Introduction to Psychology: Cognition, Intelligence, Language, and Research Methods

Vocabulary flashcards covering Intelligence, Cognition and Thinking, Judgement and Decision Making, Language, and Psychological Scientific Methods.

Intelligence

The ability to derive information, learn from experience, adapt to the environment, understand, and correctly utilize thought and reason.

General Intelligence (g)

A hypothetical source of individual differences in general ability, representing an underlying property reflected in the pattern of positive correlations across varied cognitive tasks.

Emotional Intelligence

A form of social intelligence that consists of four components: perceiving, understanding, managing, and using emotions to enable adaptive or creative thinking.

Three Stratum Theory of Intelligence

John B. Carroll's intelligence model comprising three levels: stratum III (general intelligence $g$), stratum II (broad abilities like fluid intelligence $G_f$ and crystallized intelligence $G_c$), and stratum I (narrow abilities).

Intelligence Quotient (IQ)

A standard measure of an individual's intelligence level derived from psychological tests, customarily scaled to a mean of 100 with a standard deviation of 15.

Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)

An intelligence assessment composed of subtests that evaluate four primary index scores: Verbal Comprehension, Perceptual Reasoning, Working Memory, and Processing Speed.

Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales

A standardized assessment for ages 2 to 89 years containing five verbal and five nonverbal subtests that yield Verbal, Nonverbal, and Full Scale IQs alongside five factor index scores.

Raven's Progressive Matrices

A nonverbal mental ability test consisting of abstract visual matrix designs with a missing piece that participants choose from multiple choices using logical reasoning.

Crystallized Intelligence ($G_c$)

The accumulation of acquired knowledge, vocabulary, and general information gathered through culture and education across one's lifespan.

Fluid Intelligence ($G_f$)

The set of core mental processes used in processing novel information, inductive reasoning, and solving abstract problems independent of acquired cultural knowledge.

Biopsychosocial Model

An integrative framework that examines psychological traits such as intelligence by combining biological, psychological, and sociocultural influences.

Stereotype Threat

A self-confirming psychological apprehension where an individual fears that their performance will confirm negative group stereotypes, impairing actual task performance.

Flynn Effect

The observed cross-cultural rise in raw standardized IQ scores over time, averaging approximately 9 points per generation (30 years), predominantly in fluid intelligence.

Intellectual Disability

A developmental disability characterized by significant limitations in cognitive functioning and adaptive behaviors encompassing conceptual, social, and practical skills.

Cognition

All forms of knowing and awareness, including perceiving, conceiving, thinking, remembering, reasoning, judging, imagining, and problem solving.

Cognitive Psychology

The branch of psychology that investigates mental processes related to perceiving, attending, thinking, language, and memory, treating the mind as an information-processing system.

Metacognition

The awareness and understanding of one's own cognitive processes, often accompanied by conscious attempts to monitor and regulate them.

Executive Functions

A set of higher-level cognitive processes required for cognitive control of behavior, including attentional control, working memory, cognitive inhibition, and cognitive flexibility.

Inhibitory Control

The executive function process of consciously or unconsciously restraining one's impulses, dominant responses, or behaviors (e.g., resisting word reading in the Stroop test).

Voluntary Attention

Attention that is deliberately applied, goal-directed, and controlled consciously by the individual.

Involuntary Attention

Attention that is captured automatically and reflexively by a prominent, novel, or salient environmental stimulus.

Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART)

A computer-based go/no-go task measuring sustained attention where participants respond to frequent non-targets while withholding responses to rare target numbers.

Inattentional Blindness

A perceptual failure to notice an unexpected but fully visible stimulus in a scene because cognitive attention is focused on another object or task.

Working Memory

A cognitive system responsible for the short-term storage, maintenance, and active manipulation of information required for complex tasks like reasoning and comprehension.

Cognitive Flexibility

The capacity to adjust one's thinking and behavior adaptively in response to changing rules, environments, or unexpected feedback (assessed by the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test).

Thinking

Cognitive behavior involving the internal manipulation of mental representations, images, concepts, or symbols, characterized by being covert and symbolic.

Semantic Networks

A model of mental organization proposing that concepts (nodes) and their semantic relations (links) are structured in a interconnected web within memory.

Concept

A mental idea or category representing a class of objects, events, ideas, or relationships sharing common properties.

