Attention, Thought Processes and Decision Making

These flashcards cover key concepts related to attention, cognitive processes, decision making, and reasoning as discussed in the lecture notes.

Cocktail party phenomenon

The ability to focus attention on a specific stimulus while filtering out other stimuli.

Inattentional blindness

The failure to notice unexpected stimuli in our environment due to a lack of attention.

Change blindness

The inability to notice large changes in the environment when they occur during a disruption.

Schema

A mental structure that organizes knowledge and expectations about a category.

Script

A schema that dictates behavior in a specific situation.

Divided attention

The ability to split attention between two or more sources of stimuli.

Defining features

Characteristics that are shared among all examples of a category.

Prototype

An abstraction representing the most common and important features of a category.

Exemplar

An ideal representation of a category based on personal experience.

Rational decision making

A structured approach to decision making that involves defining a problem, identifying criteria, and evaluating options.

Inductive reasoning

Reasoning that involves forming generalizations based on specific instances.

Deductive reasoning

Reasoning that involves drawing a specific conclusion from general premises.

Analogical reasoning

Understanding a novel situation by comparing it with a known one.

Cognitive bias

Systematic patterns of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment.

Heuristics

Mental shortcuts that ease cognitive load and facilitate quick decision making.

Availability heuristic

The tendency to make decisions based on how easily information comes to mind.

Representative heuristic

The tendency to judge the probability of an event based on how similar it is to a prototype.