Reasoning and Language

Year
1
Academic year
2014-2015
Code
01740125
Subject Area
Psychology
Language of Instruction
Portuguese
Mode of Delivery
Face-to-face
Duration
SEMESTRIAL
ECTS Credits
6.0
Type
Compulsory
Level
1st Cycle Studies

Recommended Prerequisites

No prerequisites.

Teaching Methods

Lectures. Research project to be developed in groups.

Learning Outcomes

This unit is structured upon two organizing questions, one pertaining to the study of human language and the other to the study of human reasoning. Students are expected to acquire competences in producing answers to those questions, with respect to their historical underpinnings, the current state of the art, and research strategies/methodologies.

1. What are the main features of the representations and processes used by the human cognitive system to produce symbols of entities and events of the external world, which allow that information about these entities and events to be transmitted and interpreted by other cognitive systems?

2. What are the main features of the representations and processes used by the human cognitive system to make new assertions about the external world and estimating the truth value of such assertions, based on previously existing assertions and their truth value?

Work Placement(s)

No

Syllabus

Language

1. Theories and methods in the study of language: historical introduction

1.1 Taxonomic linguistics and the technical vocabulary of contemporary linguistics

1.2 Generative linguistics and the founding concepts of contemporary syntactic theory

1.3 The level of semantic analysis

2. The relationship between linguistics and psycholinguistics

3. Understanding language

3.1 Theories of speech perception

3.2 Mental lexicon theories

3.3 Theories of syntactic analysis

3.4 Theories of the meaning of words and sentences

3.5 Language production

Reasoning

1. Taxonomies of human thought

2. Theories and methods of the study of inference processes: historical introduction

3. Deductive reasoning

3.1 Elements of formal logic

3.2 Psychological theories of deduction

4. Inductive reasoning

4.1 Inductive “strength” vs. deductive validity

4.2 Normative models of probabilistic inference

4.3 The psychology of induction

Head Lecturer(s)

José Augusto Simões Gonçalves Leitão

Assessment Methods

Periodic
Report of the research project (group): 50.0%
Individual exam (multiple choice): 50.0%

Final
Exam: 100.0%

Bibliography

Fromkin, V., & Rodman, R. (1993). Introdução à linguagem. Coimbra: Almedina.

Manktelow, K. (1999). Reasoning and Thinking. Hove: Psychology Press.

Spinelli, E., & Ferrand, L. (2009). Psicologia da linguagem. Lisboa: Instituto Piaget Editora.

Traxler, M (2011). Introduction to psycholinguistics. Chichester:Wiley-Blackwell.