*** Please remember that this is only a  guide to some of the more important concepts. If you missed class, this review material alone will not be sufficient – please get the notes from a classmate! (please also keep in mind that I cannot explain whole lectures over email) ****

Written Language

Ways in which words can be symbolized in writing:

    1. Logographic system: a unique symbol is used for each word or each morpheme of a language.
    2. Syllabic system: each symbol reflects a syllable.
    3. Alphabetic system: the symbols try to approximate the phonemes in a language.

Variations in letter to phoneme correspondence:

1. SHALLOW ORTHOGRAPHY:
close correspondence, i.e., the letters really represent the sounds
2. DEEP ORTHOGRAPHY:
no close correspondence

Connectionist Model of Word Recognition
        * Interactive (bottom-up and top-down)

The Word Superiority effect -
 

Possible routes from written word to lexical access
    * Direct Route
    * Assembled Route
    * Dual Route
            - Evidence for dual routes from "normal" readers
            - experiment with homophones

            - Frequency effects and the dual routes to lexical access in reading:
                        * High frequency words – named fast regardless of whether or not they follow standard phonological rules
                        * Low frequency words – naming latencies depend on whether they follow phonological rules (faster if they do)
                        * "Horse-race" model
 

Factors that influence word recognition
        * Frequency
        * Neighborhood effects or lexical similarity effects
        * Effects of context

Skilled readers (normal, non-dyslexic):

* high-frequency words: fast, direct route from print to word meaning

* low-frequency words: slower, assembled route from print to phonolgy to meaning

Types of Dyslexia

1. Phonological form of Dyslexia

• high-frequency words (phonologically regular or irregular) = OK
• great difficulty with low-frequency words (even with phonologically regular words).
• Trouble with the assembled route.
• Interactive Compensatory Processing - bottom up processing is so bad that they make greater use of context, and guess at words rather than sounding them out

Localization of Language in the Brain; Part 1 – Human Patients

Aphasia - loss of one or more aspects of language ability due to brain damage

A. History

1. Paul Broca

• Left Frontal

2. Carl Wernicke

• Left superior temporal

1. Broca’s Aphasia:
              Halting, telegraphic and agrammatic speech

2.Wernicke’s Aphasia:
        -Fluent language production
        -Severe comprehension disorder
       -"press of speech" = excessive abundance of words
       - "empty speech" =fail to convey the ideas they have in mind

3. Conduction Aphasia:
       - Damage to pathway connecting Broca’s & Wernicke’s areas
        - Loss of ability to monitor own speech and difficulty repeating sentences

Electroencephalography (EEG) / Event-Related Potentials (ERP)

1. Semantic processing experiments

• semantically-anomalous words produce large negative wave (the N400)

• physically aberrant words do not produce an N400

• Wernicke's aphasics do produce an N400, but it's reduced in amplitude (size) and delayed in time.

A. Second-language acquisition
        * the earlier, the better
        * old myth about children being confused when learning more than 1 language isn't true

        * Explanations for why children acquire a second language more easily at younger ages:
              1. Innate grammar can only be accessed fully during a specific early period of life
             2. Competition Model - rules from the first language become more and more automatic
             3. The "less-is-more hypothesis":limitations in short-term memory, result in language being parsed into smaller parts; The partial storage makes it easier to catch on to the morphology of an unfamiliar language.

Pidgins & Creoles: "Language Invention"

    Pidgin - the rudimentary communications that develop when a group of speakers from different linguistic backgrounds are placed together in close association
    Creoles -the language that results when children make a pidgin their native language (Children inject grammatical complexity where none had existed before)
                * Examples - Hawaiin Creole
                * Sign Language examples
                        - Nicaragua schools for the deaf
                        - Deaf children born to hearing parents

Dissociation of Language and Cognition in Acquisition

    Language deficits with preserved cognitive abilities:
        * Specific Language Impairment (SLI)

    Cognitive deficits with preserved language abilities
        * Down syndrome
                - Very low general IQ
                - Language is delayed, but speech is fairly normal in other respects
        * Williams Syndrome
                - Profound cognitive deficit
                - Have very well developed language abilities

Problem Solving (chapter 11)
History:

        Behaviorists:
            Thorndike’s puzzle box (1898)
                - "generalization"
        Gestalt
            Wolfgang Kohler (1925)
                - Chimpanzee exp.’s
                - insight ("aha!"), not trial and error

        Productive -vs- Reproductive thinking

        Information-processing approach
            - series of ordered processes that can be combined in various ways

