Thinking, Language, Intelligence

QOTD

Zoe Golden, Emma Shellenback

Do standardized tests such as an IQ test accurately rank intelligence?

A. Yes

B. No

C. Somewhat

Colin Burke

Do you think academic success has to do more with intellegence or grit (motivational drive and perserverence)?

A: Intellegence

B: Grit

C: Both

D: None of the above

Cierra Cowden

For you personally, do you feel like your intelligence has been most determined by:

A. genes

B. environment

C. self-motivation

D. a combo of two or more of the above

E. something else

Keira Maldonado

Do you think that your results of an IQ test should be reviewed for acceptance in college or for a job?

A. Yes

B. No

C. Maybe but it shouldn't be the deciding factor

Rakan Al-Yaqout

After taking an IQ Test, what was the range of your results?

A) 0 - 70

B) 70 - 100

C) 100 - 130

D) 130 - 150

E) I did not take the test

Daniel Dilzell

Do you find that your intelligence and ways of thinking are similiar to that of your parents?

A) Yes, identical

B) Somewhat similar

C) Not at all

Emma Shellenback, Brady Goldsworthy

How many languages can you speak fluently?

A. 1

B. 2

C. 3

D. 4

E. 5 or more

Alec Hatlestad

Do you think it is true that animal communication systems are occasionally referential, but lack generativity, recursion and displacement?

A) Yes

B) No

C) Somewhat

The Big Questions / Issues

What is thinking? What is Intelligence? You think like a brain, not like a computer Your PFC is particularly important for fluid thought

What is special about language, and who has it, really?

Computer Metaphor

The brain is NOT very much like a computerAnd yet both are information processing systems!

13

Where is Memory?

Memory is located in every single synapse in the brain

There are as many different kinds of memory as there are neurons and synapses and brain areas…

14

Where is Thinking?

Thinking is located in every single synapse in the brain

There are as many different kinds of thinking as there are neurons and synapses and brain areas…

15

But the Frontal Cortex is Special

Frontal cortex, especially Pre-Frontal Cortex (PFC) is particularly important for higher-level cognitive function!

Key Idea: Top-Down Biasing

PFC active maintenance provides top-down biasing of posterior-cortical processing

System 1, 2

System 1: posterior cortex – domain-specific knowledge and fast processing

Previously known as automatic processing

System 2: prefrontal cortex – general purpose cognitive processing and problem solving (slow)

Previously known as controlled processing

(It takes a Nobel prize to reinvent a well-established distinction, using much worse terms!)

Stroop Task: Top Down Biasing

RED

Stroop Task: Top Down Biasing

GREEN

Stroop Task: Top Down Biasing

RED

Stroop Task: Top Down Biasing

GREEN

Reading is AutomaticColor Naming needs Control

Key Idea: Top-Down Biasing

“Name colors you idiots!”

“But we prefer reading (Facebook..)”

The Homunculus Problem

It Takes a Network..

PFC Does Active Maintenance

Active Maintenance Can Do it All

Cognitive Control Maintained activity drives top-down biasing

Planning Think about things that are not there (future)

Motivation Maintain goals

Reward processing Maintain possible outcomes

Decision making Maintain alternatives

More Dichotomies

System 1 = Automatic = Crystalized Intelligence = posterior cortex with well-tuned synapses over a lifetime of experience (wise..)

System 2 = Controlled = Fluid Intelligence = prefrontal cortex & basal ganglia with strong ability to rapidly update and maintain information in working memory

g ~ Common Executive Function

30

Multiple Intelligences

Thinking is located in every single synapse in the brain

There are as many different kinds of thinking as there are neurons and synapses and brain areas…

Genetic basis of IQ goes up over time (and so does IQ overall)

32

Language Involves all of Cognition

Perception: hearing & reading wordsAttention: picking out words, speakers from manyMotor: speech, writing, etcMemory: semantics, specific content – how do you encode plot of a book?Executive Function: maintaining context, planning speech, syntax structure..

33

Language is Special

Symbols Syntax Temporally-extended sequences Cultural transmission Embedded levels of structure:

“The horse raced past the barn fell” "Isn't it true that example-sentences that people that

you know produce are more likely to be accepted?”

34

Language Controversies

How special is language: just co-opting existing neural mechs vs. innate language modules?

Rules vs. regularities: is there anything special about rule-like behavior in language? Spelling to sound: Exceptions also have sub-rules.. Overregularization (add “-ed” = “goed”) – evidence

of rule system coming online? Truly variable-like behavior? Generative, abstract.

35

Distributed Reps of Words

I cnduo't bvleiee taht I culod aulaclty uesdtannrd waht I was rdnaieg. Unisg the icndeblire pweor of the hmuan mnid, aocdcrnig to rseecrah at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mttaer in waht oderr the lterets in a wrod are, the olny irpoamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rhgit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whoutit a pboerlm. Tihs is bucseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey ltteer by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Aaznmig, huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghhuot slelinpg was ipmorantt! See if yuor fdreins can raed tihs too.

36

Biology of Language

Example of Wernicke’s Aphasia

"How are you today?”:

"Gossiping O.K. and Lords and cricket and England and Scotland battles. I don't know. Hypertension and two won cricket, bowling, batting, and catch, poor old things, cancellations maybe gossiping, cancellations, arm and argument, finishing bowling.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVhYN7NTIKU

38

Those Pesky Time Flies..

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

The slippers were found by the nosy dog. The slippers were found by the sleeping dog.

Syntax depends on semantics very deeply, (and yet Chomsky says they are separate..)

Non-human Language

It is all about the motivation: what does a chimp really want from language??

People really want to share, chimps don’t..