Chapters 9, 11, and 12: Thinking, Reasoning, Social Cognition, and Language

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering key concepts from lecture notes on thinking, imagery, problem solving, reasoning, social cognition, and language structure.

Inner Speech (Propositional Thought)

Thinking in words or symbols, such as talking to yourself in your head.

Imagery (Analog Thought)

Thinking in pictures, such as visualizing your room.

Eidetic Imagery

The ability to maintain vivid, detailed mental images after a stimulus is gone.

Aphantasia

The absence of mental imagery, affecting approximately $3\%$ of the population.

Hyperphantasia

Extremely vivid mental imagery, affecting approximately $30\%$ of the population.

Mental Rotation Task

An experiment showing that the more rotation an object requires, the longer it takes to process, indicating mental images are manipulated like real objects.

Episodic Future Thinking

The process of imagining future events using memory systems.

Problem solving

The process of achieving a specific goal.

Planning

Mentally simulating the steps required to achieve a goal.

Tower of London Task

A task used to measure planning where better performance is linked to thinking before acting, and worse performance is linked to impulsivity.

Convergent Thinking

A type of thinking aimed at finding $1$ correct answer.

Divergent Thinking

A type of thinking that explores many possible answers.

Fluency

A component of creativity referring to the total number of ideas generated.

Flexibility

A component of creativity referring to the variety of different ideas generated.

Originality

A component of creativity referring to the uniqueness of ideas.

Remote Associates Test

A creativity test based on finding word connections.

Alternative Uses Task

A creativity test requiring the generation of multiple uses for a single object, such as a brick.

Incubation

The third stage of creativity where one steps away from the problem to allow for unconscious processing.

Illumination

The fourth stage of creativity characterized by a sudden "aha" moment.

Mental Set

A barrier to problem solving where one becomes stuck using old solutions that worked in the past.

Functional Fixedness

A barrier to problem solving where one cannot see new uses for objects beyond their intended purpose, such as only seeing a hammer as a hammer.

Algorithm

A step-by-step problem-solving method that is accurate but slow.

Heuristic

A mental shortcut for problem solving that is fast but error-prone. aka rule of thumb

Insight

sudden, clear understanding of a problem, situation, or one’s own thoughts and behaviors, often leading to meaningful change.

Framing Effect

A cognitive bias where decisions depend on the wording or presentation of the same information.

Availability Heuristic

Judging the likelihood of an event based on how easily it can be remembered.

Representativeness

Judging something based on stereotypes while ignoring logic or probability.

Ignoring Base Rates

A bias where actual statistics are ignored, such as maintaining a probability of $70/30$ when given a sample of $70$ lawyers and $30$ engineers.

Inductive Reasoning

Reasoning from specific observations to general conclusions based on experience.

Confirmation bias

A weakness of inductive reasoning where one seeks out information that supports existing beliefs.

Illusory correlation

The mistaken belief that two variables are related, failing to recognize that correlation does not equal causation.

Deductive Reasoning

Reasoning from the general to the specific using logical rules, such as: All $A = B$, All $B = C$, therefore All $A = C$.

System 1

A mode of thought in Dual Process Theory that is fast, intuitive, and emotional, and where most biases occur.

System 2

A mode of thought in Dual Process Theory that is slow, logical, and effortful.

Perceptual Narrowing

The phenomenon where humans become better at recognizing familiar faces over time.

Theory of Mind

Understanding others' mental states, which leads to perspective-taking and social intelligence.

Fundamental Attribution Error

The tendency to overestimate personality traits and underestimate situational factors when judging others.

Prosocial Behavior

Helping, sharing, and cooperating, which is observed in humans, babies, and primates.

Foot-in-the-door

A compliance technique involving starting with a small request to eventually gain agreement for a larger one.

Disrupt-then-reframe

A compliance technique where one confuses the person before reframing the request to be more persuasive.

Cognitive Dissonance

Discomfort caused by inconsistency between beliefs and actions, often leading to changing beliefs to match actions.

Social Learning

Learning by observing others through imitation, emulation, or media influence.

Mirror Neurons

Neurons that fire both when performing an action and when observing that same action performed by another.

Phonemes

The basic sounds of language, such as "th" or "oo".

Morphemes

The smallest meaningful units of language, such as the prefix "un-" or the suffix "-ing".

Syntax

The rules governing word order and grammar in language.

Semantics

The interpretation and meaning of words and sentences.

Discrete Signals

Communication signals that belong to clear, distinct categories.

Graded Signals

Continuous communication signals that convey tone or emotion.

Tip-of-the-tongue

A speech error where a word is known but momentarily inaccessible.