Cognitive Psychology: Memory, Language, Problem-Solving, Emotion, and Connectionism

Vocabulary terms and definitions from lecture notes covering Memory models, Linguistics, Problem-Solving strategies, the Cognition-Emotion debate, and Computer Metaphors for the mind.

Short-term memory (STM)

A temporary storage system for information.

Long-term memory (LTM)

A permanent storage system for information.

P-system

Broadbent’s term for short-term memory.

S-system

Broadbent’s term for long-term memory.

Rehearsal

The mental repetition of information used to move it into long-term memory.

Miller (1956) STM Capacity

The theory that short-term memory can hold approximately $7 \pm 2$ items.

Chunking

The process of grouping individual pieces of information into larger meaningful units to improve recall.

Brown-Peterson Study

An experiment showing that short-term memory duration is short without rehearsal, with recall dropping quickly after $18\,seconds$.

Primacy effect

The tendency to remember the first items in a list more accurately.

Recency effect

The tendency to remember the last items in a list more accurately.

Central executive

The component of working memory that controls attention and coordinates other systems.

Phonological loop

The component of working memory that handles auditory and verbal information.

Visuo-spatial sketchpad

The component of working memory that processes visual information.

Episodic Memory

Memory for personal events and experiences categorized by time.

Semantic Memory

Memory for objective facts and general knowledge that is not time-based.

Explicit Memory

Memory that involves conscious recall of information.

Implicit Memory

Memory that affects behavior unconsciously, such as an amnesic patient avoiding a hand-shake.

Encoding Specificity Principle

The theory that recall is best when the context of learning matches the context of recall.

Flashbulb Memory

Extremely vivid memories for shocking or significant events, such as the $9/11$ attacks.

Schema

Organized knowledge structures used to predict events and understand context, such as a restaurant schema.

Spreading Activation

The process within a semantic network where activating one concept node triggers related concept nodes.

Phonemes

The smallest units of sound in a language, including consonants like $/b/$ or $/d/$ and vowels like $/a/$ or $/i/$.

McGurk & MacDonald (1976)

A study demonstrating that visual lip movements affect speech perception, such as hearing $/ba/$ while seeing $/ga/$ resulting in the perception of $/da/$.

Syntax

The rules for arranging words into grammatically correct sentences.

Morphology

The study of morphemes, which are the smallest units of meaning, including prefixes and suffixes.

Pragmatics

The study of how language use changes depending on social context.

Saccades

Rapid, voluntary or automatic eye movements occurring during reading.

Perceptual Span

The area visible between saccades, typically covering about $4$ letters to the left and $15$ letters to the right.

Dyslexia

A reading disorder occurring in individuals with normal intelligence.

Whorfian Hypothesis (Strong Version)

The theory of linguistic relativity suggesting that language determines thought.

LAD (Language Acquisition Device)

Chomsky's proposed inborn mechanism for language learning.

Critical Period Hypothesis (Lenneberg)

The theory that language learning is easiest and most successful before puberty.

Over-Regularization

Applying grammar rules incorrectly to irregular cases, such as saying "runned" instead of "ran."

State Space Theory

Newell & Simon's theory that problem-solving is like moving through a maze where all possible states form the "state space."

Means–Ends Analysis

A heuristic that involves breaking a large problem into smaller sub-problems to reduce the distance between the initial and goal states.

Functional Fixedness

The cognitive bias of seeing objects only in terms of their usual or traditional function, as seen in Duncker’s Candle Problem.

Lateral Thinking

The process of solving problems by thinking unconventionally, often described as "thinking outside the square."

Convergent Thinking

A focused mode of thinking aimed at finding one correct solution to a problem.

Divergent Thinking

A flexible mode of thinking involving the generation of many possible solutions.

Mere exposure effect

Zajonc's concept that increased viewing of a stimulus leads to a greater feeling of comfort or liking, supporting emotion without cognition.

Attentional bias

The tendency for anxious individuals to automatically direct their attention toward threatening stimuli.

Emotional Stroop Task

A task where highly anxious individuals take longer to name the ink color of threat-related words because their attention is captured by the meaning.

Algorithm

A set of step-by-step instructions for completing a task precisely.

Connectionism

An approach to cognition that views the brain as a massively parallel network of interconnected artificial neurons.

Hebb Rule

The principle that learning occurs by strengthening connections between neurons that fire together.

The Turing Test

A test proposed by Turing in $1950$ to determine if a machine can imitate human responses successfully enough to fool a person.

Searle’s Chinese Room

An argument suggesting that computers follow syntax rules but do not understand semantics, meaning they simulate thought without truly thinking.

zajonc

theory that emotion can happen before thinking

lazarus

theory that thinking comes before emotion

ledoux

theory suggesting that Emotion and cognition are separate BUT interact together.

State-Dependent Memory (SDM)

You remember better when:
mood during learning = mood during recall.