Myers Exploring Psychology Chapter 9

Cognition

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

Concept

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

Prototype

a standard or typical example

Algorithm

a methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem. Contrasts with the usually speedier -- but also more error-prone -- use of heuristics

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

Insight

a sudden and often novel realization of the solution to a problem; it contrasts with strategy-based solutions

Confirmation bias

a tendency to search for information that supports one's preconceptions

Fixation

the inability to see a problem from a new perspective; an impediment to problem solving

Functional fixedness

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

Representative heuristic

judging the likelihood of things in terms of how well they seem to represent, or match, particular prototypes; may lead one to ignore other relevent information

Availability heuristic

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

Overconfidence

the tendency to be more confident than correct--to overestimate the accuracy of one's beliefs and judgments

Framing

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

Belief perseverance

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

Language

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

Babbling stage

beginning at about 4 months, the stage of speech development in which the infant spontaneously utters various sounds at first unrelated to the household language

One-word stage

the stage in speech development, from about age 1 to 2, during which a child speaks in single words

Two-word stage

beginning about age 2, the stage in speech development during which a child speaks mostly two-word statements

Telegraphic speech

early speech stage in which a child speaks like a telegram--'go car'--using mostly nouns and verbs and omitting 'auxiliary' words

Linguistic determinism

Whorf's hypothesis that language determines the way we think

Intelligence

the mental abilities needed to select, adapt to, and shape environments. It involved the abilities to profit from experience, solve probelms, reason, and successfully meet challenges and achieve goals

Mental age

a measure of intelligence test performance devised by Binet; the chronological age that most typically corresponds to a given level of performance

Stanford-Binet

the widely used American revision (by Terman at Stanford University) of Binet's original intelligence test

Intelligence quotient

defined originally as the ratio of mental age (ma) to chronological age (ca) multiplied by 100 (thus, IQ = ma/ca × 100). On contemporary intelligence tests, the average performance for a given age is assigned a score of 100.

Factor analysis

a statistical procedure that identifies clusters of related items (called factors) on a test; used to identify different dimensions of performance that underlie one's total score

General intelligence

a general intelligence factor that according to Spearman and others underlies specific mental abilities and is therefore measured by every task on an intelligence test.

Savant syndrome

a condition in which a person otherwise limited in mental ability has an exceptional specific skill, such as in computation or drawing.

Emotional intelligence

the ability to perceive, express, understand, and regulate emotions

Creativity

the ability to produce novel and valuable ideas

Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale

the WAIS is the most widely used intelligence test; contains verbal and performance (nonverbal) subtests.

aptitude test

a test designed to predict a person's future performance; aptitude is the capacity to learn

Achievement test

a test designed to assess what a person has learned

Standardization

defining meaningful scores by comparison with the performance of a pretested "standardization group"

Normal curve

the symmetrical bell-shaped curve that describes the distribution of many physical and psychological attributes. Most scores fall near the average, and fewer and fewer scores lie near the extremes.

Reliability

the extent to which a test yields consistent results, as assessed by the consistency of scores on two halves of the test, on alternate forms of the test, or on retesting

Validity

The extent to which a test measures or predicts what it is supposed to.

Content validity

the extent to which a test samples the behavior that is of interest (such as a driving test that samples driving tasks).

Criterion

the behavior (such as future college grades) that a test (such as the SAT) is designed to predict; thus, the measure used in defining whether the test has predictive validity.

Predictive validity

the success with which a test predicts the behavior it is designed to predict; it is assessed by computing the correlation between test scores and the criterion behavior. (Also called criterion-related validity.)

Heritability

The proportion of variation among individuals that we can attribute to genes. The heritability of a trait may vary, depending on the range of populations and environments studied.

Stereotype threat

a self-confirming concern that one will be evaluated based on a negative stereotype

Mental retardation

a condition of limited mental ability, indicated by an intelligence score below 70 and difficulty in adapting to the demands of life; varies from mild to profound

Down syndrome

a condition of retardation and associated physical disorders caused by an extra chromosome in one's genetic makeup