Prototype

An mental image or best example that is held to be most typical of a category, serving as a cognitive reference point for categorization.

Schema

A cluster or collection of related concepts forming a cognitive framework that organizes and interprets incoming information efficiently.

Role Schema

A set of cognitive assumptions and expectations regarding how individuals in specific social roles or positions are expected to behave.

Event Schema (Cognitive Script)

A cognitive structure specifying a routine, ordered sequence of actions and behaviors expected in specific situations.

Dual Process Theory

A framework stating that decision making and judgment rely on two distinct cognitive systems: fast, intuitive processing (System 1) and slow, analytical processing (System 2).

System 1 (Intuition)

An automatic, fast, unconscious processing mode operating with little effort and no subjective sense of voluntary control.

System 2 (Reasoning)

A conscious, deliberate, effortful processing mode that allocates mental resources to complex computations and controlled actions.

Convergent Thinking

Problem solving that uses logical, linear steps to evaluate established options and narrow down to a single correct answer.

Divergent Thinking

Creative problem solving that expands the number of possible solutions by thinking in unconventional, non-linear ways.

Algorithm

A methodical, step-by-step procedure or set of rules that guarantees a correct solution to a problem, though often time-consuming.

Heuristic

An experience-based mental shortcut or rule of thumb that enables quick problem solving, offering efficiency without guaranteeing a correct result.

Trial-and-Error

A problem-solving strategy in which multiple tentative solutions are attempted sequentially until a successful outcome is reached.

Insight

A sudden, unexpected realization of a problem's solution without explicit, step-by-step conscious reasoning.

Creativity

The cognitive ability to generate novel, innovative, and valuable ideas or solutions.

Bounded Rationality

The principle that human decision-making is rational only within limitations set by cognitive capacity, available information, and environmental constraints.

Cognitive Bias

A systematic, predictable pattern of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment resulting from reliance on heuristics.

Framing Effect

The cognitive bias where decisions are systematically altered depending on whether options are presented as potential gains or losses.

Hindsight Bias

The tendency, after an event has occurred, to overestimate one's ability to have predicted or foreseen the outcome.

Negativity Bias

The psychological phenomenon where negative events, memories, or stimuli exert a stronger influence on mental states than positive ones.

Availability Heuristic

Estimating the likelihood of an event based on how easily relevant instances or memories come to mind.

Representativeness Heuristic

Categorizing a person or object based on how closely they match a typical category prototype while ignoring statistical base rates.

Mere Exposure Effect

The tendency to develop an increased preference or liking for a stimulus simply as a result of repeated exposure to it.

Anchoring Bias

The tendency to rely excessively on the first piece of information encountered (the anchor) when making numerical judgments or estimates.

Confirmation Bias

The cognitive inclination to search for, favor, and remember information that confirms existing beliefs while disregarding contradictory evidence.

Belief Perseverance

Maintaining one's original beliefs even after the foundational evidence supporting those beliefs has been thoroughly disproved.

Overconfidence Bias

The tendency to overestimate the accuracy of one's knowledge, beliefs, judgments, or actual performance capabilities.

Dunning-Kruger Effect

A cognitive bias where low-ability individuals overestimate their skills due to lack of metacognitive competence, whereas high-ability individuals underestimate theirs.

Effort Justification

A cognitive bias where individuals place greater value on an outcome or object because significant personal effort was expended to achieve or construct it (e.g., the Ikea Effect).

Phoneme

The smallest distinctive sound unit in a language that differentiates one word from another.

Morpheme

The smallest meaningful unit of language that cannot be divided into smaller meaningful components.

Grammar

A system of structural rules in a language governing phonology, morphology, and syntax to enable effective communication.

Receptive Language

The language that an individual comprehends and mentally processes when receiving auditory or written input.

Expressive Language

The language produced by an individual through speaking, writing, or signing (also known as Productive Language).

Nativist Theory of Language

Noam Chomsky's theory proposing that human beings possess an innate, biological predisposition and mechanism for acquiring language (Universal Grammar).

Empiricist Theory of Language

The view that linguistic input from the environment combined with general brain learning mechanisms is sufficient for language acquisition without innate language modules.

Interactionist Theory of Language

The perspective that language is acquired through communicative social interaction and the functional desire to connect with others.

