Cognitive Psychology

Final Exam

Cognitive Psychology

Cognitive Psychology

The branch of psychology concerned with the scientific study of the mind

Language

A system of communication using sounds or symbols that enables us to express our feelings, thoughts, and experiences.

Hierarchal (property of language)

the small components to create larger ones

Governed by rules (property of language)

have to arrange components in certain orders to be understood

Universal (property of language)

• global

• all people with normal capacity

• development of language

• deaf children

• similar structures

Behaviorism (in terms of language development)

children learn words by associating sounds with object, actions and events

Nativism (language development)

• Noah Chomsky

• language acquisition device: something inside of us that equips us with the capability to decipher language

• language gives access to mind

• anti-behaviorism

Psycholinguistics (language development)

psychological study of Language

• comprehension

• speech production

• representation

• acquisition

Lexicon

Knowledge of what words mean, how they sound, and how they are used in relation to other words

Phonemes

Sounds the letters make/shortest segment of speech

Morphemes

The smallest unit of language that has a definable or grammatical function

Phonemic Restoration Effect

humans fill in missing phonemes based on the context of the sentence and the portion of the word presented

Phonemic Restoration Effect Study

Even people who knew the letter was missing still could not tell/no one could

Word Frequency Effect

Responds more quickly to high-frequency words than low-frequency words

-Word frequency - how often a word is used

Lexical Decision Task

The participant is presented with a single word, usually visually, in the center of a computer screen.

result - participants go through the high-frequency list quicker than the low-frequency lists.

Lexical Ambiguity

Some words have multiple word meanings

Biased Meaning Dominance

when words have two or more meanings with different dominances

Balanced Meaning Dominance

when a word has more than one meaning but the meanings have about the same dominance

Impact of Context on Understanding

Context is critical, because it tells you, the receiver, what importance to place on something, what assumptions to draw (or not) about what is being communicated (places meaning)

Semantics

interpretation of the meaning of the word

Syntax

arrangement of words in a sentence

Garden Path Sentence

a grammatically correct sentence that starts in such a way that a reader's most likely interpretation will be incorrect

Temporal Ambiguity

two conflicting orientations toward the future with regard to one's identity

example: Physicians take more time to conduct a medical interview when they are being observed than when they are alone

Late closure

the principle that new words (or "incoming lexical items") tend to be associated with the phrase or clause currently being processed rather than with structures farther back in the sentence.

Interactionist Approach to Parsing

• Both syntax and semantics are taken into account simultaneously

  • our knowledge influences our interpretation

Coherence

info in part of a sentence is connected to the other part of the sentence

Instrument interference

Making a guess about the tool or method being used

Anaphoric interference

connects object/person in one sentence to object/person in second sentence

Casual interferences

events described in one sentence were caused by the events that occurred in the previous sentence

Situation Models

Make mental representation based on certain people, objects, locations, and events

Given-new Contract

an approach where both the person involved in a conversation are attentive enough and referring to the common information known to both of them.

Syntactic Coordination

the use of similar grammatical construction whenever two people exchange their statements within a conversation

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

a hypothesis, first advanced by Edward Sapir in 1929 and subsequently developed by Benjamin Whorf, that language structure determines a native speaker's perception and categorization of experience.

Problem

any situation in which we are trying to reach a goal and we must find a means to reach that goal.

Insight

sudden realization of how to solve a problem

Functional Fixedness

can’t get past usual purpose - looks at the family resemblance to find the purpose.

Mental Set

Relying on past experiences, you have preconceived notion of how to fix it

Initial State

the situation at the beginning of a problem

Goal State

the solution to the problem

Subgoals

a goal that serves as an intermediary step to attaining an ultimate goal

Operators

actions that move the problem from one state to another

Means-end analysis

reaching the difference between initial and goal state by establishing sub goals

Analogical Transfer

the transfer of the solution from a similar problem

Three Steps to Analogical Problem Solving

• Noticing

• Mapping

• Applying

Analogical Encoding

the explicit comparison of two partially understood situations

Surface features

specific elements

Structural features

the underlying principles

Divergent Thinking

thinking open-ended and has many solutions

Trial and error

The process of finding a solution to a problem by trying many possible solutions and learning from mistakes until a way is found.

Group Brainstorming

This activity usually involves team members' collaboration in problem-solving and new ideas generation

Preinventive forms

idea preceded the creation of the finished product

Whose preinventive forms can we come up with a creative use for most easily?

Finke found that people were more likely to come up with creative preinventive forms for their own objects they created.

Judgement

opinion/decision based on careful thought

Decisions

making choices among alternatives

Reasoning

process of drawing conclusions

Inductive Reasoning

method of drawing conclusions by going from the specific to the general.

Factors related to strong inductive arguments

• representativeness of observations

• number of observations

• quality of evidence

Heuristics

mental shortcut

Availability Heuristics

what comes to mind quickly is deemed significant (sometimes incorrectly)

Representativeness Heuristics

use familiar examples as prototype for category (and use that to judge rest in category)

Illusory Correlations

he phenomenon of perceiving a relationship between variables (typically people, events, or behaviors) even when no such relationship exists

Stereotypes

a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing.

Conjunction rule

the likelihood of only one thing happening is more likely than two or more

Confirmation Bias

generate evidence and evaluate evidence in a way that supports your own hypothesis

Expected Emotions

predicted emotions of particular outcomes

Risk aversion

the tendency not to take a risk/chance

Incidental Emotions

part of situation but not directly related to decision making

Framing effect

how an issue is presented to you

Opt in Procedure

active decision to participate

Opt out procedure

auto-enrolled unless you purposely get out of it

Status Quo Bias

tendency to do nothing when faced with the need to make a decision

Deductive Reasoning

a logical process in which a conclusion is based on the concordance of multiple premises that are generally assumed to be true