Cognition & Language psych

What does the formal rule 'if p then q' indicate?

It establishes a logical relationship where if condition p is satisfied, outcome q must occur.

Cognitive Psychology

A branch of psychology that studies higher mental processes.

What is thinking?

Mentally manipulating information such as words, images, sounds, or other data.

Mental images

Representations in the mind of an object or event.

Concepts

The mental grouping of similar objects, events, or people.

Prototype

A typical, highly representative example of a concept.

Deductive reasoning

Reasoning from general to specific.

Inductive reasoning

Reasoning from specific to general.

Algorithm

Finding a solution using a formula or set rules that ensures a solution.

Heuristic

A broad application of a strategy that may lead to a solution but sometimes also leads to errors.

Availability heuristic

Judges the probability of an event occurring based on how easy it is to think of examples.

Familiarity heuristic

Chooses familiar items to be seen as superior to those that are unfamiliar.

Present bias

The tendency to weigh options closer to the present more heavily than those further away.

Representative heuristic

Categorizes items based on how closely they match a prototype or stereotype, which can lead to misjudgments.

Problem solving

The different ways used to achieve a goal.

Well-defined problem

A problem where the information needed to solve is clear.

Ill-defined problem

A problem where the information required to reach a solution is ambiguous or incomplete.

Arrangement problems

Problems that involve organizing components in a specific way to achieve a desired outcome.

Inducing structure

Identifying existing relationships among elements presented and constructing a new relationship among them.

Transformation problems

Consist of an initial state, a goal state, and a method for changing the initial state into the goal state.