psych vocab unit 2 part 1

selective attention

focusing on a particular stimulus

inattentive blindness

failing to see objects when attention is distracted

change blindness

failing to notice changes

perceptual set

a mental predisposition to perceive one thing

gestalt

an organized whole

figure-ground

organization that lets figures stand out from the ground

grouping

organizing stimuli into coherent groups

depth perception

the ability to see objects in 3D

visual cliff

lab device used to test depth perception

binocular cue

depth cue that depends on both eyes

convergence

a cue to nearby objects distance

retinal disparity

binocular cue for perceiving depth

monocular cue

a depth cue for one eye

stroboscopic movement

illusion for continuous movement

phi phenomenon

illusion of movement when lights blink quickly

auto kinetic effect

illusionary movement of still light in the dark

perceptual constancy

perceiving objects as unchanging

color constancy

perceiving familiar objects as having constant color

perceptual adaptation

the ability to adjust to changed sensory input

cognition

all mental activities associated with thinking

metacognition

cognition about our cognition

concept

mental grouping of similar objects

prototype

mental image of a category

jean piaget

studied development of cognition in children

schema

concept that organizes information

assimilation

interpreting new experiences in terms of existing schemas

accommodation

adapting understandings to incorporate new information

creativity

ability to produce new ideas

convergent thinking

narrowing solutions to determine the best one

divergent thinking

expanding the number of possible solutions

robert sternburg

believed creativity had 5 components

executive functions

cognition skills that generate goal-directed behavior

algorithm

methodical way to solve a problem

heuristic

a simple thinking strategy

insight

sudden realization of a problems solution

confirmation bias

tendency to find information that goes with one beliefs

fixation

inability to see a problem from a new perspective

mental set

tendency to approach a problem in 1 set way

intuition

an automatic feeling or thought

representativeness heuristic

judging how likely an event will match a prototype

availability heuristics

judging likelihood of events based on availability in memory

overconfidence

being more confident than correct

belief perseverance

persistence of one’s initial conceptions

framing

the way an issue is posed

nudge

framing choices to make good decisions

memory

learning over time through storage of information

recall

retrieving information learned earlier

recognition

identifying items previously learned

relearning

amount of time saved when learned again

hermann ebbinghaus

memory researcher