaget believed that this kind of nonsocial speech was very
egocentric.
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN
LANGUAGE AND THOUGHT
• Vygotsky theorized that language actually helped develop concepts and that language
could also help the child learn to control behavior—including social behavior.
• Once a child had learned the word “mama,” the various elements of “mama-ness”—
warm, soft, food, safety, and so on—could come together around that word.
• Vygotsky also believed that the “egocentric” speech of the preschool child was actually
a way for the child to form thoughts and control actions.
• This “private speech” was a way for children to plan their behavior and organize
actions so that their goals could be obtained. Vygotsky believed that private speech
would actually increase as children became more socially active in the preschool years.
• Evidence seems to support Vygotsky’s view: Children, especially bright children, do
tend to use more private speech when learning how to socialize with other children or
when working on a difficult task