Unit 2 Vocabulary - Cognition Flashcards

Flashcards covering key vocabulary terms related to unit 2 cognition.

Selective attention

Focusing conscious awareness on a particular stimulus.

Inattentional blindness

Failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed elsewhere.

Change blindness

Failing to notice changes in the environment; a form of inattentional blindness.

Perceptual set

A mental predisposition to perceive one thing & not another.

Gestalt

An organized whole; gestalt psychologists emphasized our tendency to integrate pieces of information into meaningful wholes.

Figure-ground

The organization of the visual field into objects (the figures) that stand out from their surroundings (the ground).

Grouping

The perceptual tendency to organize stimuli into coherent groups.

Depth perception

The ability to see objects in three dimensions, although the images that strike the retina are two-dimensional; allows us to judge distance.

Visual cliff

A laboratory device for testing depth perception in infants & young animals.

Binocular cue

A depth cue, such as retinal disparity, that depends on the use of two eyes.

Convergence

A binocular cue to nearby objects’ distance, enabled by the brain combining retinal images.

Retinal disparity

A binocular cue for perceiving depth; by comparing retinal images from the two eyes, the brain computes distance - the greater the disparity (difference) between two images, the closer the object.

Monocular cue

A depth cue that only depends on the use of one eye, such as interposition or linear perspective.

Stroboscopic movement

An illusion of continuous movement (as in a motion picture) experienced when viewing a rapid series of slightly varying images.

Phi phenomenon

An illusion of movement created when two or more adjacent lights blink on & off in quick succession.

Autokinetic effect

The illusory movement of still spot of light in a dark room.

Perceptual constancy

Perceiving objects as unchanging (having consistent color, brightness, shape, & size) even as illumination & retinal images change.

Color constancy

Perceiving familiar objects as having consistent color, even if changing illumination alters the wavelengths reflected by the object.

Cognition

All the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, & communicating.

Metacognition

Cognition about our cognition; keeping track of & evaluating our mental processes.

Concept

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 prototype provides a quick & easy method for sorting items into categories (as when comparing feathered creatures to a prototypical bird, such as a crow).

Creativity

The ability to produce new & valuable ideas.

Convergent thinking

Narrowing the available problem solutions to determine the single best solution.

Divergent thinking

Expanding the number of possible problem solutions; creative thinking that diverges in different directions.

Executive functions

Cognitive skills that work together, enabling us to generate, organize, plan, & implement goal-directed behavior.

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 - a mental shortcut - that often allows us to make judgments & solve problems efficiently; usually speedier but also more error-prone than an algorithm.

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 & to ignore or distort contradictory evidence.

Fixation

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

Mental set

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

Intuition

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

Representativeness heuristic

Judging 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

Judging 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 & judgments.

Belief perseverance

The persistence of one’s initial conceptions even after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited.

Framing

The way an issue is posed; how an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions & judgments.

Nudge

Framing choices in a way that encourages people to make beneficial decisions.

Intelligence

The ability to learn from experience, solve problems, & use knowledge to adapt to new situations.

General intelligence (g)

According to Spearman & others, underlies all mental abilities & is therefore measured by every task on an intelligence test.

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.

Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) theory

Theory that our intelligence is based on g as well as specific abilities, bridged by Gf & Gc.

Fluid intelligence (Gf)

Our ability to reason speedily & abstractly; tends to decrease with age, especially during late adulthood.

Crystallized intelligence (Gc)

Our accumulated knowledge & verbal skills; tends to increase with age.

Savant syndrome

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

Intelligence test

A method for assessing an individual’s mental aptitudes & comparing them with others, using numerical scores.

Achievement test

A test designed to assess what a person has learned.

Aptitude test

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

Mental age

A measure of intelligence test performance devised by Binet; the level of performance typically associated with children of a certain chronological age; thus, a child who does as well as an average 8-year-old is said to have a mental age of 8.

Stanford-Binet

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

Intelligence quotient (IQ)

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

Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)

The WAIS & its companion versions for children are the most widely used intelligence tests; they contain verbal & performance (nonverbal) subtests.

Psychometrics

The scientific study of the measurement of human abilities, attitudes, & traits.

Standardization

Defining uniform testing procedures & meaningful scores by comparison with the performance of a pretested group.

Normal curve

The bell-shaped curve that describes the distribution of many physical & psychological attributes; most scores fall near the average, & fewer & fewer scores lie near the extremes.

Flynn effect

The rise in intelligence test performance over time & across cultures.

Reliability

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

Validity

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

Construct validity

How much a test measures a concept or trait.

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 & the criterion behavior (also called criterion-related validity).

Cross-sectional study

Research that compares people of different ages at the same point in time.

Longitudinal study

Research that follows & retests the same people over time.

Cohort

A group of people sharing a common characteristic, such as being from a given period.

Growth mindset

A focus on learning & growing rather than viewing abilities as fixed.

Fixed mindset

The view that intelligence, abilities, & talents are unchangeable, even with effort.

Stereotype threat

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