Problem Space / Problem representation:
                - initial state
                - current state
                - goal state
                     *operators – actions that modify
                        the problem states

Types of Problems
1. Well-defined vs. Ill-defined problems
   Well-defined:
        * Problems of inducing structure
        * Problems of transformation
        * Problems of arrangement

2. Routine vs. Non-routine

3. Adversary vs. Nonadversary

Strategies for Solving Problems
Algorithms -vs- Heuristics
 
        1. Search Strategies
        2. Means-End Analysis
        3. Hill-climbing
        4. Analogical Transfer

Obstacles in Problem solving
    1. Problem-solving set
    2. Functional Fixedness

Improving Problem Solving
    1. Remain flexible
    2. Take risk
    3. "Concretize" the problem
    4. Expand problem space (but note hints don’t always help)
    5. Use Alternative Representations

1. Experts represent a problem differently (schemata)
        * group problems differently
        * chess masters’ memory

2. Experts use a different solution strategy
        * Forward-working
        * Backward-working (novices)
    (Example - Physicians’ diagnoses)

Critical Thinking

• Reflective thinking –

• Can critical thinking be learned?

• problem representation is incomplete
• Managerial studies
• multiple goal states to satisfy
• We often do not solve ill-defined problems in a rational and systematic way because:

1. Solution may not be clear

2. "Satisficing" – willing to settle for a good solution rather than the best

3. Use heuristics

Decision-making & Reasoning (Ch 12)

Heuristics in Decision-making:
    * Availability Heuristic
    * Representativeness Heuristic
    * Risky Behavior

Reaching Decisions

1. Compensatory models
        a. Additive model
        b. Additve-Difference model

2. Noncompensatory models
        a. Elimination by aspects
        b. Conjunctive model

Group Decision-making

    Content errors and biases in groups

        1. Informational errors
        2. Groupthink
        3. Incremental decision making (& Social-loafing)
       4. Content error / content bias

- illusion of validity (heuristic)-

• Juries with very strong bias tend to reach that same verdict
• Juries that are split initially are much harder to predict
• Leniency bias-
• Inflexible if take sides early
• influenced by number of jurors holding same opinion
• Jurors may construct a "satisficing" story

• Computer system :
• ensuring anonymity encourages participation
• simultaneous input promotes novel idea generation
• Results :

1. More focused on relevant matters
2. more members contributed
3. less domination of discussion by few members
4. Improved consensus-reaching
5. Improved satisfaction with final decisions

Informal vs. Formal reasoning
 

Deductive vs. Inductive reasoning
 
 

Inductive Reasoning
    Syllogistic reasoning

• Types of Syllogisms (3)

1. Categorical syllogisms – describe category inclusion and exclusion.

• Four types:

Figure 12.3 (just understand how some of these possibilities may be overlooked or not considered – leading to errors (see next part below))

• Encoding errors

1. Ambiguity Theory

2. Conversion Theory

• Processing errors

1. Atmosphere theory

2. Mental model theory

2. Conditional syllogisms – involves conditional logic.
    - Conditional rules
    - Bi-conditional rules
    - Errors

1. Affirmation of the consequent

2. Denial of the antecedent

- Reasons for errors:

1. Faulty translation

2. Pragmatic reasoning – takes "experience: into account

3. Linear syllogisms – involves propositions that describe the linear ordering of objects. May involve visual and verbal processing

• Confirmation Bias-

• Scientific reasoning depends on testing existing hypotheses

Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development

7-11 years : Concrete Operational:
                       * deductive reasoning limited to those objects that are physically present
                        * intrapropositional reasoning only

11-15 years: Formal Operational:
                        * can reason hypothetically about objects that aren’t present and about abstract concepts
                        * interpropositional reasoning

Alternative theory – quantitative factors (such as working memory capacity) account for differences across ages
 
 
 
 
 

Animal Cognition
Ch 14: pp. 452-459; pp467-469)

    Conceptual learning (pp 452-453).

• Rat study with triangles
• Pigeon study with "same" & "different" concepts

        1. "Clever Hans"

        2. Reasoning in Rats – Figure 14.8

        3. Sarah (female chimp)
                * able to identify solutions to real-world problems that she had never performed herself
                * Solved analogies (>80%)

    Self-Awareness (pp467-469)

        1. Gallup’s Mirror experiments

• human infants (<18 months) think it’s a stranger
• Chimpanzees given 10 days with mirror eventually begin to use it to inspect themselves
• Bright red dot experiments