Unit 5: Cognitive Psychology

phonemes

smallest unit of sound

morphemes

smallest units of meaning (ex. "readers" has 3)

language acquisition device

Chomsky's concept of an innate mechanism in the brain that allows children to acquire language naturally

Broca's area

controls language expression from an area of the frontal lobe that directs the muscle movements involved in speech.

Wernicke's area

controls language comprehension in left temporal lobe

divergent thinking

expands the number of possible problem solutions

convergent thinking

narrows the available problem solutions to determine the single best solution

expertise, imaginative thinking skills, venturesome personality, intrinsic motivation, creative environment

Sternberg's 5 components of creativity

concept

a mental grouping of similar things

prototype

a mental image or best example of a category (ex. typical four-legged chair)

algorithms

very specific, step-by-step procedures for solving certain types of problems

heuristics

mental shortcuts

insight

a sudden realization of a problem's solution

representativeness heuristic

judging the likelihood of things in terms of how well they seem to match prototypes (ex. a person who wears a suit and a briefcase must be a lawyer)

availability heuristic

estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory and how vivid it is (ex. shark attacks seem more likely than heart disease)

anchoring bias

a tendency to fixate on initial information

confirmation bias

a tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore contradictory evidence

hindsight bias

I knew it all along

fixation

umbrella term for mental sets and functional fixedness

mental sets

problem solving strategies that have worked in the past

functional fixedness

the tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual functions

framing

the way an issue is posed can affect decisions (ex. comparing medicine that has 10% death rate vs 90% survival rate)

IQ

mental age/chronological age x 100

emotional intelligence

the ability to perceive, understand, manage, and use emotions

G-factor

general intelligence underlies specific mental abilities and is therefore measured by every task on an intelligence test

Linguistic, Logical/Mathematical, Spatial, Bodily-Kinesthetic, Musical, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, and Naturalist

Gardner’s 8 types of intelligence that are independent from each other

creative, analytical, and practical intelligences (CAP)

Sternberg’s 3 types of intelligences

standardization

uniform procedures in test administration to ensure that all participants take the same test under the same conditions and are scored by the same criteria, which in turn ensures that results can be compared to each other

Flynn Effect

The rise in average IQ scores that has occurred over the decades (probably due to more access to education and nutrition)

encoding

the processing of information into the memory system

storage

the process of retaining encoded information over time

retrieval

the process of getting information out of memory storage

sensory memory

preserves brief sensory impressions

working memory

preserves recently perceived events for less than a minute without rehearsal

long-term memory

unlimited storage information to be maintained for long periods

automatic encoding

unconscious (ex. remembering what you ate yesterday)

effortful encoding

needs rehearsal or conscious repetition

Ebbinghaus’s forgetting curve

information is lost over time when there is no attempt to retain it

implicit memory

retention of learned skills or classically conditioned associations independent of conscious recollection

procedural memory

a type of implicit memory that involves motor skills and behavioral habits

conditioned memory

a type of implicit memory formed from classical conditioning

episodic memory

a type of explicit memory based on experienced events

semantic memory

a type of explicit memory consisting of knowledge and concepts

absent-mindedness

inattention to details leads to encoding failure

source amnesia

faulty memory for how, when, or where information was learned or imagined

transience

memory error in which unused memories fade with the passage of time

blocking

a failure to retrieve information that is available in memory even though you are trying to produce it

proactive and retroactive interference

PO (old memories interfere), RN (new memories interfere)

suggestibility

effects of misinformation from external sources that leads to the creation of false memories

misattribution

memory error in which you confuse the source of your information

persistence

the continual recurrence of unwanted memories

anterograde amnesia

an inability to form new memories

retrograde amnesia

an inability to retrieve information from one's past

priming

the activation, often unconsciously, of particular associations in memory (ex. SO__P)

mood-congruent memory

the tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one's current good or bad mood

state-dependent memory

recall memories that correspond with the same physiological or psychological state of mind (ex. sleepy, drunk, awake, depressed)

Atkinson-Shiffrin model

3 stages of memory: sensory, working, long-term

linguistic relativism

language influence the way we think about reality

crystallized intelligence

apply previously learned knowledge to solve a new task

fluid intelligence

solve new tasks for which there is no prior knowledge

Thurstone

criticized Spearman’s g-factor and proposed 7 mental abilities: verbal comprehension, reasoning, perceptual speed, numerical ability, word fluency, associative memory, and spatial visualization

inductive reasoning

conclusion can be made based on available evidence and past experience

deductive reasoning

researcher starts with a hypothesis and examines possibilities in order to reach a specific conclusion