Steven Pinker

High school (ages 12+)
Thinking & Learning

Name:

Date:

Step 1 · Read the article

Open the article and read it at the level above. Then answer the questions below in your own words.

https://smallwhale.org/articles/steven-pinker

Write what each word means, using the article.

Do not copy the article. Write two things you learned, the way you would explain them to a friend.

Answers below are taken from the article’s stored facts, so they match what the student read.

1. When was Steven Pinker born?September 18, 1954
2. Where was Steven Pinker born?Montreal, Canada
3. What is the academic title?Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard University
4. What is the primary research focus?Cognitive psychology, psycholinguistics, language acquisition, visual cognition
5. Who is Steven Pinker?Steven Pinker is a famous scientist who studies how our brains learn and talk. He teaches at Harvard and writes books that help people understand the mind.
6. What does Steven Pinker study?He studies how we see, think, and learn language. He looks at how children learn words and how our minds work like computer programs.

Computational Theory of Mind: The view that the mind is an information-processing system, and mental states are computational states.
Evolutionary Psychology: An approach that examines psychological traits as evolved adaptations, shaped by natural selection to solve problems faced by our ancestors.
Psycholinguistics: The interdisciplinary study of the psychological and neurobiological factors that enable humans to acquire, use, comprehend, and produce language.
Innate Behavior: A behavior or capacity that is genetically determined and present from birth, rather than learned through experience.