thinking, language, creativity vocab

Deja Vu

that eerie sense that 'I've experienced this before.' Cues from the current situation may unconsciously trigger retrieval of an earlier experience.

creativity

the ability to produce new + valuable ideas.

Convergent thinking

narrowing the available problem solutions to determine the single best solution.

divergent thinking

expanding the number of possible problem solutions; creative thinking that branches in different directions.

algorithm

a methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem.

insight

a sudden realization of a problem's solution; contrasts with strategy-based solutions.

mental set

a tendency to approach a problem in one particular way, often a way that has been successful in the past.

representative heuristic

estimating the likelihood of events in terms of how well they seem to represent particular prototypes; may lead us to ignore other relevant information.

availability heuristic

estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; if instances come readily to mind, we presume such events are common.

Overconfidence

the tendency to be more confident than correct; to overestimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgments.

belief perseverance

clinging to one's initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited.

Confirmation bias

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

Priming

the activation, often unconsciously, of certain associations, thus predisposing one's perception, memory, or response.

Hip-of-the-tongue phenomenon

the experience of attempting to retrieve from memory a specific name or word, but not being able to do so.

metacognition

awareness of one's own cognitive processes, often involving a conscious attempt to control them.

Shallow level of processing

encoding on a basic level, based on the structure or appearance of words.

Intermediate level of processing

information analyzed by sound, produces stronger memories than shallow processing, but not the strongest.

Deep level of processing

encoding semantically, based on the meaning of the words; tends to yield the best retention.

automatic Processing

unconscious encoding of incidental information, such as space, time, and frequency, and of well-learned information, such as word meanings.

effortful processing

encoding that requires attention and conscious effort.

functional fixedness

the tendency to perceive an object only in terms of its most common use.

framing

the way an issue is posed; how an issue is worded can significantly affect decisions and judgments.

Gambler's fallacy

a failure to recognize the independence of chance events, leading to the mistaken belief that one can predict the outcome of a chance event on the basis of the outcomes of past chance events.

Sunk-cost fallacy

the tendency to continue a course of action in which one has already invested money, time, or effort.

parallel processing

processing many aspects of a problem simultaneously; the brain's natural mode of information processing for many functions.