psych cognitive quiz 2

cognition

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

concepts

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

prototype

a mental image or best example of a category. Matching new items to a ____ provides a quick and easy method for sorting items into categories (as when comparing feathered creatures to a prototypical bird, such as a robin)

creativity

the ability to produce new and valuable ideas

convergent thinking

narrowing the available problem solutions to determine the single best solution, the SAT does this

divergent thinking

expanding the number of possible problem solutions; creative thinking that diverges in different directions, this is required in creativity tests

Expertise, imaginative thinking skills, a venturesome personality, intrinsic motivation, and a creative environment

the 5 components of creativity

algorithms

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

heuristic

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

insight

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

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 in one particular way, often a way that has been successful in the past.

fixation

in cognition, the inability to see a problem from a new perspective; an obstacle to problem solving

intuition

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

representativeness heuristic

estimating the likelihood of events 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 (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 our beliefs and judgments

belief perserverence

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

motivated reasoning

Rather than using evidence to draw conclusions, they used their conclusions to assess evidence-- a phenomenon also known as

phonemes

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

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

in a language, the smallest distinctive sound unit

morphemes

in a language, the smallest unit that carries meaning; may be a word or a part of a word (such as a prefix)

grammar

in a language, a system of rules that enables us to communicate with and understand others

babbling stage

beginning around 4 months, the stage of speech development in which an 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 mostly in single words.

two word stage

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

telegraphic stage

early speech stage in which a child speaks like a telegram—“go car”—using mostly nouns and verbs

aphasia

impairment of language, usually caused by left hemisphere damage either to Broca’s area (impairing speaking) or to Wernicke’s area (impairing understanding)

broca’s

helps control language expression—an area of the frontal lobe, usually in the left hemisphere, that directs the muscle movements involved in speech.

wernicke’s

a brain area involved in language comprehension and expression; usually in the left temporal lobe

linguistic determinism

the strong form of Whorf’s hypothesis—that language controls the way we think and interpret the world around us

linguistic influence

the weaker form of “linguistic determinism”—the idea that language *affects* thought (thus our thinking and world view is “relative to” our cultural language)

Linguist Noam Chomsky

proposed that humans are biologically predisposed to learn the grammar rules of language. He calls this trait universal grammar