THOUGHT AND KNOWLEDGE

Three umpires were unwinding at a local pub after a very tough day. All three had endured abusive shouts like, “Kill the Umpire” and had numerous offers for new pairs of eyeglasses. After a few mugs of brew, they began discussing how they decide to call balls and strikes. The first umpire, Jim, explained that it was really quite simple. “I simply call them as I see them.”

Donnie, the second umpire, disagreed when he said, “I see them as I call them.”

Neil, the third umpire, emphatically shook his head in disagreement with the other two. “You’re both wrong,” he said, slurring his words somewhat. “They don’t even exist until I call them.”

Neil had a good point. Whether a ball whizzing past home plate is a ball or strike depends on what the umpire labels it. The words he uses both interpret and define reality.

Thought and Language

The development of mind, thought, and language is simply a nexus in which it is impossible to separate one from the other.

—Michael Studdert-Kennedy (quoted in Restak, 1988, p. 231)

How do you express your thoughts in words and sentences? How influenced are you by your particular language? You will have difficulty answering these questions because you use both so automatically and because you have no conscious awareness of the way your thoughts give rise to the words you use to express them. In fact, if you try to monitor your speaking process, you’ll find yourself stuttering and interfering with the fluid speech that you normally create so easily. It is as though speech emerges automatically and preformed. Conscious attention directed at the process tends to interfere with it.

Psycholinguistics

Communication is primarily an exercise in thinking.

—Russell Pitt and Jack Leavenworth (1968, p. viii)

Psycholinguistics is the field of psychology concerned with how we acquire and use language. Language is a complex cognitive activity that all normal humans perform with apparent skill and ease. As speakers, we select the words we want to use and produce them in a (mostly) grammatically correct form. As listeners, we use the information in another’s utterance to share the expressed thoughts. What do we know about the way speakers and listeners share thoughts through the medium of language?

Underlying Representation and Surface Structure

Language appears to be simply the clothing of naked thought.

—James E. Miller (1972, p. 43)

The comprehension of language is a process in which the message is used to construct a representation of the information referred to in the message. The sequence of sounds that we produce must correspond to our intended meaning if we are to communicate successfully. The “sender” and the “receiver” also must share a common knowledge of word meanings and grammar. Because language is always incomplete, the receiver must rely on prior knowledge, context, and other cues to comprehension to construct a correct representation.

Psychologists who are concerned with the way people use and understand language divide language into two structures or types of representations. The underlying representation of language refers to the meaning component of language—it is the thought you want to convey. Surface structure refers to the sounds of the verbal expression that you use or its written form on paper, a computer monitor, or some other writing surface. Look carefully at Figure 3.1 which depicts this process.

Figure 3.1 The problem of comprehension. The sender has a thought that she wants to communicate to a receiver. The thought (deep structure) is private and known only to the sender. It is transformed by speech sounds or the shapes of letters (surface structure), which are used by the receiver to reconstruct the meaning expressed by the sender’s words.

As you can see, the thought in the mind of the “sender” is the underlying or deep structure. The thought is private and known only to the sender. The problem in producing language is deriving surface structure from the underlying representation in the sender’s mind, while the problem in comprehending language is getting from the surface structure back to the speaker’s (or writer’s) underlying representation. Language is integral in these processes because it is the medium with which thoughts and emotions are most often expressed and interpreted (although other media such as dance, mime, and visual art are sometimes used to express thoughts and emotions).

A communication is “successful” when the underlying representation constructed by the receiver matches the underlying representation of the sender. The receiver’s representation of the meaning is constructed over time because using language is a sequential process with words uttered or read one after the other. All strategies for improving comprehension involve ways of building representations so that they will most nearly match the one intended by the sender. It is the representation of knowledge about the world, the “architecture of the cognitive system,” that mediates comprehension.

When language is ambiguous, the surface structure can have more than one meaning or underlying representation. Real newspaper headlines are written to be as short as possible, and in the writing, there are sometimes hilarious examples of ambiguity. Here are some examples (from fun-with-words.com):

Kids Make Nutritious Snacks
Grandmother of Eight Makes Hole in One
Milk Drinkers Are Turning to Powder
Drunk Gets Nine Months in Violin Case
Lack of Brains Hinders Research
2 Sisters Reunited After 18 Years at Checkout Counter

The reason that these headlines are so funny is that we start “down the garden path” assuming one meaning, which is then changed on us or we can think of more than one meaning at a time and one of the meanings is, well, less meaningful.

Implications and Inference

Communication depends as much on information that is implied as it does on the words that are explicitly stated. Comprehension of meaningful material will always require the listener or reader to make inferences by going beyond the words uttered. Consider this very simple three-sentence story:

Matt inherited a great deal of money.
Bertha loves diamonds and furs.
Bertha married Matt.

Although very little factual information was provided, it is a meaningful story. Readers infer that Bertha married Matt for his money and that she will use his money to buy diamonds and furs, although this interpretation may not be correct. All communication requires the receiver to fill in gaps between given bits of information to understand the intended meaning. Much of the meaning people convey goes beyond the meaning of the words they utter.

The Role of Inference in Advertisements

One of our defects as a nation is a tendency to use what have been called weasel words. When a weasel sucks eggs the meat is sucked out of the egg. If you use a weasel word after another there is nothing left of the other.

—Theodore Roosevelt (1916 presidential speech, former president of the United States, from dictionary.com)

When you produce speech, the intended meaning is implied or suggested by the words you use, the context in which it is embedded, and verbal and nonverbal expressions. It is possible to say one thing while communicating something quite different. This technique is often used by advertisers who want to persuade you to buy their products, yet have legal restrictions on the kinds of statements they can make. If they get you to infer meaning from the advertisement, they are protected from making false claims. Here are some examples (modified just enough to keep me out of legal trouble):

Consuming fiber is an important part of a weight loss system.
FiberBars are the only fiber bar that tastes better than the box it comes in. Try one today!

The narrator never says that eating fiber will cause weight loss. Fiber is an important part of a weight loss system, but so are protein and exercise. “An important part of” is a common weasel phrase that is used so that the receiver of the communication infers something that is not said because it is not true. Weasel phrases convey the idea that something specific has been said, when it fact the words used are general and ambiguous. The image for a weasel phrase is that of an empty egg—something that appears to be solid and useful, but in fact is empty and devoid of content. Here’s another example:

What should you do during those dreaded moments when you feel a cold starting? You could do nothing or take ColdAway.

The inference is that taking ColdAway will somehow make your cold go away. Of course, nothing like that is actually said—it is inferred because we automatically make meaning from communications and fill in the blanks in ways that make sense.

Carefully selected words in advertisements are used to create an inference that something is true when it is not. Airlines and other businesses often boast:

“Nobody beats our fares.”

The air lines (or at least those who write their advertisements) expect that readers will infer that this means that they have the lowest fares. Of course, they never state that they have the lowest fares because that would be false. Nobody beats their fares because nearly all of the fares are the same. They could have said, “Our fares are the same as our competitors.” But, if they said it that way, it would not mislead readers into believing that they have the lowest fares, and consumers would correctly conclude that it does not matter which airline they book with if cost is the sole determining factor. Always consider the distinction between the linguistic content of the message and the inference you draw from it.

When you start reading and listening critically to advertisements, you may be surprised to find appalling attempts to create impressions that can change beliefs. It is fun to start looking carefully at what advertisements actually say and what we infer. It is instructive to read the advertisements for supposed weight loss products (e.g., cellulite creams, sauna suits, herbal wraps, fat-burning vitamins, magic formula pills). Even the ubiquitous “before and after” photos are designed to create the inference that you will lose “30 or more pounds in two weeks” while eating anything you want and without “tedious” exercise.

The ubiquitous “studies show” is lampooned in the following cartoon.

Cognitive psychologists know that people remember the implied meaning of a message, and not the actual statements that were made. If you have already read the chapter on the development of memory skills, this should not be surprising to you. Meaningful information is more easily remembered than nonmeaningful information. We rarely remember statements verbatim. Thus, our memory of events depends on the interpretations we give them when they occur.

Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller. Used with permission by Universal Press Syndicate.

Rules for Clear Communication

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone,
“it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”

—Lewis Carroll (Through the Looking Glass, 1872, p. 190)

To communicate effectively, you need to know a great many things in addition to the thought being communicated and the words being used as the vehicle for the communication: What is the purpose of the communication? What are your listener’s characteristics—what is your listener’s age and social status? How much does the listener know or want to know about the topic? The answers to all of these questions shape the nature of communications. We implicitly change the way we speak or write, depending on how we answer these questions, and we make these changes without realizing the extent to which the listener shapes our use of language. Communication is governed by rules that we all obey, although you may never have consciously considered them.

Rule 1: Tell listeners what you believe they want to know

Consider how you would answer a simple question like, “Where do you live?” If I met you in Europe and asked you this question, you would probably respond with the name of your country, for example, “In the United States.” If I asked you this question in New York, you would respond with the name of a state, “In Pennsylvania.” If I asked you the same question on your college campus, you might respond, “In the dorms.” If I asked you this question while we were in the dorms, you might respond, “In Wing D, Room 331.” And, if I asked you this question in your dorm room, you would probably reply by giving the name of your hometown. The same question could be asked each time, yet you would give a different answer that depended on the context in which the question is asked and what you thought I wanted to know. The level of information you choose to convey depends on the purpose of the communication.

Rule 2: Don’t tell listeners what they already know

In the first chapter, I began by introducing the topic of thinking and the need for the development of critical thinking skills. You probably did not think that this was unusual. Suppose I started every chapter in this book the same way. You would not only think that this was unusual, you may also question my mental status.

When you present information to an audience, you balance the amount of new information that you present with the old or already known information. If you present too much new information at once, listeners will be lost and will not be able to extract the intended meaning; if you present too much old or known information, listeners will be bored. The relative proportion of old information to new information is known as the given/new distinction.

The ratio of given or known information to new information is a determinant of the difficulty of a communication. If a passage (spoken or written) contains too much new material for a listener or reader, it will be difficult to comprehend. No one would take an advanced course in biochemistry without first obtaining the requisite background in biology and chemistry. The educational process, if successful, fosters the transformation of new information into the students’ systems of known information. This simple fact is often overlooked and communication fails. Have you ever had the experience of listening to a physician explain the cause or treatment of a health problem and been lost after the first sentence or two? Few physicians are skilled at understanding what their patients are likely to know about medicine, so they often use unfamiliar terms and assume that their patients have better medical knowledge than they actually do. The result is miscommunication, which can have disastrous consequences.

Rule 3: Vary the style of your communication, depending upon the knowledge, age, and status of the listeners

Suppose you are an expert computer programmer given the task of describing the operations of a computer center to a group of visitors. You would vary the way you convey the necessary information for each of the following: a group of politicians; a group of children from an elementary school; your history professor; a close friend; or an expert programmer from another university.

