AP Psychology U5 - Cognition and Intelligence

Procedural memory

involves “knowing how” to do things. It included skills, such as “knowing how” to playing the piano, ride a bike; tie your shoes and other motor skills. Procedural memory is a type of long-term implicit memory which is formed unconsciously and retrieved effortlessly

Iconic memory

a momentary sensory memory of visual stimuli; a photographic or picture-image memory lasting no more than a few tenths of a second.

Long-term memory

the relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system. Includes knowledge, skills, and experiences.

Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon

a state in which one cannot quite recall a familiar word but can recall words of similar form and meaning.

Sensory memory

the immediate, very brief recording of sensory information in the memory system.

Eidetic memory

a mind which can recall large bits of information in a very short space of time.

Parallel processing

the processing of many aspects of a problem simultaneously; the brain’s natural mode of information processing for many functions, including vision. Contrasts with the step-by-step (serial) processing of most computers and of conscious problem solving.

Elaborative Rehearsal

an encoding strategy to facilitate the formation of memory by linking new information to what one already knows.

Semantic memory

our general world knowledge that encompasses memory for concepts, facts, and the meanings of words and other symbolic units that constitute formal communication systems such as language or math.

Explicit memory [declarative]

memory of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and “declare.”

Mnemonics

memory aids, especially those techniques that use vivid imagery and organizational devices.

Storage

the process of retaining encoded information over time.

Encoding

the processing of information into the memory system—for example, by extracting meaning

Method of loci

envisioning a location or physical space that you are extremely familiar with. In this location you attach the terms and information you are memorizing to various locations/spots within that place.

Retrieval

the process of getting information out of memory storage.

Rote Rehearsal

practicing something over and over again

Peg-word system

a mnemonic strategy used to remember lists whereby each item is associated in imagination with a number–word pair (the peg).

Chunking

organizing items into familiar, manageable units; often occurs automatically.

Episodic memory

what most people think of as memory and include information about recent or past events and experiences

Echoic memory

a momentary sensory memory of auditory stimuli; if attention is elsewhere, sounds and words can still be recalled within 3 or 4 seconds.

Effortful processing

encoding that requires attention and conscious effort.

Memory

the persistence of learning over time through the encoding, storage, and retrieval of information.

Implicit memory [nondeclarative]

retention independent of conscious recollection. (Also called nondeclarative memory.)

Automatic processing

unconscious encoding of incidental information, such as space, time, and frequency, and of well-learned information, such as word meanings.

Autobiographical memory

memory for one's personal history

Short-term [working] memory

activated memory that holds a few items briefly, such as the seven digits of a phone number while dialing, before the information is stored or forgotten.

Massed practice

a learning procedure in which practice trials occur close together in time, either in a single lengthy session or in sessions separated by short intervals.

Spacing effect

the tendency for distributed study or practice to yield better long-term retention than is achieved through massed study or practice.

Distributive practice

refers to reviews that take place some time after the original learning event, as opposed to reviews that occur immediately following the original learning event

Shallow processing

encoding on a basic level based on the structure or appearance of words.

Deep processing

encoding semantically, based on the meaning of the words; tends to yield the best retention.

Testing effect

enhanced memory after retrieving, rather than simply rereading, information. Also sometimes referred to as a retrieval practice effect or test-enhanced learning.

Hierarchies

concepts are arranged from general to more specific classes.

Priming

the activation, often unconsciously, of certain associations, thus predisposing one’s perception, memory, or response

Recall

a measure of memory in which the person must retrieve information learned earlier, as on a fill-in-the-blank test.

Recognition

a measure of memory in which the person need only identify items previously learned, as on a multiple-choice test.

Serial position effect

our tendency to recall best the last (a recency effect) and first items (a primacy effect) in a list.

Recency effect

a cognitive bias in which those items, ideas, or arguments that came last are remembered more clearly than those that came first.

Hippocampus

a neural center located in the limbic system; helps process explicit memories for storage.

Flashbulb memory

a clear memory of an emotionally significant moment or event.

Long-term potentiation

an increase in a cell’s firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation. Believed to be a neural basis for learning and memory.

