This homework is due at the beginning of class on April 25.

1. Speculate about how strong you think linguistic relativity is. How much of an influence on how we think does our native language have? Is it that our language determines our knowledge structure, or is it the other way around? Or is the influence cyclical in nature? Provide evidence to support your claims. This evidence can be anecdotal in nature if necessary.
 

2. Do you think language is special in some way? Put another way, is the human brain predisposed to processes and use language? Why or why not? You should probably include evidence from what we know about how children acquire language.
 

3. What do the competing models of bilingualism tell us about the potential nature of the unitary vs. multiple semantics hypotheses? Be sure to justify and explain your answer.
 

4. Why do you think that the surface structure of a problem has such a dramatic influence on the problem representation, as witnessed in the Chinese Ring puzzle, the Monsters & Balls isomorphs, and the light-bulb problem? You should think back to what you know about knowledge representation, and in particular about ideas like schemas, and relate these to mental sets and transfer (positive and negative).
 

5. Do you think the concept of the "problem space" applies to regular, everyday (i.e. ill-defined) problems? Why or why not? Provide an example from your own experience to support your position.
 

6. What do you think makes a person an expert? How does their knowledge differ from that of a novice - do they just have more, or is it something deeper? How does this tie into the issues of problem representation raised in question 1?

7. How is decision making like problem solving? How is it different? Is there a "problem space" for decision making? Provide examples to illustrate your points.