ch. 7 thinking and intelligence

What is cognition?

Thinking; how we integrate, organize, and use our conscious cognitive experiences

Sensation

Senses pull info from environment

Sensation

Senses pull info from environment

Perception

Brain synthesizes information to create thoughts

Concepts

Categories of information, ideas, images, experiences that share common characteristics or attributes

Prototype

A strong example or representation of a concept

• influenced by culture, experience, and knowledge about concept

  
  

Natural concepts

• formed through direct and indirect experiences

• Most concepts we form

• Ex: snow, birds, fruit

Artificial concepts

• formed by learning specific rules that define it

• Many acquired in school

• Defined by specific set of features; the concept must meet a set of rules/have certain defining properties

• Crucial to complex thought

• Ex: geometry

Schema

Mental collection of related concepts that organizes information and allows brain to work more efficiently

What happens when schema is activated?

You brain automatically makes assumptions based on ‘known’ information abt that collection of information

Role schema

Mental collection of information about how individuals in certain roles behave

Ex: firefighter, professor

Event schema

Mental collection about a set of behaviors

Ex: how to board an elevator, how to greet someone

Language

Communication system that involves using words and systematic rules to organize those words to transmit information from one individual to another

Lexicon

Words of a given language (vocabulary)

Grammar

Set of rules for organizing word to convey meaning

Linguistic determinism

The theory that the language a person speaks largely determines the nature of that persons thoughts

Phonology

Words are made by combining various phonemes

Phoneme

Basic sound unit

• basic building block of speech sounds

Morphemes

The smallest unit of language that convey some type of meaning

Semantics

Process by which we derive meaning from words/moreohemes

• semantic rule tells us that adding -ed to the word laugh means that it happened in the past

Syntax

The way words are organized into sentences

Pragmantics

The practical aspects of communicating with others, or social “niceties” or “norms” of language

• taking turns or talking to a parent vs a friend

How was language learned?

Noam Chomsky proposed that we are born with a biological predisposition to acquire language

Decision making

Process of evaluating alternative and choosing among them

Problem solving

The thoughts and actions required to achieve a certain goal, a process for finding a solution

Trial and error

Continuously trying different solutions until problem is solved

Algorithm

Step by step problem solving formula

Ex: instruction manual for installing new software on your computer

Heuristic

General problem solving framework; mental shortcut

Ex: working backwards; breaking a task into steps

Pitfalls to problem solving.

1. Mental set

2. Functional fixedness

3. Anchoring bias

4. Hindsight bias

5. Confirmation bias

6. Representativeness bias

7. Availability heuristic

Mental set

• tendency to persist in using problem-solving patterns that worked in the past

  • A set way of looking at a problem

Functional fixedness

• Thinking about objects in terms of what it they were designed for

  • Difficulty “thinking outside the box”

  • Only thinking of a box as a box

Anchoring bias

• tendency to focus on one piece of information when making a decision or solving a problem

Hindsight bias

• leads you to believe that the event you just experienced was predictable, even though it wasn’t

  • The idea that you knew all along what would happen

Confirmation bias

• tendency to focus on information that confirms your existing beliefs while ignoring any evidence that does not fit those beliefs

  • Seek information that confirms our beliefs

Representative bias

• Tendency to judge an event by the extent to which it resembles the typical case

• Tendency to unintentionally stereotype someone or something

Availability heuristic

• tendency to make a decision based on an example, information, or recent experience that is readily available to you, even though it may not be the best example to inform your decision

Flynn effect

The observation that each generation has a significantly higher IQ than the last

• environmental factors have changed

Intelligence

The ability to learn from experience, acquire knowledge, and use resources to adapt to new situations or solve problems

G factor

General intelligence; the ability to reason and solve problems

Crystallized intelligence

Acquired knowledge and the ability to retrieve it

• facts (semantic memory)

• Knowledge and ability acquired through experience

Fluid intelligence

The ability to see complex relationships and solve problems

• knowing how to do something

• Natural ability to solve problems

Analytical intelligence

Academic problem solving and computation

Creative intelligence

Imaginative and innovative problem solving

Practical intelligence

Street smarts and common sense

Gardeners multiple intelligences theory

1. Linguistic

2. Logical mathematical

3. Musical

4. Bodily kinesthetic

5. Spatial

6. Interpersonal

7. Intrapersonal

8. Naturalist

Emotional intelligence

The ability to understand the emotions of yourself and others, show empathy, understand social relationships and cues, and regulate your own emotions and respond in culturally appropriate ways

Measuring intelligence

• A persons intelligence quotient (IQ) is score earned on a test designed to measure intelligence

Reliability

Produce similar scores from one text to the next

Validity

How well a test measures what it is supposed to measure

Standardization

Manner of administration, scoring, and interpretation of results is consistent so scores can be compared for future test takers

Norming

Giving test to a large population so data can be collected comparing groups, such as age groups