ap psych cognition

concept

a mental grouping of similar objects, events, people, or ideas

prototype

a mental image or best example of a category

schema

conceptual frameworks used to organize knowledge

assimilation

interpreting our new experiences in terms of our existing schemas

accommodation

adapting our current understandings (schemas) to incorporate new information

framing

a cognitive bias where peoples decisions are influenced by how information is presented, rather than just the information itself

hindsight bias

the cognitive tendency to perceive past events as more predictable than they actually were. commonly known as the “knew-it-all-along” phenomenon, this bias occurs when an individual, after learning the outcome of an event, overestimates their ability to have foreseen the result beforehand.

mental set

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

convergent thinking

narrows the available problem solutions to determine the single best solution

metacognition

awareness and understanding of one’s own thought process

confirmation bias

the tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one’s existing beliefs or theories

overconfidence

the tendency for a person’s subjective confidence in their judgments to be reliably greater than the other objective accuracy of those judgments.

belief perseverance

the tendency to maintain a belief even when presented with contradictory evidence

heuristic

a simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently; usually speedier but also more error-prone than algorithms

algorithm

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

availability heuristic

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

representativeness heuristic

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

insight

a sudden realization of a problem's solution

functional fixedness

the tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual functions; an impediment to problem solving