Your communication would be more or less technical depending on what you believe your listener knows about the topic. You might tell the politicians about the high costs of maintaining a computer center; the elementary school children might simply be told about the general use of computers; you might explain to your history professor how computers can be used in research; your close friend might be told that you feel you’re being underpaid; and the visiting programmer might be told about the capacity of the computers and the steps you have taken to prevent the spread of computer viruses.

The readability of text or ease with which spoken language is understood depends, in large part, on the match between the text and the reader. The reason so many of us find income tax and legal documents so difficult is that they are written by and for accountants and lawyers—people with highly differentiated underlying representations of the topics referred to in these documents. The rest of us have to make many more inferences and more memory searches to understand the concepts because our underlying representations of these concepts are relatively sparse. This is why whenever we are engaged in communication, it is important to consider the characteristics of the reader or listener. This is a more formal way of saying that the beliefs, knowledge, and expectations of the intended audience for a communication should determine how much detail goes into a communication and which words are used. The difficulty of a text does not reside in the text itself, but in the reader-text interaction.

The idea that what people understand depends on what they already know was beautifully made in a book written for young readers. It is a tale about a fish who gets to learn about the world above the sea as it is explained to him by a friendly frog (Lionni, 2005). When the frog tells of humans who walk upright, we see the fish’s mental image of walking fish. The story goes on to show how each description of the dry world would be interpreted by a learner who only knew of the water world. No matter how accurate the description, the fish’s understanding was strictly limited by his own life experiences and knowledge of the world. A depiction of what the fish thought a cow would look like is shown in Figure 3.2

Rule 4: Tell the truth

When we communicate with each other, it is assumed that the information being conveyed is truthful. This is an imperative for meaningful communication. Of course, sometimes people lie. How do you process information when you believe that the speaker may be lying? All components of the communication are scrutinized. In general, the communication process breaks down when the listener suspects that the speaker is violating this rule. This loss of communication is eloquently described by Chang (1993) in her description of life during Mao’s reign over communist China, a time when no one dared to speak the truth: “The whole nation slid into doublespeak. Words became divorced from reality, responsibility, and people’s real thoughts. Lies were told with ease because words had lost their meaning” (p. 298).

Figure 3.2 Lionni’s Fish is Fish. When a friendly frog tells a fish about cows, the fish envisions a cow that looks a lot like the fish. The reality that we each construct for ourselves is based on what we know about the world, and when our knowledge is limited, so is our perception of reality. (From Fish is Fish by Leo Lionni, copyright © 1970 by Leo Lionni. Copyright renewed 1998 by Leo Lionni. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc. Any third party use of this material, outside of this publication, is prohibited. Interested parties must apply directly to Random House, Inc. for permission.)

Rule 5: Use a simple straightforward style

Mark Twain said this best when he said, “Eschew surplusage.” Information is transmitted best when simple and precise language is used. Some people think that the use of multisyllabic words and intricate sentence structures is a sign of intelligence. This is not true. It is a far more difficult task to express complex thoughts in simple language than to express simple thoughts in complex language. The transformation of our private thoughts into easily understood language is the benchmark of human cognition. Sloppy thinking can never be made good even with the most flowery language.

Rule 6: Use context and manner to clarify meaning

Meaning depends not only on the words that we use, but also on the context and the manner we use to convey it. Have you ever had the experience of having someone say, “I’ll be happy to do that for you” in a manner that clearly showed that she was most unhappy?

Context is a critical aid for comprehension. “The food is on the table” can be an invitation to eat or a simple descriptive statement, depending on the context. Context is also used to decide which of two possible meanings is the intended meaning of an ambiguous sentence.

Ekman (1992) speaks of “lying truthfully,” that is, literally telling the truth while leaving the listener with the opposite impression. For example, he tells about a man who had been unfaithful to his wife for years without getting caught. He had, on several occasions, taken money from her purse to buy flowers for other women. Each time he did this, she noticed the missing money and innocently commented to him: “I could have sworn I had an extra $50 in my purse; I must have lost it.” Finally, one day she suspects that her partner has been unfaithful to her because she finds matches from a local hotel in his coat when she takes it to the cleaner. When she confronts him about this, he “honestly lies,” by retorting: “Right. I’ve been having a torrid affair during my lunch breaks; and do you remember those times you thought you had lost money? Well, you didn’t. I’ve been stealing your money to buy my noon-time lovers gifts. And, let me see, what other ignominities have I omitted?” This man just made a complete confession, yet the intent was to mislead his wife by casting it in irony. Intonation matters!

Here’s another example: suppose you are asked to write a letter of recommendation for someone you do not want to recommend. Of course you could just decline the request, but what if you really wanted the person who did the asking to get a job somewhere else. You could write, “I cannot tell you how happy I am to write this letter of recommendation for Ama Zlotsky.” The impression is that you are happy to recommend her, but the actual words say something quite different.

Figure 3.3 is a visual demonstration of the effect of context on what we see. You’ll find that you have no difficulty reading any of the words in Figure 3.3. Now look carefully at the letters that make up the words. The “H” in “the” is the same form as the “A” in “cat,” yet you may not have noticed this unless I pointed it out to you. Similarly, the way we perceive the other “inky” letters depends on the rest of the letters that make up the word context. Context provides strong cues that guide the way we construct knowledge about the nature of the world.

Analogy and Metaphor

Midway between the unintelligible and the commonplace, it is metaphor which most produces knowledge.

—Aristotle (Rhetoric III, 1410b)

One exception to the rule that the words used to convey a message should correspond to their intended meaning is the use of analogy and metaphor. (The English grammatical distinction between analogy, metaphor, and simile is not being considered here because it is irrelevant in this context.) If I tell you that “Myrtle is a hard-headed woman,” the literal translation is not the one intended. In this case, the receiver must use his knowledge about the referent topic (hard surfaces) and “map” the relevant knowledge onto his knowledge of Myrtle. Although you certainly have never met Myrtle, and you may never have heard the expression “a hard-headed woman,” you can probably tell me that she is a stubborn, strong-willed person. You came to this understanding by taking your knowledge of hard surfaces, selecting characteristics of hard surfaces that might be relevant to a description of a person, and transferring that knowledge to what you already know about Myrtle.

Figure 3.3 Examples of the ways context influences meaning. Notice, for example, that the “D” in “RED” is identical to the “B” in “DEBT.” (Adapted from Rumelhart, D. E., McClelland, J. L., and the PDP Research Group. [1986]. Parallel distributed processing. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, p. 8.)

Using Analogies as an Aid to Understanding

Analogies are pervasive in human thought. Whenever we are faced with a novel situation, we seek to understand it by reference to a known familiar one. When we think by analogy, we map the underlying structure of a known topic onto the target or unknown topic. This mental process is known as “structure mapping” (Wolff & Genter, 2011). Structure mapping assumes network-like representations of concepts in memory in which underlying structural relationships and surface attributes (physical characteristics) are coded along with each concept. For example, when we read that an atom is like a miniature solar system, the implication is that the solar system and the atom have similar relationships between their component parts—smaller bodies revolving around a larger one in fixed path patterns. Other aspects, such as surface similarity (e.g., the sun is hot and large and contains burning gases) are not implied. Analogies can be a useful tool in the comprehension and recall of scientific passages (Guerra-Ramos, 2011; Halpern, Hansen, & Riefer, 1990). Other examples that have been used to teach scientific concepts to elementary school students are (a) the function of enzymes is like a lock and key; (b) the heart is like a system of buckets and pumps; and (c) the circulatory system is like a railway. When students read technical passages that contained appropriate analogies to familiar topics, they scored higher on tests of comprehension and recall than a control group of students who read the same passage without the analogy.

All analogies and metaphors state that two concepts are alike in some way. Good analogies have similar underlying structures even when the topics are highly dissimilar. They maintain much of their underlying structure in the transfer from base (known) to target (unknown) domains, while surface features are of minimal importance. Poor analogies are ones in which only surface or superficial characteristics are similar. If I said that Myrtle is like milk because they both start with the letter m, I would be using a very poor analogy. Whenever you encounter an analogy, you need to consider the nature of the similarity relationship. Are the two concepts similar in their underlying structure so that relevant information about one concept can be used to understand the other concept, or is the similarity trivial?

Using Analogies as Problem-Solving Aids. What do you do when you are faced with a problem that has no obvious solution? I address this question in more detail in the chapter on problem solving, but one strategy that is appropriate to consider here is the use of a solution that is borrowed from a problem with a similar structure, often from a very different domain of knowledge. The conditions under which people do and do not recognize and use analogous solutions for problems from very distant domains of knowledge has been the subject of much research (e.g., Bearman, Ball, & Ormerod, 2007). In order for this strategy to “work,” the problem solver must recognize that the essential characteristics of the two problems are similar, despite the fact that the topics may be very different.

Consider, for example, the problem of bonding (gluing) two surfaces during dental surgery. All bonding substances require a dry surface for bonding, and the mouth is a wet environment. How can this problem be solved? The use of the small towels or “teeth driers” does not work well during oral surgery, which can involve profusive bleeding and the production of much saliva. Some creative dental surgeon looked for similar problems in other domains. He or she (I don’t know the identity of this unsung critical thinker) studied the way barnacles attach themselves to piers and other surfaces in the ocean. The adaptive barnacle displaces the water (sort of moves it aside) from the small area to which it (she or he?) is attaching. This displacement of fluids has been modified for use in dentistry. If you are like most people, you will agree that any discovery that makes dental surgery quicker and more successful is a welcome advance. In this example, the problem solver considered the similarities in the two problems of bonding in wet environments and then adapted a solution from one domain (barnacles in the ocean) to a very different one (dental bonding). In this way, an analogy was used to solve a problem.

Dunbar (2001) investigated the use of analogies in real-life settings where experts in a field solve real problems, not the artificial ones that cognitive psychologists create. He found very different results. Real experts involved in solving problems that are important to them use analogies that share “deep structural features” (p. 126). Scientists generate anywhere from between 3 to 15 analogies in a one-hour laboratory meeting, with the majority coming from the domain in which they are working. Dunbar concluded that analogies focusing on relational features are frequently used to help solve problems. More recent research found that novices can and do use analogies, and, like experts, they use them to solve problems and to illustrate a situation (Bearman et al., 2007). It seems that research done in laboratory settings underestimated the extent to which people use analogies as part of their everyday thinking.

Using Analogies to Persuade

Analogies prove nothing, but they make us feel right at home.

—Sigmund Freud (quoted in Rothy, 2009, p. 12)

In the classic movie, Dead Poets Society, the unlikely hero, Robin Williams, who plays a high school teacher of English, asks his class of young men, “What is the purpose of language?” After a short period of silence, a student yells out the obvious answer, “to communicate.” Of course, this is not the correct answer in the movie. The hero-English-teacher-character responds that the purpose of language is to “woo women.” An important point is made in this fictional exchange between student and teacher. The purpose of language is to persuade—to change how and what people think. We use language to persuade others to like or date us (as expressed in this movie), to alter or maintain political beliefs (e.g., capitalism is good), or to convince someone to make a purchase (e.g., a particular brand of jeans).

