PSYC 1020H Chapter Notes - Chapter 8: Decision-Making, Availability Heuristic, Belief Perseverance

• School: Trent University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 1020H
• Professor: Bond Barbara

Document Summary

Cognition refers to the mental processes involved in acquiring knowledge. Language consists of symbols that convey meaning, plus rules for combining these symbols, that can be used to generate an infinite variety of messages. Phonemes the smallest speech units in a language that can be distinguished perceptually. Morphemes the smallest units of meaning in a language. Semantics the area of language concerned with understanding the meaning of words and word combination. Syntax a system of rules that specify how words can be arranged into sentences. Bilingualism the acquisition of two languages that use different speech sounds, vocabulary, and grammatical rules. Some studies have found that bilingual children know less of both languages than children who know only one language. Becoming bilingual can enhance the learning of another language. On some types of tasks, bilinguals may have a slight disadvantage in terms of raw language-processing speed.