Categorization
How do people form meaningful categories?
By grouping things that share features or functions, using past examples and typical features to decide what belongs.
Inductive vs deductive reasoning - what is the difference?
Inductive = from specific examples to a general, probable conclusion. Deductive = from general rules to a certain, specific conclusion.
What is the availability heuristic?
Judging likelihood by how easily examples come to mind - vivid or recent events seem more common than they are.
What is overconfidence and the Dunning-Kruger Effect?
Overconfidence = overestimating your knowledge/accuracy. Dunning-Kruger = people with low ability overestimate themselves most because they lack skill to recognize errors.
Define phonemes, morphemes, lexicon, syntax, and semantics.
Phonemes = smallest sounds, Morphemes = smallest meaning units, Lexicon = all words you know, Syntax = rules for sentences, Semantics = meaning of words/sentences.
What are prototypes and exemplars, and how are they different?
Prototype = best/typical example used for comparison. Exemplar = specific remembered examples from the category used for comparison.
Algorithm vs heuristic - what is the difference?
Algorithm = step-by-step method that guarantees a correct answer but is slow. Heuristic = mental shortcut that is fast but can cause errors.
What is the representativeness heuristic?
Judging likelihood by how much something matches a prototype, while ignoring base rates.
What are the belief-bias effect and faulty premises?
Belief-bias = judging an argument by whether its conclusion is believable, not its logic. Faulty premises = starting from false assumptions, so reasoning leads to wrong conclusions.
What is linguistic determinism?
The idea that language determines/limits thought - the strong Whorfian claim; evidence supports a weaker influence, not full determinism.
What are schemas and how do they relate to categorization?
Mental frameworks that organize knowledge and expectations; they guide how we categorize and interpret new information quickly.
How do algorithms and heuristics relate to decision making?
We use algorithms when accuracy matters and time allows; we use heuristics for most everyday, quick decisions.
What is the gambler's fallacy and independent probability?
Gambler's fallacy = believing past random events change future odds. Independent events do not affect each other - each flip/trial odds stay the same.
How does framing affect decisions?
How a choice is presented - as gains vs losses - changes decisions, even when outcomes are identical. People avoid risk for gains and seek risk for losses.
What are positive effects of multilingualism?
Better executive control, attention switching, cognitive flexibility, delayed cognitive decline, and better understanding of language structure.
Is a hot dog a sandwich? What does this show about categorization?
It depends on your category rules/prototype. It shows categories have fuzzy boundaries and definitions are not always clear-cut.
What is functional fixedness and how does it relate to insight?
Seeing objects only in their usual function blocks insight - a sudden new way of representing the problem needed to solve it.
What is confirmation bias?
Searching for, interpreting, and remembering information that confirms your existing beliefs, and ignoring contrary info.
How does anchoring affect decisions?
The first number/info encountered (the anchor) heavily influences later estimates, even if it is arbitrary.
What happens when Broca's area is damaged?
Broca's aphasia: speech production is slow, effortful, and broken, but comprehension is relatively preserved.
Is a hot dog a sandwich? What does this show about language?
The answer depends on how words are defined and used; language labels shape and reflect our categories, so meaning is negotiated, not fixed.
What is a mental set?
Tendency to keep using strategies that worked before, even when a simpler or different strategy would work better.
What is belief perseverance?
Holding onto a belief even after the evidence for it has been discredited.
Why do people fail to understand independent probability?
They rely on representativeness and patterns, expecting random sequences to look random and past outcomes to balance out.
What happens when Wernicke's area is damaged?
Wernicke's aphasia: comprehension is impaired and speech is fluent but meaningless.