We frequently use analogies to persuade someone that X is analogous to Y, therefore what is true for X is also true for Y. A good example of this sort of “reasoning by analogy” was presented by Bransford, Arbitman-Smith, Stein, and Vye (1985). They described a legal trial in the book, Till Death Us Do Part (Bugliosi, 1978). Much of the evidence presented at the trial was circumstantial. The attorney for the defense argued that the evidence was like a chain, and like a chain, it was only as strong as its weakest link. He went on to argue that there were several weak links in the evidence; therefore, the jurors should not convict the accused. The prosecutor also used an analogy to make his point. He argued that the evidence was like a rope made of many independent strands. Several strands can be weak and break, and you will still have a strong rope. Similarly, even though some of the evidence was weak, there was still enough strong evidence to convict the accused. (The prosecutor won the case.)

Information found on a website for “persuasive litigators” reminds them that it is not easy for a judge or jury to forget or ignore an analogy “that seems to perfectly boil down the case” (Broda-Bahm, 2010, para. 1). The authors of this website offer this example, “A smoke detector that stops working due to a simple short circuit is like a life preserver that keeps you afloat until it gets wet.” Now suppose that you are on a jury deciding about the culpability of a company that made a smoke detector and that detector did not work properly because of a short circuit. Does this analogy make it more likely that you would award a larger amount of money to someone who was injured because of a faulty smoke detector? Of course, that is the intent of the analogy. The legal advisors who recommend the use of analogies wisely add that like all legal persuasion, and I would add all communication, the success of an analogy depends on how you use it.

Some analogies are just plain bad—sometimes hilariously funny. I have an unattributed email that claims to contain the winners of a high school contest for the “worst analogy.” I don’t know if there ever was such a contest, or if these are winning entries, but they are certainly worthy of that dubious honor. Here are two attributed to “unknown”: “Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever” and “The red brick wall was the color of a brick-red Crayola crayon.”

Politics seem to be a breeding ground for analogies. Rick Santorum, who campaigned to become the republican candidate for U.S. president in 2012, explained why voters who did not support him in the primary elections would vote for him for president: “I always tell the story about girls coming into the dance hall, walking past us and taking a turn with some other better-looking guys, and then at the end of the evening there’s old steady Eddie, who’s not flashy, but he’s the guy you know you want to take home to Mom and Dad” (2011). Along similar lines, consider the term “RINO,” which stands for Republican in Name Only. It is used to denigrate republican candidates that are more middle-of-the road (another analogy) in their politics. A commentator mused that “RINO has become an epithet of ideological enforcement, spit out in much the same way Mao cursed ‘running dog capitalists’” (Goldberg, 2011).

Analogies are useful thinking strategies in many different contexts. The deliberate use of analogies as an aid to solving problems and enhancing creativity is discussed in greater detail in later chapters.

Words and their Meanings

Eight years after resigning as president, Richard Nixon denied lying but acknowledged that he, like other politicians, had dissembled.

—Paul Ekman (1992, p. 25)

Is alcoholism an illness or is it the lack of will power by weak people who could stop drinking if they really wanted to? Is drunkenness a crime that requires punishment or a mental health condition that needs treatment? I have frequently been asked questions like these, especially by students who are worried about or disgusted with a loved one who has a drinking problem. There are many important aspects to this question. First, the answer to the question of whether alcoholism is an illness depends on how the term “illness” is defined, and more importantly, who gets to do the defining. Second, it is possible that alcoholism would fit a definition of illness and be controllable by the individual. The way this question is posed reveals many unstated assumptions by the person asking the question regarding the nature of illness and alcoholism. The ramifications of the way we classify alcoholism are important. If we decide that it is a disease, then it is destigmatized and treatment could be paid for medical insurance plans. If it is a criminal offense, then alcoholics can expect to “do” jail time, or at least fall under the criminal justice system. Medical insurance does not cover crimes. The answer to this vexing question has varied over different geographical locations and throughout history.

Words often have both cognitive and emotional meanings. If I name my brand of cookies “Mother’s Cookies,” then presumably I am activating some of the emotional attachment you feel towards your mother when you think about my cookies. Furthermore, if I believe that most people will have positive emotions towards their own mothers (at least when mentioned in the context of cookies), then “Mother’s Cookies” would be a good name for my cookies. Of course, you probably know that most store-bought cookies are baked in huge factories by people who may or may not be mothers. I suppose most people like to think that a mother-like figure or perhaps a group of playful elves are baking something tasty for them. The popularity of these marketing strategies suggests that it is good business to arouse positive emotional reactions toward a product.

Here’s a deliberate attempt to affect how people think about a military action by the words used to describe it. In 2011, several countries sent military troops to Libya, but no one was willing to use the term “war.” When asked, “Are we at war in Libya or not?” a spokesman for the U.S. President replied, “It’s not a war; it’s a frontloaded combat mission that’s obviously going to recede into a coalition” (quoted in Catapano, 2011, paras. 13–14).

Frazz by Jef Mallett. Used with permission by Universal Press Syndicate.

Definitions and the Control of Thought

Need Press? Repeat: “green,” “sex,” “secret” “fat.”

—Joanne Kaufman (June 30, 2008)

An amazing event occurred in 1973—millions of mentally ill people were suddenly cured! Well, not exactly. What happened was that the American Psychiatric Association removed “homosexuality” from its list of official mental disorders, with the result that the millions of homosexuals were no longer considered mentally ill. The American Psychiatric Association maintains the powerful position of deciding which categories of human behavior and emotion should be defined as mental illnesses by listing them in the official “handbook” of mental disorders, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM; American Psychiatric Association, 2013). This determines whether an individual will receive medical funding for treatment, whether a judge will decide to commit an individual to a mental facility or to a prison, and whether people label themselves and others as “normal.” There is a raging debate over proposed changes that appear in the 5th edition of the DSM. One proposal is that the diagnosis of autism be replaced with a range of disorders, which would relabel some disorders as a type of autism (American Psychiatric Association, 2012). Psychologists, psychiatrists, support groups, insurance companies, and many others are lining up to support or protest the changes. Labels are powerful.

Who decides what a word means? Consider the defense used by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in 2009. The story is somewhat complicated, but essentially concerned whether senior politicians can be exempt from prosecution. The lawyers for one of the billionaire politicians argued that “He is no longer first among equals, but ought to be considered first above equals. … The law is equal for everyone, but not always in its application” (quoted in The New York Times, October 12, 2009). This pronouncement soon became known as the “Animal Farm Defense” because of its similarity to the motto in George Orwell’s novel, “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.” I don’t know about you, but this defense makes me want to scratch my head and say, “huh!”

Terms that are heavily laden with emotional impact often elicit strong images. If you have already read the chapter on memory, then you recall (I hope) that imagery helps to maintain a concept in memory, a factor that is related to its ability to elicit strong emotions. This fact is well known by propagandists who want to convince the masses to act in extreme ways. In Mein Kampf, Adolph Hitler used expressions like “racial brew,” “purity of the blood,” “poisoning of the blood,” and “bastardization” in his successful attempt to convince millions of people to participate in the killing of millions of other people who differed from them in their religious beliefs. Hitler even offered the “final solution,” which means that he found a way to solve a problem: his solution was to massacre an entire religious group. It is interesting to note that the Nazis studied American advertising in the 1920s to develop their persuasive techniques. If you are thinking that no contemporary person would fall prey to such blatant tactics designed to increase racism, you have not read the papers lately.

Stop now and consider the way in which you would define the term “crime,” if you had the power to write the definitions.

* * *

(Did you really stop and try to define what you think the word “crime” should mean?) Don’t go on until you try this simple exercise.

According to Peck, there was a famous inmate in a federal jail, a gangster named Louis Lepke. In the cell next to his was a young conscientious objector from Iowa, named Lowell Naeve. Mr. Naeve tried to explain what a conscientious objector was to Mr. Lepke. Lepke replied incredulously, “You mean they put you in here for not killing?” (quoted in Peck, 1986, p. 146). Lepke then laughed and laughed. Did your definition of crime include the crime of refusing to go to war? Is Mr. Naeve a criminal?

Definitions are not static “truths.” Meanings change over time as a function of technological development, changing social mores, and a drift in the way words are used. However, it is not true that a word can mean anything that anyone wants it to. There is an advertisement in a large city newspaper for a plastic surgeon who “specializes in nose reduction, breast enlargement and reduction, liposuction, baggy eyes, weak chins, face lifts, and saddlebag thighs.” Putting aside the obnoxious idea that every body part needs “fixing,” this surgeon claims to be able to do it all. How, then, can he claim to be a “specialist?” The word is being misused to convey the idea that he has great depth of knowledge and experience in all aspects of plastic surgery. If he can perform many types of plastic surgery, he is a gen-eralist. By definition, he cannot specialize in everything.

The Power of Labels and Categories

As I sat with friends drinking coffee at my kitchen table, someone yelled, “Kill it, kill it!” as a very large bug darted across the floor. “Yuk, it’s a cockroach.” But on further inspection, we found that it was not a cockroach, but a “cute little cricket.” A friend scooped up the cricket in a paper cup and gently released it outdoors while my daughter ran after it trying to feed it lettuce and grass. Why was it disgusting and in need of immediate extermination when we believed it to be one type of bug—a cockroach—and cute and in need of saving when it turned out to be another—a cricket?

The process of categorization is essential in understanding the world and guiding our responses. When we see a bug, or a baby, or an old person, or a professor, we use our knowledge about the categories to which they belong to make inferences about how they are likely to act. We know that a baby will share some essential features with all babies. It will sometimes cry for reasons that we cannot understand; it will need to have its diaper changed; it will slobber and coo. Of course, every baby is unique, but, fortunately, we can use our knowledge of category membership to know something about every baby. This is fortunate because it reduces the load on memory and allows us to understand and predict what will happen when interacting with any baby. The process of categorization is an example of cognitive economy, which means that it is a process that reduces the mental workload and makes thinking less effortful. Instead of having to learn a set of new expectations for every stimulus with which we come in contact, we can use category membership to reduce the uncertainty in the situation.

Although categories are necessary in dealing with the large variety of objects in the world, they also can be the cause of serious errors. Not all members of a category are the same, and often a stimulus is miscategorized. Stereotypes result from several cognitive and noncognitive processes, but one clear reason that they persist is due to the effect of categorical thinking. Think about a racial or religious group that is different from your own. Describe the members of that group. You will find that general terms emerge that clearly do not apply to all group members, and may not even apply to any group members.

Prototypical Thinking

At the local baseball game, the final score was 8–9, yet no man on either team ever crossed home plate.

How is this possible?

You should be able to solve this riddle fairly easily because it has the same structure and answer as a riddle that I posed in the first chapter. I repeat it here to make a point. We tend to think in terms of prototypes or best examples of a category. Give up? The game was played in an all-women league. For those of you who could not solve this problem, it is probably because you automatically think of males when you think of baseball players, just as in the first chapter, many people did not think of a woman when the physician was described as a neurosurgeon. If you had heard the neurosurgeon puzzle before, did you recognize that the same principle was affecting your thinking when I changed the riddle so that it pertained to baseball players? Of course, you know that women play baseball, but this does not readily “come to mind.”

Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller. Used with permission by Universal Press Syndicate.

Although I have never met you, I already know a great deal about what and how you think. Let me demonstrate this with an exercise devised by Decyk (1994). For each of the following categories, give a good example. In fact, give the first example that comes to mind:

1. a bird

2. a color

3. a triangle (a picture is okay)

4. a motor vehicle

5. a sentence

6. a hero

7. a heroic action

8. a game

9. a philosopher

10. a writer

Are you finished? Here is a list of your most likely answers: 1. for a bird, you probably named a robin or sparrow, or possibly an eagle; 2. for a color, you most likely said red or blue; 3. for your triangle, you either drew or named an equilateral triangle; 4. for a motor vehicle, you probably listed a car; 5. for an example of a sentence, you probably wrote a short declarative sentence (e.g., The girl ran home.); 6. the hero you named is most likely one of the following males—Superman, Batman, or possibly a fireman; 7. the heroic action you named probably involved a single act by a male, such as a rescue by a fireman; 8. most likely you listed Monopoly as an example of a game, or some other board game; 9. for a philosopher, you probably named Socrates or Aristotle; 10. and finally, for a writer, you probably named Stephen King, but if you named someone else, it is very probably a White male author.

What is the point of this demonstration? People tend to think in terms of prototypes or “best examples” of a category. Our prototypes vary from culture to culture, but they are relatively standard within a culture. If you live in Australia, you might name a “kiwi” as an example of a bird, a response that would be very unusual for Americans or Chinese. Thinking in terms of prototypes biases how and what we think. When we think about members of a category, only the most typical exemplars (examples of a category) readily come to mind. Consider the implications of the finding that most people name only living White males as an example of a writer. It means that we carry a standardized “picture” or “definition” of those characteristics that writers share and these characteristics are restricted with regard to time, race, and sex. Of course, different answers would be expected from people from countries other than the United States or, possibly, other cultural groups within the same country. Most Russians would probably name Puskin, or less probably, Tolstoy or Chekhov, if they were asked to give an example of a writer. But, regardless of what the particular prototype is, the reliance on the most typical member of a category limits thinking. Few people will name an older person or a child or a dog when asked to think of a hero, yet old people and children and even dogs (e.g., Lassie) can and do perform heroic acts. The most commonly named philosophers are dead, Greek males. With prototypes like this, few people will “think of” philosophy as a popular, contemporary profession that is open to all ages and races.

Language: Tool or Master of Thought?

Learn a new language and get a new soul.

—Czech proverb

We use language not only to convey our thoughts, but also to mold and shape them. Language and thought are inextricably related concepts that exert mutual influences on each other. Some psychologists believe that language, at least in part, influences thought. Examples of this concept were presented earlier in this chapter in the section on labeling and the way labels affect how we think. The hypothesis that the language we use affects how we think is called the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of linguistic relativity, or more informally, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (Sapir, 1960; Whorf, 1956).

“How do I know what I mean until I see what I say?” (Miller, 1972, p. 43). In a humorous way, this question examines the relationship between thought and language. Although it seems clear to most people that our thoughts influence the language that we use, it is sometimes more difficult to understand the reciprocal nature of the relationship. Anthropologists and psychologists have studied whether people who speak different languages also think differently. Perhaps you have had the experience of translating a passage from one language to another and had difficulty conveying exactly the same meaning. Jokes are a good example of this. Ethnic jokes that are told in their native language frequently lose their humor when they are told in translation. Could this indicate that ways of thinking, as reflected in language, differ across cultures?

In 1984, George Orwell’s classic book, written in 1949, the author wrote about a repressive society that was able to control the thoughts of its citizenry by redefining some words and removing others from the language. By gaining control of the language, this futuristic society dictated which thoughts were possible and which were not. The Orwellian example is an extreme interpretation of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis that language absolutely determines thought. It is an alluring idea that language has power over the mind (Deutscher, 2010). According to this view, if a term does not exist within a language, speakers do not have the corresponding thought. It is the idea that your mother tongue restricts what you think. Do you believe that if the word “love” didn’t exist in our language, then people wouldn’t be able to feel the emotion represented by the word? Cross-cultural research that has examined the way different languages influence thought has not supported the strong version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (Rosch, 1977). Contemporary psychologists have concluded that “Whorf was half right” (Regier & Kay, 2009, p. 439): language influences but does not determine thinking. As an example of this, consider the following terms carefully and decide if each elicits a different thought: senior citizen; old man; golden-ager. Did each term connote a different thought? Did you think about a different type of person with each word? Most people agree that they did. (See Figure 3.4.).

The Direction and Misdirection of Thought

All words are pegs to hang ideas on.

—Henry Ward Beecher (1812–1887)
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit (cited in Drysdale, 1887, p. 33)

Figure 3.4 The words we use influence how we think. Compare the different thoughts that are evoked by the terms “senior citizen,” “old man,” and “golden-ager.”

Given that language will influence what we think, it is only a short leap to suggest that language can be used in deliberate ways to shape thinking so that it conforms to a particular ideology or point of view. It also seems likely that if we understand how language is used to direct how we think, then an awareness of the ways in which this occurs should help us to resist the automatic type of thinking that goes along with an uncritical approach to communication.

Emotional Language and Name Calling

Slurs are uniquely and stubbornly resistant to attempts to neutralize their power to hurt or offend.

—Ernie Lepore (2010, para. 3)

As described in the earlier section on labeling, the same event can be described in several different ways. Yet, the words we use to describe an event are not interchangeable in the meaning they convey. Language that is highly emotional has a different effect on readers and listeners than more mundane ways of conveying the intended meaning. This is the weaker version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis—while language may not determine thought, it directs, and sometimes misdirects, it. Consider the heated debate between those for and against abortion. The faction opposed to abortion realized that it is better to be for something than against something and therefore decided to call their stance “pro-life” rather than “anti-choice.” On the other side, those who favored abortion certainly didn’t want to be called “anti-life” and decided to label their stance “pro-choice.” They hoped that people would think differently about a position that is “pro-choice” than they would about one that is “anti-life.” Of course, the position has not changed—only its label or name has changed, but presumably the way the position is labeled influences how people think about it. One “pro-lifer” told a colleague that the best way to win a debate on this topic is to use frequently the words “kill” and “baby” in the same sentence (Kahane, 1992). The juxtaposition of these two words is sure to bring about an emotional response.

Another example of the deliberate choice of words to create a carefully planned impression concerns the “rewriting” of history. All history texts (indeed, everything) were written by someone with a particular point of view. Recently, the word “aggression” was taken out of Japanese history books that described World War II invasions. Do the same descriptions of an act seem “better” in some sense when they are not modified by the word “aggressive?” The contemporary Japanese historians who asked for this deletion apparently think so. Similarly, Russian historians are now using harsher terms to describe Stalin’s role when he was the leader of the former Soviet Union. They now know and are free to say that Stalin slaughtered millions of innocent Russians whose “crime” was to disagree with his policies. Such people were officially labeled “enemies of the state,” a label that was meant to instill fear in the individual who received such a label and to convey to everyone else that disagreement with Stalin’s official policies would be considered an act of treason.

The lesson is clear: when you want to influence how people think, choose your words carefully. You also need to be aware of the ways in which other people attempt to manipulate your thoughts by the labels they use. The deliberate use of words designed to create a particular attitude or foster certain beliefs is called semantic slanting. The meaning or semantics is slanted so that the listener’s thoughts will be directed in some way. It is fairly easy to find examples of this around election time when issues and groups label themselves with favorable terms and others with negative terms (name calling). Be wary of attempts to influence your thinking through the use of positive and negative labels, especially on the important issues that concern social and political policies. I received a political solicitation that may be among the most blatantly slanted in the choice of words that it used. The outside of the envelope read, “The bloated, blathering bottom-feeders of big government hope that you’ll never uncover these secrets.” For some reason, I didn’t expect to find reasoned and impartial information inside the envelope. Would you?

Ambiguity, Vagueness, and Equivocation

The thinking process can also be misled when words are imprecise or misused. Words are ambiguous when they can have multiple meanings depending on context, and the appropriate meaning is unclear in a given context. Although ambiguous words have multiple meanings, vague words have imprecise meanings. Vagueness refers to a lack of precision in a communication. Consider the “clarification” provided by Justice Brennan of the U.S. Supreme Court when he provided a working definition that would assist those in the legal process of determining the sort of punishment that is cruel and unusual. As you probably know, punishment that is cruel and unusual is prohibited by the U.S. Constitution. But, we have little guidance for determining what makes a punishment cruel and unusual. He offered, “a punishment is cruel and unusual … if it does not comport with human dignity.” Such a definition will not help a judge or jury decide whether a particular punishment is cruel and unusual. Justice Brennan’s comments are much too vague to be useful. It is not any easier to determine which actions do not comport with human dignity than it is to decide if they are cruel and unusual. A communication is vague if it does not specify enough details for its intended purpose.

There is legislation in California that requires that warning notices be posted in all places where the public may come in contact with cancer causing chemicals. The sign designed for gas stations is shown in Figure 3.5.

As you can see, the signs are too vague to be of value. There is no information about the level of risk, or the likelihood of developing cancer, or how long you would have to be exposed to these chemicals to reach some level of risk. There is no way to use this information to make a meaningful decision about whether the risk is so high the area should be avoided. This is a clear example of a deliberately unclear communication. The gasoline companies were opposed to this law and have registered their complaint by posting the required signs but not providing the public with interpretable information.

Figure 3.5 An example of vagueness. California law requires that warning signs be posted in all places where consumers come in contact with cancer-causing chemicals. Signs like this one are being used at all gas stations. The information they convey is too vague to be meaningful.

Vagueness is sometimes a socially polite way of handling an unpleasant situation. If you ask someone about her divorce you may get a vague response like, “We were incompatible” rather than a more precise, but less acceptable, “The stinking rat cheated every chance he could get.”

Equivocation occurs when the meaning of a word is changed in the course of the same discussion, and thus is different from ambiguity or vagueness. Consider the following “line of reasoning”: (Reasoning will be considered more fully in the next chapter.)

1. Man is the only rational animal.

2. No woman is a man.

3. Therefore, no woman is rational. (Damer, 1987)

The meaning of the word “man” changed from the first to the second sentence. In the first sentence, “man” stood for all of humanity—both female and male. In the second sentence, it was used as a sex specific term, with females conveniently omitted.

There is a classic comedy sketch by Abbott and Costello called “Who’s on First?” In this sketch, Abbott names the players on a baseball team. The name of the player on first base is “Who.” Costello repeatedly asks the name of the player on first base. Abbott responds, “Who is on first base.” You can imagine how they go back and forth asking, “Who is on first base?” and getting the response that “Who is on first base.”

