Language

1		Humans have a remarkable ability to represent the world through symbols. take a variety of forms, including images, ideas, concepts, and principles. consists of a system of symbols and rules for combining those symbols in ways that can produce an infinite number of possible messages or meanings. Language is symbolic and can represent the present as well as past, future, and imaginary events and objects, the latter of which is a feature of language called . Language has both structure and rules. The structure of a language consists of the way symbols are combined within a given language. The rules for such combination are called the of a language. The underlying meaning of the combined symbols is called structure. Human languages have a hierarchical structure. The smallest units of sound that are recognized as separate in a given language are called , while the smallest units of meaning in a language are called . Language can influence how we think. Benjamin Lee Whorf, in his hypotheses, argues that language actually determines what we are capable of thinking. Thinking may be considered to be the "internal language of the mind." Verbal sentences that we hear are called thought. Images that we can "see" in our minds are called thought, while thought relates to mental representations of motor movements. Much of our thinking, in fact, occurs in terms of statements that express facts, which are called . We seem to understand the world, in part, by understanding concepts. According to Rosch (1977), concepts are defined by , the most familiar and typical members of a category.

Reasoning and Problem Solving

2		Two types of reasoning affect our abilities to make decisions and solve problems. reasoning involves reasoning from general principles to a conclusion about a specific case, while reasoning involves starting with specific facts and developing a general principle from them. To solve problems, we often employ , which are step-by-step scripts for selecting information and solving specialized classes of problems. Formulas that automatically generate correct solutions are called . Shortcut problem-solving strategies that we often employ rather than algorithms to solve problems are called . One type of heuristic is , during which we identify differences between the desired state and our present state and make changes to reduce the differences. Often this strategy involves analysis, by which people form intermediate steps toward a problem solution. Another heuristic allows us to infer how closely something or someone fits our prototype for a particular class, or concept. This type of heuristic is called the heuristic. A heuristic that leads us to base judgments and decisions on the availability of information in memory is called the heuristic.

Intelligence

3		In the early days of mental testing, examiners like Alfred Binet tried to determine whether a child was performing at the correct mental level for children of that age. The result of the testing was a score called the age. German psychologist William Stern developed the , based on the ratio of mental age to chronological age. Psychologists today distinguish between tests that measure how much someone has learned, or tests, and tests that measure potential for future learning and performance, or tests. Good tests have both reliability and validity. The consistency of measurement of a test is called . One way to measure reliability, known as reliability, is to administer the same measure to the same group of participants on two different occasions and to correlate the scores. Determining the consistency of measurement within the test itself is known as . refers to how well a test actually measures what it is supposed to measure. validity refers to how well a measure can predict some other criterion, like a future behavior. Creating a standardized environment and , helps to meet the third measurement requirement for a good test, . There is great debate about the nature of intelligence. British psychologist Charles Spearman believed that there is a general factor known as , in mental abilities. American psychologist L. L. Thurstone argued that there are seven distinct, or abilities that underly human mental performance. Cattell and Horn suggest two types of intelligence. intelligence involves the ability to apply previously acquired knowledge to solve new problems while intelligence is used to deal with novel problem-solving situations. has argued for multiple intelligences. One of the newer theories of intelligence is that it is not purely cognitive. An intelligence that involves the abilities to read and respond to others’ emotions appropriately, to motivate oneself, and to be aware of and to control one’s own emotions is called intelligence. Robert Sternberg has developed a theory of intelligence. He suggests that people use higher-order processes, or , to plan and regulate task performance, components to actually do the task, and components to encode and store information.