Unit 5 Study Guide: Cognitive Psychology

Availability Heuristic

Estimating likelihood of events based on their availability in memory. We often fear the wrong things due to lack of available, personal information and images

Belief Perserverance

Clinging to one’s initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited to combat

Confirmation Bias

The tendency for people to favor information that confirms or supports previously held beliefs. Difficult to combat

Context-Dependent Memory

Your physical location can impact memories that can be recalled (ex. being taken to your elementary school = remembering more from it)

Components of Creativity

Expertise, imaginative thinking skills, a venturesome personality, intrinsic motivation, a creative environment

Convergent Thinking

Narrowing the available problem solutions to determine the single best solution (ex. How many uses can you think of for a brick)

Divergent Thinking

Expanding the number of possible problem solutions. Creativity tests measure divergent thinking (ex. how many uses can you think of for a brick)

Echoic Memory

Momentary sensory memory of auditory stimuli lasting between 3-4 seconds (ex. “What did I just say?”)

Effortful Processing

Encoding that requires attention and conscious effort

Herman Ebbinghaus’ “Forgetting Curve”

The course of forgetting is initially rapid, then levels off with time

Hierarchical Organization

Broad concepts divided and subdivided into narrower concept and facts (grouping)

Iconic Memory

Momentary sensory memory of visual stimuli lasting no longer than a few tenths of a second (brief)

Imagination Inflation

A type of memory distortion that occurs when imagining an event that never happened increases confidence in the memory of the event

Infantile Amnesia

The inability to recall memories from the first three years of life. Hippocampus = one of the last structures to mature

Intuition

Effortless, immediate, automatic feeling or thought

Language Acquisition

Whatever language we experience as children, whether spoken or signed, we will readily learn it specific grammar and vocab. No matter what language we learn, we start speaking nouns > verbs + adjectives

Memory Reconsolidation

If you study the same material regularly over a long period, the pathways involved in remembering that information become stronger

Mental Set

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

Misinformation Effect

The misinformation effect occurs when a person’s recall of episodic memories becomes less accurate because of post-event information

Parallel Proccessing

Processing many aspects of a problem simultaneously; the brain’s natural mode of information processing of many functions (ex. you see a bird flying around, and unconsciously you are taking in the color, size, and shape of the bird, and consciously identifying it as a robin)

Priming

The activation (often unconsciously) of certain associations, thus predisposing someone’s perception, memory, or response. Behaviors can be primed, but there is no evidence suggesting they can be persuaded to change

Proactive Interference

Prior learning disrupts recall of new information (ex. trying to recall new password but keep typing in old password)

Relearning

Learning something more quickly when you learned it a second or later time

Representativeness Heuristic

Estimating the likelihood of events in terms of how well they seem to represent, or match, particular prototypes

Retroactive Interference

New learning disrupts the recall of old information. New replaces old. (ex. new lyrics to old song prevents you remembering original words)

Role of Hippocampus in Memory

Neural center in the limbic system that helps process explicit memories for storage. NOT permanently stored her (like the loading dock for memories)

Semantics

Set of rules for deriving meaning from sounds

State-Dependent Memory

What we learn in one state of mind may be more easily recalled when we are again in that state (ex. being drunk and losing your keys → getting drunk to find them)

Syntax

Set of rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences

Testing Effect

Enhanced memory after retrieving, rather than rereading information. Repeatedly testing yourself to recall information

Alfred Binet’s Mental Age

Predicts school achievement. Mental performance typically associated with children of a chronological age in order to place French children in the appropriate class (ex. are the kids above or below where ex. an 8 year old should be)

Aptitude Tests

Designed to assess what a person has learned (ex. unit exams)

Biases in Testing

Whether a test predicts future behavior only for some group of test-takers

Controversies with “Gifted Child” Programs

These students receive academic enrichment that isn’t available to their peers. Both groups may live up to (or down to) others’ perceptions and expectations

Crystallized Intelligence

Accumulated with knowledge and verbal skills, tend to increase with age

Fluid Interlligence

Our ability to reason speedily and abstractly. Tends to decrease with age

Down Syndrome

A condition of mild to severe intellectual disability cause by an extra copy of chromosome 21

Emotional Intelligence

Perceiving emotions: faces, music, stories, own emotions. Understanding emotions: how they may change and blend. Managing emotions: how to express and manage others’ emotions. Using emotions: adaptive or creative thinking

Environmental Influences

Adoption enhances the intelligence scores of mistreated or neglected children = poor environmental conditions can decrease cognitive development. Schooling can increase IQ and enhance later income

Factor Analysis

A statistical procedure that identifies clusters of related items on a test to reach this concluson

Flynn Effect

Historical intelligence performance gains may be attributed to greater educational opportunities, smaller families, and rising living standards

Francis Galton and Eugenics

Pressuring hereditary genius. Measures “natural ability.” The phrase nature and nurture. Shows need for objectivity in science

Gender Differences

Girls are shown to be better at spelling, verbal fluency, locating objects, detecting emotions, and sensitivity to touch, taste, and color. Boys outperform girls in tests of spatial ability and complex math problems

General Intelligence (g)

Males and females are the same

Heritability

The proportion of variation among individuals in a group that we can attribute to genes. 50-80% is the reason that people are smarter than others

Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences

8 relatively independent intelligences

Intelligence Tests

A method for assessing an individual’s mental aptitudes and comparing them with peers using numerical scores

Original IQ Formula

Mental age x 100 divided by chronological age = X

Polygenetic

Intelligence is polygenic (involving many genes) with each gene accounting for less than 2% of intelligence variation

Reliability

Extent to which a test yield consistent results, as assessed by the consistency of scores on 2 halves of the test (split-half), on alternative forms of the test, or on re-testing (test-retest) - higher correlation between 2 scores = higher reliability

Robert Sternberg’s Three Intelligences

A triarchic theory that proposes three intelligences,, rather than 8 or 9

Savant Syndrome

A person otherwise limited in mental ability has an exceptional specific skill

Social Influences

What type of homelife and friends one might have can influence intelligence

Standardization

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

Stereotype Threat

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

Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)

Similarities: reasoning the commonality of 2 objects or concepts. Vocabulary: naming pictures, objects, and defining words. Block design: visual abstract processing. Letter-number sequencing: repeating numbers and letters in order