Etymology and Reification

These two terms both concern word meanings. Etymology is the study of word origins. It is often interesting to learn how language evolved and developed. However, it is wrong to conclude that a word has a particular meaning or nuance based on the word from which it was derived. Consider, for example, the use of the word “gay” to refer to homosexual men. The word is commonly used today to denote pride and other positive attributes of male homosexuals. The origin of the word was quite different. The word “gay” was derived from a definition meaning “wanton and licentious.” It would be wrong to conclude that gays are therefore wanton and licentious. Language is a living entity and word definitions evolve and change. Returning to a word’s origins to find its contemporary meaning is like studying the writings of Karl Marx to understand how modern communism is practiced in Cuba.

Reification is a more difficult concept to explain. Reification occurs when something abstract is given a name and then treated as though it were a concrete object. Consider the idea of “mother nature.” You have probably heard the saying that you cannot fool mother nature. We tend to treat the idea of a human force of nature as though it had a physical reality when it is an abstract concept. There is no “mother nature” or “father nature” for that matter. Perhaps the most obvious case of reification involves the concept of intelligence, where intelligence tests yield “IQ” scores that are said to measure it, and then IQ is used as though it were the physical embodiment of intelligence.

Bureaucratese and Euphemism

Two language barriers to comprehension are bureaucratese and euphemism. Bureaucratese is the use of formal, stilted language that is unfamiliar to people who lack special training. The same information can be expressed better with simpler terms. Bureaucratese is different from the use of precise technical terms that may be needed in specialized disciplines; in bureaucratese, the style and language hinders our understanding instead of aiding it. The legal profession is often guilty of bureaucratese. I once read a legal document that began with the term “Witnesseth.” Of course, I questioned what meaning was being conveyed with the use of this term, which is standard on many legal forms. The answer was, “very little.” It could have been deleted altogether or replaced with “Notice” or “Read this document,” both of which would have been more meaningful than the obscure “Witnesseth.” Ditto for other obscure terms like “party of the first part” and “party of the second part,” not to mention the archaic Latinisms that riddle the law (e.g., “ex parte” and “corpus delecti”).

Euphemism is the substitution of a desirable term for a less desirable or offensive one. Although there is nothing inherently wrong with polite conversation, the result is often a loss of communication. Euphemism is common in hospital and medical facilities where bodily functions need to be discussed. Hospital personnel may ask a patient if he has “voided his bladder.” Many patients do not realize that this refers to urination. In fact, it has been shown that a majority of patients do not understand the language that is commonly used in their interactions with medical staff. Many patients do not understand words like “malignant,” “benign,” “terminal,” and “generic.” You can imagine a solemn physician telling a patient that she is “terminal,” with the patient then brightly inquiring when she will get better. It is easy to see how the use of euphemisms can lead to misunderstandings.

Euphemisms abound in advertisements of all sorts. Do “bathroom tissue” and “feminine hygiene products” seem more desirable and glamorous than toilet paper and menstrual pads? Euphemisms often obscure the intended meaning. Although polite speech is a necessary rule of society, euphemistic terms that are not commonly used interfere with the communication of ideas and thus should be avoided.

Euphemisms are designed to change the effect or emotion that we feel when we confront topics that we may find repugnant. The idea is that feelings will be less negative if a phenomenon is given a more acceptable name. For example, many people have complained that “beauty pageants,” like the “Miss America Pageant,” are demeaning to its participants whose value is determined by their appearance—much like a horse or cow at an auction. Officials and sponsors of these pageants disagree. They argue that these pageants are opportunities for the contestants to demonstrate their talents and to win money and other prizes that can be used to finance an education or to launch a career. Those who believe that such displays are demeaning reply that the bathing suit competition, in which women march around in skimpy bathing suits and high-heeled shoes, should not be a requirement for scholarship money for a college education. In recognition of the fact that a contestant’s appearance when clad in scanty clothing probably is unrelated to her talent, academic potential, or scholarship, the officials of the Miss America Pageant decided to remedy this situation. They renamed the competition. Women still parade in scanty swimsuits and high heels, but now it is called “health and fitness in a swimsuit” (Leive, 1994). This is a strange euphemism for the portion of the competition that leads the contestants to resort to starvation diets and plastic surgery—neither of which promotes health and fitness.

Probably the biggest perpetuators of euphemisms are politicians. In response to public protests over tax increases, we now have “revenue enhancement” bills, and sex education classes are often called “family education.” One of my favorite examples is in the change of a class title that was offered in a junior high school. Based on the idea that boys as well as girls need to know about cooking, nutrition, and similar topics, a teacher offered a course called, “home economics for boys.” It had zero enrollment. She then got wise and retitled the course, “bachelor living.” So many boys wanted to take the class with this new name, there was a waiting list. With very little effort, you should be able to find other examples where the change of a label changed how people think.

The Perils of Polite Speech

Politeness taxes mental resources and creates confusion as to what is truly meant.

—Jean-Francoise Bonnefon, Aidan Feeney, and Wim De Neys (2011)

The popular writer Malcolm Gladwell (2008) tells about a fatal plane crash that was caused when the second pilot used overly polite language to tell the first pilot that there was a dangerous amount of ice on the wing of their airplane. Politeness can obscure the true meaning, tax the limits of working memory, and in high-stakes conditions, cause a disaster (Bonnefon, Feeney, & De Neys, 2011, p 322). Consider this hypothetical exchange between two workers:

First worker says: “If the water level is low, the machine stops.”

Second worker replies: “If the oil level is low, the machine stops.”

When the stakes are high, it is important to communicate clearly—more important than leaving the meaning harder to interpret with the use of polite statements.

Framing with Leading Questions and Negation

Framing occurs when a question is asked is a way that suggests what the correct response should be. The reader is “led” into assuming a particular perspective or point of view.

Consider the following problem:

Imagine that the U.S. is preparing for the outbreak of an unusual disease, which is expected to kill 600 people. Two alternative programs to combat the disease have been proposed. Assume that the exact scientific estimate of the consequences of the programs are as follows:

If Program A is adopted, 200 people will be saved.
If Program B is adopted, there is 1/3 probability that 600 people will be saved, and 2/3 probability that no people will be saved.
Which of the two programs would you favor? (Tversky & Kahneman, 1981, p. 453)

Now consider the same problem, and select between the following two programs:

If Program C is adopted, 400 people will die.
If Program D is adopted there is 1/3 probability that nobody will die, and 2/3 probability that 600 people will die.
Which of these two programs would you favor?

When this problem was presented to college students, 72% of those given the first set of choices selected Program A, while 78% of those given the second set of choices selected Program D. Look closely at the choices. Program A and C are effectively identical—they differ only in that A is described in terms of the numbers of lives saved, while C is described in terms of the number who will die. Program B and D are also identical, differing only in the language used to describe the outcomes. It seems that most people are risk adverse, which means that they prefer options that do not involve loss. When an alternative makes a potential loss prominent (e.g., focuses on the number that die), people will reject that alternative. It is clear that when an option is stated in terms of a loss, it is judged more negatively than a mathematically identical statement about gains. This is an important result, showing that human judgments and preferences can be readily manipulated by changes in the way questions are asked or framed. If I tell you that a new medical treatment has a 50% success rate you will be more likely to endorse its use than if I tell you that it has a 50% failure rate. The only difference is whether the information was presented in a positive (success rate) frame or a negative (failure rate) frame (Halpern & Blackman, 1985; Halpern, Blackman, & Salzman, 1989).

Framing can be used to influence thinking in many different contexts, so its effects can be powerful. If you understand how they work, you can use framing to your advantage and recognize when others are using it to their advantage. Suppose you are interviewing for a job and you have gotten to the “sticky” issue of negotiating salary. If you said to the prospective employer that you really wanted $50,000 a year, but you are willing to take $45,000, the employer begins to see this offer as a gain of $5000. Similarly, if the prospective employer were to say that she was ready to offer $40,000 but is willing to go as high as $45,000 (after all you studied critical thinking and should be worth more salary), then you would have the “feeling” of having gained $5000.

Salespeople know that leading questions can be good for business. If I am showing you some household items, a good sales technique is to ask, “How many will you take?” The assumption here is that the sale is made, and it is only a matter of how many you will buy, not whether you will buy. Similarly, a car salesperson who is ready to “close the deal” will ask, “What color do you want?” This question makes it clear that you have already decided that you will buy the car and the only decision left is that of color.

Advertisers and merchants like to price their wares in uneven amounts, like $19.99 and $24.95. Have you ever wondered why they don’t simplify matters and price garments to the nearest dollar so that $19.99 would become $20.00 and $24.95 would become $25.00? The frame or perspective being induced here is one of considering the price as “less than $20.00.” Of course, the one-cent difference is negligible, but it does seem to change how people think about the price.

Listeners can also be framed or misled with negation. Suppose you read that a prominent politician is not a drunk. Suppose further that this is absolutely true; she is not a drunk. Most people would infer that there was some question about her sobriety and the truth of the assertion. The pragmatic function of negation is to deny something that is plausible (Carroll, 1986). Thus, listeners will infer the plausibility of that which was denied. President Richard Nixon hadn’t considered this psycholinguistic principle when he uttered the now famous words in response to his Watergate debacle, “I am not a crook.” Most people took this to mean that it is plausible that he is a crook. Thus, the denial of some act often has the paradoxical result that people now believe it is more likely to be true than they would have if no denial had been made.

Contrast and Context

Are you making a good salary? How is your health? Is the new love in your life intelligent and kind? Do you approve of the current president? The way you are likely to answer all of these questions depends on what you are comparing them to and the context in which the comparison is being made. Contrast and context provide meaning to cognitive activities like judging and evaluating. In a classic study, Parducci (1968) asked subjects to decide how bad it is to “pocket the tip which the previous customers left for the waitress.” Half the subjects were asked to judge this event along with the following mild infractions: stealing a loaf of bread from a store when you are starving; playing poker on Sunday; cheating at solitaire. The other half of the subjects were asked to judge the same event (pocketing the tip which the previous customers left for the waitress) along with the following infractions: spreading rumors that an acquaintance is a sexual pervert; putting your deformed child in the circus; murdering your mother without justification or provocation.

Taking a waitress’ tip was judged to be a more serious offense when it was presented along with milder infractions than when it was presented among a list of serious infractions. The event (pocketing a tip) was exactly the same in each case, and the wording was identical. Changes in the context in which it was presented created changes in the way it was evaluated. Context is an important determinant of the meaning we assign to events. This principle is used quite well in the letter that is reprinted from a delightful book by Cialdini (1993) and shown in Figure 3.6.

Figure 3.6 This fictitious letter is a good example of the use of context to influence judgments of “how bad” different events are perceived. From Cialdini, R. B. (1993). Influence: Science and Practice (3rd edition). HarperCollins: NY.

Contrast can be used effectively in a wide range of situations. For example, Zimbardo and Leippe (1991) offer this advice when you want to borrow money from a friend or parent. They suggest that you first ask for a large sum that you are fairly certain will be refused. (Hey, can you loan me $75?) Follow this by asking for the smaller sum that you really need. (No, well, how about $25?) They found that you are more likely to receive the smaller amount when it follows a large request than when it is requested without the larger request being made first. Zimbardo and Leippe reported that charitable contributions are also more likely when the requestor asks for any amount—“even a penny will help.” When solicitors for charities request “even a penny,” people are more likely to give larger sums of money to the charity than to charitable appeals that do not emphasize that “even small amounts will help.”

