PSY 1; Test 2

System 1

• fast

• unconscious

• automatic

• everyday decisions

• error prone

System 2

• slow

• conscious

• effortful

• complex decisions

• reliable

Concepts

symbolic representations of a category of related items

Scripts

how we organize information about actions and events

Framing effect

tendency to emphasize potential losses or potential

Anchoring effect

tendency to rely on the first piece of informatino envountered

Affective forecasting

people predicting how they will feel about things in the future; we’re poor at it

Metacognition

awareness of your own cognitive process

Crystalized intelligence

ability to use acquired skills and knowledge

Fuid intelligence

ability to think flexibility, solve problems, learn in new situations

Triarchic theory of intelligence

• analytical

• creative

• practical

Analytical intelligence

standard problem-solving and other academic challenges (solving logic problems in your college course)

Creative intelligence

using insight to solve novel problems; to think in new and interesting ways (finding a new use for a familiar object to solve a problem)

Practical intelligence

excelling at everyday tasks, adapting to context (responding effectively to your boss’s bad mood)

Mental images

representation in mind that mirrors or resembles the thing it represents

Algorithm

set of procedures guaranteed to produce the correct solution even if you don’t understand why it works

Affect heuristic

tendency to consult emotions to judge the ‘goodness‘ or ‘baddness‘ of a situation rather than judging probabilities objectively 

Availability heuristic

tendency to judge probability of an event by how easy it is to think of instances of it 

Mental set

tendency to try to solve new problems by using the same heuristics, strategies, and rules that worked in teh past on similar problems

Working memory

capacity that enables you to manipulate information retrieved from long-term memory and interpret it appropriately for a given task

Multiple intelligence theory

Howard Gardner; intelligence is best characterized as a capacity to process certain kinds of information

Shallow processing

physical and perceptual features are analyzed

Intermediate processing

stimulus is recognized and labeled

Deep processing

semantic, meaningful symbolic characteristics are used

Memory consolidation

long-term memory becomes durable and relatively stable; structural changes in brain; strengthening, stabilizing, and enhancing of recently learned memory traces 

Long-term potentiation (LTP)

strengthening of connections between neurons; caused by repeated stimulation; long-asting increase in signal transmission between neurons 

Three memory system

• sensory

• short-term

• long-term

Sensory

fraction of a second to several seconds

Working/short-term

up to 30 seconds; can hold 5-9 items at one time

Long term

up to a lifetime

Chunking

organizing information into meaningful groups

Explicit/declaritive memory

• semantic

• episodic

Semantic

internal representation of the world, dependent of an y particular context

Episodic

internal representation of personally experienced events

Primacy effect

beginning recalled

Recency effect

end recalled

Decay theory

memory fade with time if not accessed

Replacement

new information entering memory can wipe out old information

Retroactive interference

new information interferes with the ability to remember old information

Proactive interference

old information interferes with the ability to remember current information

Cue-dependent forgetting

inability to retrieve information stored in memory because of insucffieicent cues for recall

State-dependent memory

tendency to remember something when in the same mental or physical state

Mood-congruent memory

memories can be biased by whether or not your current mood is consistent with the emotional nature of the material you are trying to remember

Classical conditioning

neutral object elicits a response when it is associated with a stimulus that already produces that response

Operant conditioning

behaviors change because they have been reinforced or punished

Positive reinforcement

addition of a stimulus to increase behavior; lever press = delivers food

Negative reinforcement

removal of a stimulus to increase behavior; lever press = removes shock

Positive punishment

addition of stimulus to decrease behavior; lever press = delivers shock

Negative punishment

removal of a stimulus to decrease behavior; lever press = removes food

Phonemes

basic sounds of speech

Morphemes

smallest meaningful units, including suffixes and prefixes

Syntax

the rules for combining words into phrases and phrases into sentences

Social psychology

scientific study of the ways in which people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people

Thin slices

random samples of the behavioral stream; Prof. Ambady; less than five minutes long

Attribution theory

people are motivated to explain their other people’s behavior

Fundamental attribution error

tendency, in explaining other people’s behavior, to overestimate dispositional factor and to underestimate the influence of the situation