Behaviourist Theory of Language

B.F. Skinner's proposition that language is acquired through operant conditioning, imitation of speech models, and reinforcement of correct utterances.

Critical Period

A specific developmental time window early in life during which an organism is optimal for acquiring particular complex skills like grammar, after which acquisition is severely compromised.

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

The proposal that the structural features of a language influence or determine the cognitive categories and worldview of its speakers.

Linguistic Determinism

The strong version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis asserting that language strictly dictates and limits thought (generally considered false by modern linguists).

Linguistic Relativity

The weak version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis holding that linguistic differences influence thought and cognitive framing without rigidly dictating them.

Broca's Area

A brain region located in the posterior portion of the left inferior frontal convolution that controls muscle movements involved in speech production.

Broca's Aphasia

An expressive language disorder resulting from frontal lobe damage, characterized by slow, non-fluent, effortful speech production while comprehension remains relatively intact.

Wernicke's Area

A brain region located toward the back of the superior temporal gyrus in the left hemisphere involved in language comprehension and sound interpretation.

Wernicke's Aphasia

A receptive language disorder caused by temporal lobe damage, marked by fluent but meaningless or paraphasic speech and severe auditory comprehension deficits.

Empiricism

The philosophical principle that knowledge originates in sensory experience and that systematic experimentation is the basis of scientific validation.

Pseudoscience

A set of theories, assumptions, or practices mistakenly regarded as scientific but lacking empirical grounding and falsifiability.

Scientific Rationality

The adherence to logic, empirical evidence, objectivity, and systematic public hypothesis testing that defines scientific inquiry.

Scientific Method

A standardized sequence of procedures for collecting, analyzing, verifying, and interpreting empirical data to establish reproducible findings.

Variable

Any property, condition, or factor in research that can vary in quantity, level, or category.

Operational Definition

A precise statement of the exact procedures and operations used to manipulate or measure a research variable.

Independent Variable

The experimental factor that is directly manipulated or varied by the experimenter to assess its causal impact on an outcome.

Dependent Variable

The outcome variable measured by the experimenter to assess the effect produced by variations in the independent variable.

Confounding Variable

An uncontrolled extraneous factor that covaries with the independent variable, making it impossible to attribute observed effects solely to the independent variable.

Covariation

A criterion for causality requiring a mathematical or statistical relationship where changes in one variable systematically correspond to changes in another.

Temporal Precedence

A causal criterion dictating that the cause (independent variable) must occur prior in time to the effect (dependent variable).

Nonspuriousness

A causal criterion demonstrating that an observed relationship between two variables is real and not driven by a third alternative explanation.

Cross-Sectional Research

A study design comparing different individuals of varying ages or conditions at a single specific point in time.

Longitudinal Research

A study design in which the same group of participants is observed and re-tested repeatedly over an extended time frame.

Self-Report Measure

A data gathering technique where participants provide explicit statements or answers describing their internal states, thoughts, behaviors, or attitudes.

Physiological Measure

A measurement technique recording physiological processes, such as heart rate, skin conductance, hormone levels, or brain activity.

Behavioural Measure

A measurement approach involving direct, systematic observation and quantification of an individual's overt actions or task performance.

Nominal Scale

A qualitative measurement scale consisting of mutually exclusive, unranked categories without numerical value.

Ordinal Scale

A measurement scale representing a ranked order of items without indicating the precise magnitude of differences between ranks.

Interval Scale

A quantitative measurement scale featuring equal distances between consecutive values but lacking an absolute, true zero point.

Ratio Scale

A quantitative measurement scale featuring equal intervals and an absolute true zero point indicating complete absence of the measured variable.

Reliability

The consistency, stability, or repeatability of a measurement instrument across multiple administrations.

Validity

The degree to which an assessment tool measures what it is designed to measure and supports valid inferences.

Internal Validity

The extent to which a study's experimental design eliminates confounding factors and allows confident cause-and-effect conclusions.

External Validity

The degree to which experimental findings can be validly generalized to other populations, settings, and times.

Ecological Validity

The degree to which research conditions, tasks, and settings accurately mimic conditions found in the real world.

Respect for Persons

The core ethical principle requiring respect for participant autonomy and mandatory protection for individuals with diminished autonomy.