Anchoring

When we have little basis for making a meaningful decision, we often rely on whatever information is available, even when we know it is probably worthless. For example, compare these two questions (from Mussweiler & Strack, 2000; values listed have been changed to reflect current pricing):

Is the average price of a new car higher or lower than $45,000?

Is the average price of a new car higher or lower than $14,000?

You probably answered lower to the first question and higher to the second. Now, suppose I ask you to estimate the price of the average new car. If you had only been asked the first question, you are likely to give a higher estimate than if you had only been asked the second question. The price asked served as an anchor—a figure that you used as a beginning point or comparison for making your estimate. Anchors influence our thinking, but they operate without conscious awareness unless we are vigilant for them. Suppose you are judging something important like the severity of a crime. Think how you might respond to “Should the defendant serve life in jail without the possibility of parole?” compared to “Should the defendant be sentenced to three years on probation and community service?” Without knowing anything else, like the nature of the crime, can you see that most people would use these examples of sentences as anchors and tend to suggest much more severe sentences if they are asked the first sentence than if they are asked the second?

Anchors create reference points that are misleading, and sometimes, irrelevant to a decision. There are many experimental and real-world examples of the way anchors influence how we think. For example, an investor might see a stock drop in price from $20 to $14 (Lee, 2011). If he focuses on the $20 price, he is likely to conclude that the stock is undervalued at $14, when it fact, the $20 price may have been overvalued. The correct way to think about the stock price is to estimate what it is likely to be worth “going forward.”

Have you ever wondered why solicitations for charities or political organizations have check boxes that you are supposed to check to indicate the amount of your contribution? Almost always, the highest values are listed first. The next time you receive a solicitation, look at the reply card. It is likely to read something like: ___ $1000 ___ $500 ___ $200 ___ $100

The implied message is clear—start by thinking about giving us $1000. The high start rate should anchor your contributions so that they will be closer to $1000 than they would have been without these suggested levels of “giving.”

Here’s a compelling example of the power of anchors. To start, write down the last two digits of your social security number. Now suppose that I ask you how much you are willing to pay for a bottle of rare wine or a wireless keyboard. Guess what? According to Ariely (2003), a psychologist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the number that you just wrote down influences how much you are willing to pay. Graduate students who participated in this study were willing to pay more money if they had high social security numbers (which could range from 00 to 99) than those with lower social security numbers, even though these students were reminded that the last two digits of a social security number are assigned at random. Yet, once they were written down, they created an anchor or starting point for deciding how much to pay for things where their market value is difficult to predict.

Barometers of Thought

Public opinion polls are often used to provide information to policy makers who want to sample from a population of interest to infer how the population will react to some action like a tax cut or a military response in a troubled place in the world. Suppose they you want to know how average American citizens will think about a controversial issue. It is impossible to provide a straight-forward answer to the question, “What do Americans think?” Not only is there the obvious problem that Americans are quite diverse in their thinking, there is also the problem of assessing what any individual thinks. The kind of answers that people give to opinion questions depends on the way the questions are asked. Politicians and their supporters conduct “push polls” that are designed to lead respondents to respond in certain ways (Schwartz, 2007).

Consider these questions (Herbers, 1982):

“Suppose the budgets of your state and local governments have to be curtailed, which of these parts would you limit most severely?”

When one choice was “public welfare programs” 39% of the respondents selected it for cutting.

When one choice was “aid to the needy” only 8% of the respondents selected it for cutting.

The difference is in how this choice was framed. What do you associate with “public welfare programs” and what do you associate with “aid to the needy?” Can you see how easily our thoughts can be influenced by the way a situation is framed?

It is fairly easy to deliberately slant the results of an opinion poll by carefully selecting wording that will favor one position or another. In fact, it may not be possible to find any wording that would be unbiased. Try this one for yourself:

Are you in favor of a national program that ensures good quality, affordable day care for infants and young children whose parents work outside of the home?
YES NO NO OPINION

Are you in favor of programs that are paid for with your tax dollars that place infants and young children in child care institutions for 9 to 10 hours each day?
YES NO NO OPINION

This is another example of how easy it can be to present data to Congress and other decision-making bodies that either support or refute the idea that most Americans are in favor of or opposed to a program of national day care. Before you interpret the results from any poll or respond to one, consider very carefully the way in which the questions were posed. What sort of background information was given and what words were used? Try to create different frames when you are presented with opinion polls or similar types of information. If a different frame leads you to think about the topic in a different way, then try to find a neutral way to ask yourself about the topic. We can become aware of framing effects and we can find ways to minimize their effects.

Comprehension: The Reason for Language

Language is the first medium of the rational mind.

—Geraldine Ferguson (1981, p. 120)

A student once told me that despite the fact that she really wanted to understand the material in her textbook, she found that the information went “in one eye and out the other.” In other words, it “didn’t stick” or seem to involve her brain at all. Although her “eyes” read every word, she was unable to understand or remember the material. We can sympathize with her since we have all had this experience at one time or another. Comprehension failures often result from the language used to express an idea and not from the difficulty of the idea itself. Good teachers know how to communicate complex ideas so that they can be easily understood, while poor teachers could talk or write for days without conveying the ideas to their students.

Strategies for Comprehension

What can you do to enhance your ability to comprehend? There are many comprehension strategies or skills designed to help make information that is presented in natural (everyday) language more understandable. These strategies aid in discovering, retaining, and utilizing the information in speech and written prose. They all involve ways of building a meaningful representation that matches the one used by the “sender” (i.e., speaker or writer).

The process of comprehension may be best described with an analogy. Imagine that a friend has a large jungle gym (child’s climbing toy) in his back yard, and that he is giving it to you as a present. Because it is too large to transfer in its assembled state, you need to take it apart to move it to your home. Once you get it home, you need to reassemble it. To do so, you have to identify which part is the base and then add component parts to it. When it is reassembled, it should look the same as it did in your friend’s yard.

The same is true of comprehension. If your friend has a complex knowledge structure in his head (think back to associative networks as explained in the memory chapter), he would transfer the information to you via language. You would have to identify the main ideas (or base) in order to build your own mental representation. You would also have to understand the relationships between the parts of the information so that you can graft them onto the main ideas in the correct way. Comprehension is attained when your knowledge structure “looks the same as” the one your friend has in his head. In other words, you would both have the same underlying representation for the transferred information. All comprehension strategies are activities that aid in the transfer of underlying structures. They provide guides for identifying main ideas and determining the relevance of various components of the message. They assist the comprehender in discovering the underlying relationships between the constituent parts of the message.

What do you do when you comprehend a passage? Most people respond that they have no idea what they do to aid their understanding, yet they can say what they do when they study. Remember, any cognitive activity that aids comprehension will also aid memory, so any effective comprehension strategy is also a memory strategy.

Re-representation

In understanding complex phenomena—anything ranging from planetary motions to our beliefs about racial and ethnic groups—we rely on mental models. These models are connected knowledge structures that help us to make sense out of our experiences. They guide what we see, how we interpret events, and how we remember them. For example, if I believe that boys are more aggressive than girls, then I may interpret a scuffle on the playground between two boys as being more aggressive than the same scuffle if it had involved two girls. In addition, I may remember details that are consistent with this interpretation (e.g., torn clothing) even when they did not occur. It seems that we are often more likely to alter our memory for events in ways that are consistent with our mental models than we are to alter the models. Our goal is to maintain models or beliefs about the world that are as accurate as possible, but it seems that we are better at preserving faulty mental models than we are at altering them to reflect true experiences.

Questioning and Explaining

Good thinkers are good questioners.

—Alison King (1994, p. 18)

The best-known technique for studying from text is based on the process of asking good questions about the material being read and then demonstrating comprehension by answering the questions. Psychologists have found that when college students respond to questions during a lecture (as compared to a control group that is given statements about the correct answer), they have better memory for the information and are better able to transfer what they learned (Campbell & Mayer, 2009). When students generate and answer their own questions about a text, their comprehension and recall improves (e.g., Wilson & Smetana, 2011).

Recent research has shown that repeated testing, particularly when the test requires the generation of information, enhances learning. This practice produces gains in understanding and memory when the tests are aligned with important content (Karpicke & Roediger, 2007; Roediger, Agarwal, McDaniel, & McDermott, 2011). According to standard “memory trace” theories of how people remember, the act of remembering strengthens some memory traces and weakens, or perhaps fails to strengthen, others, a fact that should influence how we test students. There are complex mathematical models and functions that describe the course of remembering (or forgetting) over time (Anderson et al., 2004; Oberauer & Lewandowsky, 2011). The single most important variable in promoting long-term retention and transfer is “practice at retrieval”—students need to generate responses, with minimal retrieval cues, repeatedly over time. For example, one of the headings for this section of text is “strategies for comprehension.” A good question that you should be able to answer when you finish this section is, “What are some strategies for comprehension, and how do they work?” If you can’t answer this question with the book closed when you finish this section, then you do not know the information presented. A good question for this subsection on “questioning and explaining” is, “How are questioning and explaining used to improve comprehension?”

King (1989, 1992; King, Staffieri, & Adelgais, 1998) conducted a series of studies that clearly demonstrate the value of reciprocal peer questioning, a technique in which learners learn to pose thoughtful questions that they then take turns answering. She concluded that the ability to ask thoughtful questions is a skill that needs to be learned because most people tend to ask “low level” simple recall questions (e.g., What is the date of … Who did …) and not those that require a meaningful analysis of complex information if they are not trained in the formulation of thoughtful questions. King has devised a series of generic questions, which can be used with modifications in almost any context. Look at the generic questions that are presented in Table 3.1.

Table 3.1: A list of generic questions provided by King (1994). These question stems can be used in almost any context. Research has shown that comprehension and memory are improved when students learn to ask and answer thoughtful questions based on these stems. More importantly, students use these generic questions in novel contexts, showing that transfer of critical thinking skills occurs when students understand that transfer is the goal of activities that improve thinking.