Mood-congruent memory

states that happy people will better remember happy than sad materials, whereas sad people will better remember sad than happy materials (or remember such material equally).

Primacy effect

an individual's tendency to better remember the first piece of information they encounter than the information they receive later on.

Relearning

a measure of memory that assesses the amount of time saved when learning material again.

State-dependent memory

acquired information in the effect of a specific drug and/or situation may only be remembered if the organism is in a similar situation where the information was acquired

Proactive interference

occurs when prior learning disrupts your recall of new information.

Repression

an inability to recall autobiographical information, usually of a traumatic or stressful nature.

Anterograde amnesia

an inability to form new memories

Retrograde amnesia

an inability to retrieve information from one’s past.

Retroactive interference

occurs when new learning disrupts recall of old information.

Decay theory

a theory that proposes that memory fades due to the mere passage of time.

False memory

a phenomenon where someone recalls something that did not happen or recalls it differently from the way it actually happened.

Reconstructive memory

memories that add details not part of the actual event or omit details that were

Deja vu

that eerie sense that “I’ve experienced this before.” Cues from the current situation may unconsciously trigger retrieval of an earlier experience.

Source amnesia

attributing to the wrong source an event we have experienced, heard about, read about, or imagined. (Also called source misattribution.) Source amnesia, along with the misinformation effect, is at the heart of many false memories.

Eyewitness testimony

refers to an account given by people of an event they have witnessed.

Misinformation effect

incorporating misleading information into one’s memory of an event.

Belief perseverance

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

Grit

in psychology, grit is passion and perseverance in the pursuit of long-term goals

IEP

a plan or program developed to ensure that a child with an identified disability who is attending an elementary or secondary educational institution receives specialized instruction and related services.

Intelligence

mental quality consisting of the ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations.

Mainstreaming

the placement of children with disabilities into regular classroom environments on a part-time basis

Down syndrome

a condition of mild to severe intellectual disability and associated physical disorders caused by an extra copy of chromosome 21.

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.

Validity

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

Criterion

a standard against which a judgment, evaluation, or comparison can be made.

Naturalistic

Ability to recognize and categorize plants, animals and other objects in nature

Verbal linguistic

Well-developed verbal skills and sensitivity to the sounds, meanings and rhythms of words

General intelligence [g]

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.

Overconfidence

the tendency to be more confident than correct—to overestimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgments.

Belief bias

the tendency in syllogistic reasoning to rely on prior beliefs rather than to fully obey logical principles.

Concept

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

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.

Mental set

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

Aptitude test

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

Triarchic theory

proposes that there are three distinct types of intelligence: practical, distinct, and analytical.

Wechsler Intelligence Test for Children [WISC]

a version of WAIS for school-age children

Test-retest

assessing reliability of a test by giving participants the same test on two different occasions

Fluid intelligence

our ability to reason speedily and abstractly; tends to decrease during late adulthood.

Musical

Ability to produce and appreciate rhythm, pitch and timber

Cognition

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

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.

Standardization

defining uniform testing procedures and meaningful scores by comparison with the performance of a pretested group

Confirmation bias

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

Visual spatial

Capacity to think in images and pictures, to visualize accurately and abstractly

Divergent thinking

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

Creative intelligence

imaginative and innovative problem solving

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.

Intelligence test

a method for assessing an individual’s mental aptitudes and comparing them with those of others, using numerical scores.

Intellectual disability

a condition of limited mental ability, indicated by an intelligence score of 70 or below and difficulty in adapting to the demands of life.

Flynn effect

the issue of how the general IQ scores of a population changed over time

Practical intelligence

street smarts and common sense

Stanford-Binet

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

Accommodations

changes to help those with learning disabilities

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 a person’s total score.

Multiple intelligences

human beings have different ways in which they process data, each being independent

Achievement test

a test designed to assess what a person has learned.

Self-contained classroom

generally explained as a classroom for special learners in which all members of the classroom are students with special needs

Insight

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

Intelligence Quotient [IQ]

simply a person’s mental age divided by chronological age and multiplied by 100