AP Psych Cognition Part II

Modules 34-36

cognition

cognition

the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating information

concepts

mental groupings of similar objects, events, ideas, and people

prototypes

a mental image or best example of a category

ex: robins vs penguins

creativity

the ability to produce ideas that are both new and valuable

convergent thinking

narrows the available problem solutions to determine the single best solution

ex: intelligence tests

divergent thinking

expands the number of possible problem solutions (creative thinking that diverges in different directions)

ex: creativity tests

5 components of creativity

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

expertise

a well-developed base of knowledge furnishes ideas, iamges, and phrases used as mental building blocks

imaginative thinking skills

provides the ability to see things in new ways, recognize patterns, and make connections

venturesome personality

seeks new experiences, tolerates ambiguity and risk, and perserveres in overcoming obstacles

intrinsic motivation

being driven by interest, satisfaction, and challenge

creative environment

sparks, supports, and refines creative ideas

algorithms

step-by-step procedures that guarantee a solution

heuristics

simpler thinking strategies

insight

sudden realization of a problem’s solution

confirmation bias

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

mental set

a tendency to approach a problem with a mindset of what has worked previously

intuition

an effortless, immediate, automatic feeling or thought, as contrasted with explicit, conscious reasoning

representative heuristic

judging the likelihood of things in terms of how well they seem to represent, or match, 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

ex: casinos make small wins more memorable than big losses to entice gamblers

overconfidence

the tendency to overestimate the accuracy of our knowledge and judgements

belief perserverance

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

framing

the way an issue is presented; sways decisions and judgements

language

our written, spoken, or signed words, and the ways we combine them to communicate meaning

phonemes

the smallest distinctive sound units in a language

ex: ch, a, t

morphemes

the smallest units that carry meaning in a given language

ex: s (plural), prefixes, words

grammar

the system of rules that enables us to communicate with one another

receptive language

the ability to comprehend language that you can hear or read

(babies are able by 4 months old)

productive language

the ability to produce words

babbling stage

the stage of speech development in which the infant spontaneously utters different sounds unrelated to the household language

one-word stage

when a child speaks mostly in single words (1yo-2yo)

two-word stage

mostly two-word statements

telegraphic speech

mostly nouns and verbs

ex: “terms accepted”

Noam Chomsky

all languages share some basic elements; universal grammar; parts of speech - nouns, verbs, adjectives

critical period

period where babies have the ability to master any language

aphasia

impairment of language; can result from damage to any of several cortical areas

Broca’s Area

an area of the left frontal lobe that controls language expression; struggle to speak without

Wernicke’s Area

an area of the left temporal lobe that controls language reception; speak only meaningless words without

linguistic determinism

Benjamin Lee Whorf’s hypothesis that language determines the way we think (this hypothesis is too extreme because people can think of nameless things, but language does influence our thinking)