Generic Questions	Specific Thinking Skills Induced
What is a new example of … ?	Application
How could … be used to … ?	Application
What would happen if … ?	Prediction/hypothesizing
What are the implications of … ?	Analysis/inference
What are the strengths and weaknesses of … ?	Analysis/inference
What is … analogous to?	Identification and creation of analogies and metaphors
What do we already know about … ?	Activation of prior knowledge
How does … affect … ?	Activation of relationship (cause–effect)
How does … tie in with what we learned before?	Activation of prior knowledge
Explain why …	Analysis
Explain how …	Analysis
What is the meaning of … ?	Analysis
Why is … important?	Analysis of significance
What is the difference between …and … ?	Comparison–contrast
How are … and … similar?	Comparison–contrast
How does … apply to everyday life?	Application to the real world
What is the counterargument for … ?	Rebuttal argument
What is the best … and why?	Evaluation and provision of evidence
What are some possible solutions to the problem of … ?	Synthesis of ideas
Compare … and … with regard to …	Comparison–contrast
What do you think causes … ? Why?	Analysis of relationship (cause–effect)
Do you agree or disagree with this statement: … ?	Evaluation and provision of evidence
What evidence is there to support your answer?
How do you think … would see the issue of … ?	Taking other perspectives

When learners completed these questions using information from a lecture or text, they showed better recall and comprehension than control groups who were instructed to study independently, engage in group discussions, generate summaries, or ask questions without training in how to ask good questions (King, 1992, 1994). More importantly, King found that when students become proficient at using higher-level questioning, they spontaneously ask these questions in a variety of other learning situations. These studies provide further support for the conclusion that I presented in the first chapter: critical thinking skills transfer to novel contexts when instruction emphasizes the need to practice and use these skills in many contexts. Thus, there are very strong indications that you can improve your comprehension and memory by using the generic questions that appear in Table 3.1. Here are some examples applied to the information in this chapter:

How does context affect judgment?

Compare underlying structure with surface structure with regard to their role in the process of communication.

Explain how analogies can be useful in enhancing comprehension.

How does anchoring apply to everyday life?

What is the difference between ambiguity and vagueness?

What is the meaning of the term “generic questions?”

Can you answer these questions?

Concept Maps

An oft-repeated theme in this book is to utilize both verbal and spatial-like strategies as thinking aids. Concept Maps, sometimes called graphic organizers, are spatial arrays that require learners to attend explicitly to the underlying structure in a passage. They can provide a picture of a learner’s knowledge structures and show the way in which new information is incorporated into information that is already known. Mayer (1987) calls the deliberate use of graphic organizers “structure training techniques” because they force the learner to focus on the structure of a text. Recent reviews found that drawing concept maps is a more effective method for facilitating recall than creating lists or outlines (Nesbit & Adesope, 2006). Concept maps can reflect what a learner is learning by starting with a simple map and then elaborating on it over time as learning occurs. There are several varieties of concept maps, but all of them use spatial representations to make efficient use of the information in a text.

Linear Arrays

Sometimes, the best way to understand a topic is to represent the information in a linear array. This is useful when the information presented is fairly linear or straight-line-like in its structure. An example of this would be a very simple “line” of events occurring one after the other: The girl hit the boy. He started to cry. The teacher heard the boy’s cry. She ran into the room. She punished the girl. The girl was sent to the principal’s office. Etc. This rather boring story is a straightforward sequence of events that followed each other in a strict temporal ordering. A simple linear representation would adequately capture all of the relevant information.

| girl hit boy

| boy cried

| teacher arrived

| teacher punished girl

| girl to principal’s office

↓ etc.

Another example when a modified linear array would be a good choice of representation is in representing any parts or processes that are aligned linearly in the physical world. Vaughan (1984) taught medical students how to utilize graphic organizers when learning from medical texts. The digestive system is aligned in a fairly linear manner beginning with the mouth and ending with the rectum. Students who read about the digestive system listed the parts of the digestive system in linear order and noted along with each part its purposes in the digestive process and its components. The resulting linear array is shown in Figure 3.7. Vaughan reported that the medical students who learned to use graphic organizers like this one showed significant improvement in their comprehension of medical school texts.

Figure 3.7 Modified linear array depicting the purposes and parts of the digestive system. A linear array is a good spatial arrangement for this information because, like the array, the digestive system is linear. Adapted from Vaughan (1984).

Time lines that are commonly used in history are helpful in providing a visual picture of and appreciation for time spans and the co-occurrence of events. When the distance between events is proportional to the time between their occurrence, a much more accurate understanding of the importance of time as the key underlying dimension of history is possible than with any verbal description.

Hierarchies

Most of the information we deal with is considerably more complex than simple linear chains. An alternative structural form for information is that of hierarchies or tree structures in which information is organized around class inclusion rules. Class inclusion rules are those rules in which something is a part of or a type of something else. Examples of class inclusion rule are the classification of toes as part of the foot and roses as a type of flower. Information of this sort can usually be categorized into levels with higher levels dividing into lower levels according to some rule. Biological classification systems are a good example of hierarchically organized information. Bower (1970) studied organizational factors in memory using hierarchically arranged information about minerals. Figure 3.8 depicts this hierarchy. Bower found that when subjects organized information this way, they had significantly better recall than a group of control subjects. He also found that when a “node” or branch of the hierarchy was forgotten, subjects failed to recall the entire portion of the “tree” that was below it. I’ll be returning to these results later in this book in the chapter on problem solving because hierarchies or tree diagrams are sometimes used as problem-solving aids.

Networks

The relationships between ideas in a communication are not usually based on simple class inclusion rules. Concepts can be related to each other in numerous other ways, and it is the depiction of the correct relationship between concepts that is central to all graphic organizing techniques. Networks are graphic organizers in which several different types of relationships are made explicit. Much of the work in this area has been conducted by Dansereau and his colleagues. He developed a training manual and program for counselors in substance abuse programs where concept maps (he calls them guide maps) are used to create treatment plans and to assess progress in the program (Dees & Dansereau, 2000). He found that these maps promote organized thinking in the messy real world of drug treatment.

Figure 3.8 Hierarchy of minerals. An example of a hierarchical graphic organizer. Hierarchies are particularly useful when the information is organized according to class inclusion rules. Adapted from Bower (1970).

When students learn the technique of networking, they are taught to focus on and identify six different types of relationships or links between concepts (Holley et al., 1979; Dansersau, 1995). Two of these relationships are the class inclusion rules of hierarchies: X is a part of Y (e.g., France is a part of Europe), and X is a type of Y (e.g., mangoes are a type of fruit). The third relationship is called a leads to link. This type of relationship occurs whenever X leads to Y (e.g., stealing leads to jail). The other three relationships or links are analogy, X is like Y (e.g., a paw is like an arm); characteristic, X is a characteristic or feature of Y (e.g., brilliance is a characteristic of diamonds); and evidence, X is evidence that Y occurred (e.g., antibodies are evidence of infection). These six relationships are described more fully in Table 3.2.

The relationships are then depicted in a network-like array with all of the relationships labeled. There are many studies showing the benefits of using concept maps to improve recall and critical thinking about complex topics (Wilgis & McConnell, 2008).

An example of a completed network is shown in Figure 3.9. The network shows the relationships between concepts in a nursing text on wounds. Look carefully at this figure. “Types of wounds” and the “process of healing” are parts of the discussion of wounds. “Open,” “closed,” “accidental,” and “intentional” are types of wounds. In the process of healing, the “lag phase” leads to the “fibroplasia phase” which leads to the contraction phase. “Soft, pink, and friable” is a characteristic of tissue continuity. The other two types of relationships, analogy and evidence, are not used in this network.

Identification and use of these six types of relationships or links and their combination in a unified network requires considerable practice. This is an effortful strategy, which, like some of the mnemonic techniques, pays off once it is well learned. Holley et al. (1979) found that when subjects were well trained in this technique, they performed significantly better on subsequent tests than control students who did not learn this technique, with the biggest improvement for students with low grade point averages. It seems that the students who were doing very well in school were already attending to the relationships between concepts. Then it was the poorer students who benefited most from explicit instruction and practice in identifying, labeling, and diagramming the relationships between concepts.

Table 3.2

Note. This table is adapted from Holley et al. (1979). Notice how the “key words” suggest the type of link that is being described.

Figure 3.9 Example of a network of a chapter from a nursing text on wounds. The use of linking relationships forces the learner to consider the way concepts are related. (Reprinted from Contemporary Educational Psychology, vol. 4, Holley et al., “Evaluation of a hierarchical mapping technique as an aid to prose processing,” pp. 227–237, Copyright [1979], with permission from Elsevier.)

Figure 3.10 A comprehensive map showing the historical events known as the 228 Incident. From Tzeng, J. (2010). Designs of concept maps and their impacts on readers’ performance in memory and reasoning while reading. Journal of Research in Reading, 33(2), 128–147. doi:10.1111/j.1467–9817.2009.01404.x (With permission from Wiley.)

Concept maps can be used in any field, and the named links can be altered to fit the topic being learned. For example, the concept map on the previous page shows information about the 228 Incident that followed Japan’s return of Taiwan to the Chinese government in the aftermath of World War II. In a study of concept maps with high school students in Taiwan, Tzeng (2010) allowed students to progressively elaborate concepts maps about this topic as they learned more about the topic. She found that these maps helped students achieve deep learning. A comprehensive map of this historical event is shown in Figure 3.10.

Figure 3.11 A generic fill-in-the-blank concept map that can be used to understand any theory in any domain of knowledge. When you fill in the various “boxes”—for example, giving evidence for the theory—you will be developing a “deep” knowledge of the theory. (Adapted from Dansereau, 2001).

Look carefully at the generic “fill-in-the-blank” concept map on page 163 that can be used to understand any theory, shown in Figure 3.11 (Dansereau, 2001). If you take this generic map for understanding theories to any class where theories are being taught, you can think of yourself as being “armed” with an information aid. As you fill in the boxes and circles, you will be developing an enhanced understanding of the theory you are learning.

Matrices

When the material to be comprehended involves comparisons of several topics along a number of dimensions, a matrix is the representation of choice. Suppose, for example that you are reading a passage about wars. The purpose of the passage is to compare and contrast various antecedent conditions of war and to consider their effect. Suppose further that the wars being considered are the Revolutionary War, World War I, World War II, The Korean Conflict, and the Vietnam Conflict. In order to understand the nature of these wars, you need to organize the information so that commonalities and distinctions will emerge. A suggested matrix for this information is shown in Table 3.3.

Table 3.3: Example of Matrix Graphic Organizer

Note. Matrices are particularly good spatial arrays when the information involves several different topics (e.g., wars) that are being compared on several dimensions (e.g., characteristics of war).

By filling in the empty cells in Table 3.3, selected categories of information can readily be compared, and similarities and differences can easily be spotted. A coherent “pattern” of information about these wars can then be extracted. The framework can be applied to other wars involving other countries to determine, for example, if there are universal commonalities for all wars. Similarly, matrices can be useful when a judgment has to be made about products or courses of action that differ along multiple dimensions. If you are familiar with the way in which the magazine Consumer Reports provides information about products to consumers, you will recognize that this is the technique that they use. For example, if you want to buy a refrigerator, you will find that Consumer Reports rates several different brands and models of refrigerators along many dimensions. The models would be listed in the left-hand column and the dimensions across the top, such as cost to operate, ease of opening the door, how well it maintains a set temperature, storage space built into the door, and the other features that differ between refrigerators. The ratings in each cell are pictorial (colored circles) that help to convert a large amount of information to a format that is comprehensible in a single glance. A similar technique was used by the RAND Corporation (1992, p. 7) in their analysis of three different plans for financing health insurance. Look at this matrix, which is presented in Figure 3.12.

