158 ❯ Step 4. Review the Knowledge You Need to Score High
Overcoming obstacles to problem solving can include:- Creativity—the ability to think about a problem or idea in new and unusual ways
to come up with unconventional solutions. - Incubation—putting aside a problem temporarily; allows the problem solver to
look at the problem from a different perspective. - Brainstorming—generating lots of possible solutions to a problem without making
prior evaluative judgments. - Divergent thinking—thinking that produces many alternatives or ideas.
- Convergent thinking—conventional thinking directed toward a single correct solution.
Language—communication system based on words and grammar; spoken, written,
or gestured words and the way they are combined to communicate meaning from
person to person and to transmit civilization’s accumulated knowledge. Key elements
of language include:- Phonemes—smallest units of sound in spoken language.
- Morphemes—the smallest unit of language that has meaning.
- Grammar—a system of rules that enables us to communicate with and understand
others. - Syntax—rules that are used to order words into grammatically sensible sentences.
- Semantics—a set of rules we use to derive meaning from morphemes, words, and
sentences.
Key concepts and terms associated with language development include: - Babbling—an infant’s spontaneous production of speech sounds; begins around
4 months old. - Holophrase—one-word utterances that convey meaning; characteristic of a 1-year-old.
- Telegraphic speech—meaningful two-word sentences, usually a noun and a verb,
and usually in the correct order uttered by 2-year-olds. - Overgeneralization or overregularization—application of grammatical rules
without making appropriate exceptions (“I goed to the store”). - Behavioral perspective—language is developed by imitating sounds we hear
to create words. - Nativist perspective—idea that the human brain has an innate capacity for acquir-
ing language (language acquisition device) possibly during a critical period of time
after birth, and that children are born with a universal sense of grammar (Noam
Chomsky). - Social interactivist perspective—babies are biologically equipped for learning
language, which may be activated or constrained by experience.
Linguistic relativity hypothesis—our language guides and determines our thinking
(Whorf). It is more accurate to say that language influences thought.