There are many species for whom “thinking” is not important. But for humans, our ability to analyze, reflect, and reason is at the core of what it means to be human, and is critical to our ability to survive. But did you know that some people are afraid to think? There is actually a disorder called “mental kinesiophobia” whose symptoms are an irrational fear of exerting mental effort. Although there are probably many high school teachers who think some of their students suffer from this disorder, it is in fact different from everyday mental laziness. Patients with mental kinesiophobia have typically experienced some form of injury which resulted in recurring severe headaches. They then fear that mental effort of any significant kind will trigger another painful headache. The fear, however, is not valid. There is no evidence that thinking is dangerous to your physical health, nor that thinking per se can be the cause of severe headaches.
Formal And Informal Reasoning
Algorithms
Reasoning can be defined as “the drawing of conclusions or inferences from observations, facts, or assumptions.” Some problems can be solved by following a set of procedures that, if carried out accurately, will guarantee a correct solution. These kinds of procedures are called algorithms . Your text gives the example of the rules of long division to illustrate the concept of an algorithm.
Deductive Reasoning
Algorithms, in the form of the rules of formal logic, can also be used to solve formal deductive reasoning problems. In deductive reasoning, a conclusion necessarily follows from a set of given facts or premises, if one applied the accepted rules of form logic. Research on deductive reasoning, however, has found that most adults are not very good at formal reasoning, and do not apply the rules of formal logic when judging whether an argument is really logical or not. The examples that start in the next section illustrate this point.
Heuristics
Most problems, of course, cannot be solved through the use of an algorithm because problems often do not have a single solution. Others would require the use of an algorithm that is either too complex or too time-consuming or too demanding of working memory capacity for the algorithm to be used.
For example, solving anagrams (e.g. what word do the following letters spell-cgyolphoys?) could be done by systematically testing every possible sequence of letters. That is not, however, how people usually try to solve anagrams-or most other problems, for that matter. Instead, we rely on simplifying strategies and rules of thumb-strategies that we have learned that will usually, but not always, help us find the right answer in a reasonable amount of time.
These strategies or rules of thumb are called heuristics. Most real world reasoning, even on problems that could be solved through the use of algorithms, involves the use of heuristics. When solving anagrams, for example, we use the heuristic of looking for familiar letter patterns. (In the anagram problem above, it is useful to note that “ogy” is a common word ending.)
Confirmation Bias
The error people make on this problem is that they associate “testing an hypothesis” with looking for information consistent with the hypothesis. This approach seems to make sense. The problem with this approach, however, is that it leads us to look selectively at situations that might support our hypothesis while leading us away from examining situations that might provide evidence against our hypothesis.
Bad old drivers. For example, consider the hypothesis that “most people become poor drivers when they get very old.” Most people believe this hypothesis to be true. The question for now isn’t whether it really is true or not, but rather, where do people in their everyday lives look for evidence relevant to testing the hypothesis?
Almost all of us do the following. We are driving behind someone who is driving slowly. The car in front of us is also occasionally going over the lane line. On top of that, we can’t see a head above the driver’s headrest. Finally, we get a chance to pass. What do we do? We look inside to see if the car is being driven by someone old! If it is, we code in our minds another example of a bad old driver, and we feel more confident that our belief about old drivers is true.
Seeing the evidence we expect to see. What we don’t do, however, is systematically look at cars being driven well in order to see if they are being driven by someone old. In other words, we selectively examine situations that have the potential to confirm our hypothesis, but we don’t examine situations that have the potential to disconfirm our hypothesis .
Remembering what fits. Another aspect of confirmation bias is that we tend to selectively remember information consistent with our hypotheses or beliefs, while forgetting the inconsistent information.
A spur to prejudice. Even if you happen to notice an old person driving well, you are less likely to code that event in your memory in comparison with the experience of seeing an old person driving poorly. As we will discuss when we discuss prejudice (in social psychology), confirmation bias plays a significant role in leading people to maintain their prejudiced beliefs. Even when faced with evidence that the prejudiced belief is not valid, people often discount and forget that evidence while paying a lot of attention to, and remembering, the evidence that seems to support their prejudiced belief.
Mental Sets
In general, the term mental set refers to the tendency to think about and try to solve problems in a manner consistent with the way in which we have interpreted and solved seemingly similar problems in the past. There is a positive and a negative side to mental sets. On the positive side, if the approach we take to the problem is the correct one, it will help us solve the new problem quickly and efficiently.