As you can see, the RAND Corporation listed five desirable goals for any health care plan. These are listed under “goal.” The three health care plans they compared are a 20% voluntary subsidy, a simple mandate or law that would require employers to provide health insurance, and a play-or-pay plan that would allow employers to shop for the best plan for their employees. The degree of shading in a square is an indication of how well the particular plan satisfies a goal. Which plan seems the best given their evaluation and the way they presented the data? It is easy to see that the third option meets three goals very well, one goal somewhat, and one goal not at all. Thus, it would seem that the third plan is the best over-all, but this conclusion is only warranted if all of the goals are equal in importance. If the containment of government costs is much more important than any of the others, then the third plan is not a good one because it does not satisfy this goal. The relative importance of each goal depends on individual judgment that, ideally, is informed by knowledge of the issues.

Figure 3.12 A shaded matrix that compares three possible health care plans compared on five “goals.” The use of shading with a matrix allows for an easier comparison between the plans. Adapted from RAND (1992). Health care and the uninsured: Who will pay? RAND Research Review, XVI, pp. 6–8.

Matrices can also be used to organize information so that it can be used more easily. Day, Rodin, and Stoltzfus (1990) investigated the effect of changing the representation of information on the ease with which it is used. A medication schedule that was given to a (real) patient is shown in Figure 3.13. The list format shown on the left side of Figure 3.13 is the way that the physician presented the medication schedule to the patient. The matrix format shown on the right provides the same information, but is clearly easier to use. Not surprisingly, Day, Rodin, and Stoltzfus found that both young and old subjects were more accurate in their understanding of and memory for the medication schedule when it was provided in a matrix format. It is clear that some representations will facilitate the use of information and others will hinder it. One goal is to understand which representation matches the underlying structure of the information being conveyed.

Figure 3.13 Two representations of medication schedules for an elderly patient. The list on the left is the format that was given to the patient. The matrix on the right was devised by Day, Rodin, and Stoltzfus (1990). Adapted from Day, R. S., Rodin, G. C., and Stoltzfus, E. R. (1990). Alternative representations for medication instructions: Effects on young and old adults. Paper presented at the 3rd Cognitive Aging Conference, Atlanta, GA.

Spatial Representation of Thought

In the chapter on memory, I presented the idea that our minds are a network of meaningful concepts with closely related concepts represented as being close in space. Near ideas are clustered and more distant ones are farther apart. New visual representations of words are now possible that take advantage of the network of thinking. For example, instead of looking up words in a standard dictionary, we can now look up word networks using interactive programs that can be found on the Internet. For example, Visuwords is an online graphical dictionary that can be found at http://www.visuwords.com/.

Figure 3.14 A network visualization of the word “thinking.” It was constructed with the Visuwords online graphical dictionary, which can be found at http://www.visuwords.com/.

You can try it for yourself—just type in any word and it will prepare a word net. The visualization of the word “thinking” is shown below in Figure 3.14 along with the labels used to create the linkages.

General Guidelines and Principles

In a study of “at risk students” (those identified as being at risk of failing and not completing their education), Pogrow (1992) concluded that these students have academic difficulties because “they do not understand ‘understanding’” (p. 90). What he means by this is that these students do not know what they need to do to ensure that information is acquired in a way that is meaningful and resistant to forgetting. Many ideas about learning and knowing are foreign to them such as: complex information will contain multiple interacting concepts; learners need to understand how concepts relate to one another; difficult material has to be questioned, explained, drawn, and discussed; and comprehension needs to be continually monitored. There is ample empirical evidence that more of these “at risk” students could complete their education if they were taught how to improve their comprehension.

All of the strategies for comprehension require learners to monitor their understanding of the information. They are all active cognitive strategies that facilitate the construction of meaningful representations. The graphic organizers offer ways to transform text into explicit spatial representations that display relationships between concepts. They all make abstract concepts more concrete. Like all good cognitive strategies, they require the learner to relate new information to prior knowledge in a way that makes remembering most efficient. Like many of the other thinking skills presented in this book, they require effort and must be practiced in order to be useful. It is not enough to read about them. They have to be used in a variety of situations to ensure transfer.

Although most of this chapter has been concerned with the process of comprehension, that is going from surface structure to underlying structure, many of the principles can be used in language production or going from underlying structure to surface structure. The task of writing involves transforming your internalized meaning into words. Many people have difficulty with writing because they find that this is a difficult translation. Kellogg (1990) compared the quality of persuasive papers written by college students who either prepared an outline before they began their papers (a linear display) or used a clustering technique in which associated ideas were first generated from memory and then connected with lines that showed how the ideas were related. He found that the students who were required to outline before they wrote improved in their organization and writing style (writing is a mostly linear activity), and the students who used clustering produced a larger number of ideas than those who used outlines. I will return to these results in the chapter on creativity, where I discuss the generation of ideas.

Graphic organizers, like clustering of ideas or creating flow charts or matrices, can be terrific aids in the writing process. Suppose you were to write an essay about Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). You could begin the planning process by considering the kinds of links employed in networking (type of, part of, leads to, evidence for, characteristics of, and analogy). What “types of” people are most and least at risk? What is the “evidence for” AIDS (laboratory tests, symptoms)? What are the “characteristics of” at-risk groups or risky activities? Some people have called for quarantine, which is “analogous to” the way the way society has responded to other dread diseases. Once you have considered the information you want to present, the relationship between the facts can be depicted in a network. The network offers a nonlinear alternative to outlines when planning the writing process. Thus, by “running comprehension strategies backward,” they can be used to produce language (spoken or written) instead of their more usual role in comprehending language.

Chapter Summary

• Psycholinguistics is the branch of psychology that is concerned with understanding how people produce and comprehend language.

• Psychologists view language as comprising two components or levels: a meaning component (underlying representation) and a speech sound component (surface structure). The problem of comprehension is moving from a thought by the sender (underlying structure) through language and then reconstruction of the thought by the receiver.

• Language is ambiguous when a single surface structure has two or more possible underlying representations.

• Language and thought exert mutual influences on each other with our thoughts determining the language we use and, in turn, the language we use reshaping our thoughts.

• Six rules of communication were presented. Every time we attempt to communicate with others, we utilize these rules to determine what information we will convey and how to express the information.

• Language comprehension requires that the listener make many inferences. The kinds of inferences we make depend on context, manner, and the words selected to convey the message. Our understanding can be misled by communications that cause faulty inferences, such as advertisements and political opinion polls.

• There are many ways that words can be used to mislead the listener deliberately. The deliberate use of emotional and nonemotional words is designed to influence how you think about a topic.

• Emotional words often elicit strong mental images. Because images are highly resistant to forgetting, they are readily available when the topic is mentioned.

• Prototypes, or the most typical member of a category, are usually thought of first when we think about an example of a category. These prototypes bias what we think. This bias can be overcome with deliberate practice at generating examples that are not typical.

• A value that is easily available in memory can unconsciously serve as an anchor or starting point that we use to estimate quantities or cost. We need to think consciously of many different possible values that could serve as anchors as a way of reducing the effect of anchors.

• Strategies to improve the comprehension of text were described. They all require learners to attend to the structure of the information and to make the relationships between concepts explicit. Multiple representations—both visual spatial displays and verbal strategies—are used as aids to comprehension.

• The following skills to understand the way language influences thought were presented in this chapter. Review each skill and be sure that you understand how and when to use each one:

○ Defending against the inappropriate use of emotional language, labeling, name calling, ambiguity, vagueness, and arguments by etymology;

○ Developing the ability to detect misuse of definitions, reification, euphemism, and bureaucratese;

○ Thinking about the reason for a communication, the background knowledge of the listener, and the context when deciding what and how to communicate;

○ Understanding the use of framing with leading questions and negation;

○ Using analogies appropriately, which includes examining the nature of the similarity and its relationship to the conclusion;

○ Deliberately giving a variety of examples when thinking about members of a category so that you are not thinking about category members in terms of a prototype (e.g., thinking about many ways to be successful, not just the most common examples like making a high salary);

○ Recognizing the emotional components of some words and the way word choices can affect how you think and feel;

○ Recognizing when an anchor may be biasing your judgments about a quantity or cost and deliberately trying other values that could be alternative anchors;

○ Employing questioning and explaining as a skill for text comprehension;

○ Practicing at retrieval of information so that remembering becomes more accurate and easier with spaced practice;

○ Selecting and using graphic organizers (linear arrays, hierarchies, networks, matrices, flow charts).

Terms to Know

You should be able to define or describe the following terms and concepts. If you find that you’re having difficulty with any term, be sure to reread the section in which it is discussed.

Psycholinguistics. The branch of psychology that is concerned with the acquisition, production, comprehension, and usage of language.

Underlying Representation. The meaning component of language. It is the thought that you want to convey with an utterance. Compare with surface structure.

Surface Structure. The sounds of an utterance or the outward appearance of a language expression. Compare with underlying representation.

Weasel Phrase. A phrase that is used to infer something that is not true by suggesting that something specific has been said, when it fact the words are ambiguous.

Given/New Distinction. The ratio of known (given) information to new information in a communication. It is a primary determinant of the difficulty of a communication.

Cognitive Economy. Any process that reduces the mental workload and makes thinking or remembering less effortful.

Prototypical Thinking. Using the most typical member in a category as a guide to making inferences about other members of that category.

Prototype. The best or most typical example of a category. For example, dog is the prototype for the category “animal.”

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis of Linguistic Relativity. The hypothesis that language, at least in part, determines or influences thought.

Semantic Slanting. The deliberate use of words designed to create a particular attitude or foster certain beliefs.

Ambiguous. An utterance is ambiguous when it can have more than one meaning or underlying representation.

Vagueness. A lack of precision in a communication. A communication is vague if it does not specify enough details for its intended purpose.

Equivocation. A change in the meaning of a word in the course of the same discussion.

Etymology. Reference to the origin of a word in order to determine its meaning.

Reification. Occurs when an abstract concept is given a name and then treated as though it were a concrete object.

Bureaucratese. The use of formal, stilted language that is often unfamiliar to people who lack special training.

Euphemism. The substitution of a desirable term for a less desirable or offensive one.

Framing. Occurs when a question is asked is a way that suggests what the correct response should be. The reader is “led” into assuming a particular perspective or point of view.

Risk Adverse. A general preference for options that do not involve possible loss over options that involve possible gain, even when the expected value is higher for the option that describes a loss.

Negation. The use of denial to imply that a fact is plausible.

Anchor. The unconscious use of a value that is easily accessible in memory as a “starting point” for making a judgment about a quantity or cost.

Reciprocal Peer Questioning. A technique in which learners pose thoughtful questions, which they take turns answering.

Generic Questions. Question “stems” that can be modified and applied to many different topics.

Concept Maps (sometimes called graphic organizers). The use of spatial displays to organize information.

Linear Arrays. A graphic organizer in which information is presented in a list format.

Hierarchies. A type of graphic organizer that uses a tree structure. Most useful when information is organized according to class inclusion rules.

Networks. Graphic organizers in which several different types of relationships between concepts are depicted.

Matrix. A rectangular array that is useful when the information presented involves comparisons along several dimensions.