Chapter 8: Thinking and Language

What is a concept?

• group of objects, events, or ideas with similar characteristics

• image in our minds of a particular item or object

• object or act that stands for something else

• visual representation of the things we think about

What does creative problem-solving involve?

• means-end analysis

• convergent thinking

• divergent thinking

• metacognition

If we think about thinking, what are we using?

• concepts

• prototypes

• metacognition

• divergent thinking

Which mental activity is involved in communicating information?

• language acquisition device

• thinking

• mental set

• semantics

What is one function of a prototype?

• help us think about thinking

• give us a direction for our thinking

• help us categorize the world and process information about it

• allow us to monitor the progress that we have made towards a goal

If you are asked to think of a ball and you picture a white baseball in your mind, what are you thinking of?

• prototype

• mental set

• algorithm

• phoneme

Which of the following choices describes “mental set”?

• many different solutions to a problem are devised

• narrowing all options down to one solution 

• a specific procedure that always leads to a solution

• trying an approach that was successfully used with a similar problem

What is the most reliable approach to solving a problem?

• algorithm

• heuristic

• convergent thinking

• divergent thinking 

What type of problem-solving method is similar to systematic searching but is more haphazard?

• trial and error

• heuristics

• working backwards

• difference reduction

If you mentally rearrange the elements of a problem, which problem-solving method have you used?

• flexibility

• recombination

• convergent thinking

• insight