The difficulty arises when, based on past experience, we interpret elements of a problem in such a way that we are led astray in our attempts to solve the problem, or we adopt a strategy that will not work for this particular problem. In those cases, people often find it very difficult to “break” their mental set in order to think differently about the problem or to adopt a different strategy for solving it.
One of the first forms of mental set to be studied was the phenomenon of functional fixedness , the tendency to perceive objects only in terms of their typical or normal functions . Problems that require using objects in novel or non-obvious ways can be very difficult to solve.
Functional Fixedness: An Obstacle to Innovation
Functional fixedness refers to the strong tendency we have to perceive objects only in terms of their typical or normal functions. Problems that require the use of objects in innovative or unusual ways can be surprisingly difficult to solve.
Maier’s two-string problem. A commonly used example of functional fixedness is Maier’s two-string problem. In this problem, the subject is in a room with two strings tied to the ceiling. Both strings are of equal length. The objective is to tie the ends of the two strings together.
The problem is that while the strings are long enough to be tied together they are short enough that one is unable to just take hold of one string, walk over to the other string, and tie them together. Scattered around the room are a number of objects. These objects include a plate, some books, a chair, a pair of pliers, an extension cord, and a book of matches.
Fundamental source of the problem. To resolve a problem, the real source of the problem must first be located. In the above example, the fundamental source of the problem can be viewed as one of the following:
- The string is too short.
- My arms are too short.
- The end of one string won’t stay anchored in place while I get the other.
- The string won’t come to me.
Depending on what objects are located around the room, any one of these problem sources can be resolved by, for example, using an object such as the extension cord to lengthen one of the strings, or using an object (such as a chair, for example) to lengthen one’s arms, etc. However, if the only object in the room were a pair of pliers, then the solutions become much more limited, as this object cannot be used to resolve all the possible problem sources.
About 60% of the participants in Maier’s study failed to find a solution within a 10-minute time limit.
These participants saw the pliers only as the traditional tool they are, not recognizing that the pliers could be used as a pendulum bob (or plumb bob), swinging at the end of one of the two strings, thus resolving the “string won’t come to me” problem source.
Fixated on the usual function. Most of us have difficulty in seeing the pair of pliers in this problem as anything other than a tool, as that is what we have always been taught they are. Through force of habit, we are fixated by the fact that the object’s function is that of a pair of pliers. If we can overcome this fixedness, then we can see that they could have many other uses. The pair of pliers could be used as a weight (paperweight, pendulum weight, weapon, fishing sinker, etc.), an electricity conductor (emergency fuse, car jump start kit, etc.), and so on.
Haste makes lousy thinking . Interestingly, when participants are given a strong motivation to solve the task quickly, they tend to perform more poorly. For example, if participants are told that they will be given a monetary award if they can solve the task quickly, they tend to fixate more strongly on using objects in their typical ways, and end up being less likely to solve the problem at all. This finding shows that it is easier to overcome mental sets and to think in innovative and creative ways when we are not feeling anxious and frustrated.
What makes language language?
What are the basic and essential features of the systems of communication that humans called language?
The first criterion for calling a system a language is:
Communication
For a system to be called language, it must be used as a mechanism of intentional communication between members of a species. If there is no communication and no intent to communicate, then we are not dealing with anything that would be called language. Not all communication, however, involves language. Human language involves communication through the use of:
Arbitrary Symbols
The basic meaning units of human language are called morphemes . In general terms, the concept of a morpheme maps onto the term “word.” Morphemes are symbols; they stand for, or refer to, something other than themselves. For example, the word dog refers to a four-legged animal that is man’s best friend. Most words are single morphemes. However, some words are made up of two morphemes. For example, the word “dogs” has two meaning units: “dog” (a four-legged animal that is man’s best friend) and “s” (which indicates that we are referring to more than one dog).
An important point about morphemes is that their meaning is arbitrary . That is, their meaning derives from consensual agreement about what that morpheme will mean, rather than being based upon some essential physical characteristic of the morpheme. In other words, dog means dog only because everyone agrees that dog means dog. There is nothing about the sound, or length, or any other physical feature of the word dog that affects its meaning.
Because language involves communication through the use of symbols, it possesses a characteristic called displacement ; language permits communication about objects and events that are not physically present here and now. (That is, objects and events that are displaced from the present in terms of time or space.) Pointing at something is not language.
There is, however, much more to human language than words. We communicate by combining words into sequences we call sentences, using a set of rules called the rules of grammar or syntax. The meaning of a sentence is based, in part, on the grammatical rules used in its construction. For example, the following two sentences contain the same words but have very different meanings:
John hit Mary.
Mary hit John.
If one did not know the grammatical rules used to create these sentences and did not know how those rules are used to convey meaning, it would not be possible to properly understand the different meanings of these two sentences.
The fact that language is a communication system in which basic meaning units are combined according to a set of rules permits a characteristic of language use called productivity . Productivity refers to the ability to produce, and comprehend, an essentially infinite number of sentences. In other words, we are not limited in the use of language to producing, or comprehending, sentences that we have heard and learned before. We can produce entirely new utterances that no human has ever produced before, and anyone who knows the meanings of the words and the grammatical rules of the language would still be able to understand the sentence.
Implicit Knowledge of Grammatical Rules
It seems fairly clear that it would not be possible to produce comprehensible sentences, or to understand the correct meaning of sentences, if one did not know the grammatical rules required to produce sentences in one’s language. Indeed, it is easy to prove that someone knows the grammatical rules of a language; if the person is able to produce and comprehend novel sentences, then the person must know the grammatical rules of the language.
There are several key questions about language development:
- How does language develop?
- What about language is innate, and what comes from social and cultural influences?
- Are humans the only creatures that have language?
- What, if anything, can we learn about language from other species?
Language as a Rule-Based System: Why We Hafta Say Hafta
We’ve seen already that human language is a rule-based system. One category of rules that is used in all languages is the category of morphophonological rules . These are rules that govern the way phonemes (the basic sound units of the language) can be combined into morphemes. The morpheme “dog,” for example, is made up of the sequence of three phonemes that correspond with the sounds of each of the letters d , o , and g .
In English, a very common form of “sloppy” language use involves the use of the term “hafta.” In this exercise, you will learn why we say “hafta” instead of “have to,” and why we say it when we do.
Most people think of “hafta” as nothing more than sloppy speech-the slurring together of two words into one when we are speaking quickly. That, however, is not really true, as you will learn in this exercise.
The first point to note is that we are only “sloppy” in some situations.
If I were to say “I hafta sleep,” you would know what I meant-that I need to go to sleep.
But what about if I said “I hafta fish.”
Does that mean
1. I need to fish (based on a slurring of the words in the sentence “I have to fish.”)
OR
2. I own two fish (based on a slurring of the words in the sentence “I have two fish.”)
Of course, the answer is 1. In fact, you would never slur sentence 2, “I have two fish,” into the production “I hafta fish,” even though “I have to fish” and “I have two fish” are pronounced identically!
A second point to note about “hafta” is that it involves more than just slurring together two words. It also involves changing the sound of one of the consonants-changing the “v” sound from “have” into an “f” sound.
Understanding why we say “hafta” thus requires that we examine why we slur together “have” and “to” but not “have” and “two,” and also requires that we examine why we change the “v” in “have” to an “f” in “hafta.”
V into F
When we do slur together “have” and “to,” why do we change the “v” sound to an “f” sound?
The changing of the v sound to an f sound is based upon a particular morphophonological rule of English (this is not a rule, incidentally, in all languages).
In order to understand this rule, you have to understand the difference between voiced and unvoiced consonant sounds.
Voiced and Unvoiced Consonants
Voiced consonant sounds involve the vibration of the vocal cords; unvoiced consonant sounds do not. You can easily test whether a sound is voiced or unvoiced. Place you thumb and forefinger on the two sides of the upper part of your neck. Make the sound “v.”. Feel the vibration? You should.
Now try the sound “r” as it is made at the beginning of the word rock. Again, you should feel the vibration. These two sounds are voiced.
Now do the same thing with the sound “f.” No vibration! And “t”? Again, no vibration.
The morphophonological rule of English that affects the creation of hafta is that, in English:
A voiced consonant cannot be followed by an unvoiced consonant within a single morpheme.
In other words, because “v” is voiced and “t” is not voiced, in English you cannot have the sound sequence “vt” within a single morpheme. As a result, if we are going to slur “have” and”to” together, we hafta change the “v” sound to its most closely related unvoiced sound-f.
What We Slur Together
Why do we slur together “have” and “to” but not “have” and “two”?
The reason has to do with numbers of morphemes.
In the sentence “I have two fish,” “have” and “two” are two separate morphemes.
However, in the sentence “I have to fish,” “have” and “to” together form a single morpheme! Neither word carries any meaning without the other word in this sentence. As a result, we have a natural tendency to slur together “have” and “to” because by doing so we are creating a single word to correspond with a single morpheme.
So-next time you hear someone say hafta, you can tell them how clever they are to create a single word to correspond with the single “have” and “to” morpheme, and point out to them that their use of hafta also reflects their implicit knowledge of the morphophonological rules of English
