unit 2 vocab: cognition

selective attention

selective attention

the focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus. (p. 205)

inattentional blindness

failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed elsewhere. (p. 206)

change blindness

failing to notice changes in the environment; a form of inattentional blindness. (p. 207)

perceptual set

a mental predisposition to perceive one thing & not another. (p. 215)

gestalt

an organized whole. gestalt psychologists emphasized our tendency to integrate pieces of into into meaningful wholes. (p. 233)

figure-ground

the organization of the visual field into objects (the figures) that stand out from their surroundings (the ground). (p. 233)

grouping

the perceptual tendency to organize stimuli into coherent groups. (p. 234)

depth perception

the ability to see objects in 3 dimensions although the images that strike the retina are 2-D; allows us to judge distance. (p. 235)

visual cliff

a laboratory device for testing depth perception in infants & young animals (p. 235)

binocular cue

a depth cue, such as retinal disparity, that depends on the use of 2 eyes. (p. 235)

convergence

a binocular cue for perceiving depth; the extent to which the eyes converge inward when looking at an object. the greater the inward strain, the closer the object.

retinal disparity

a binocular cue for perceiving depth, by comparing retinal images from the 2 eyes, the brain computes distance — the greater the disparity (difference) btwn the 2 images, the closer the object. (p. 235)

monocular cue

a depth cue, such as interposition or linear perspective, available to either eye alone. (p. 236)

stroboscopic movement

a visual phenomenon where continuous motion is represented by a series of short or instantaneous samples. it’s like when you see a series of still images presented in rapid succession, creating the illusion of movement.

phi phenomenon

an illusion of movement created when two or more adjacent lights blink on & off in quick succession. (p. 236)

autokinetic effect

illusory movement of a single still object, usually a stationary pinpoint of light used in psychology experiments in dark rooms. as one stares at a fixed point of light, one’s eyes become fatigued, causing a slight eye movement.

perceptual constancy

perceiving objects as unchanging (having consistent color, brightness, shape, & size) even as illumination & retinal images change. (p. 237)

color constancy

perceiving familiar objects as having consistent color, even if changing illumination alters the wavelengths reflected by the object. (p. 238)

perceptual adaptation

the ability to adjust to changed sensory input, including an artificially displaced or even inverted visual field. (p. 241)

cognition

all the mental activities associated w/ thinking, knowing, remembering, & communicating. (pp. 365, 454)

metacognition

awareness of our thoughts towards a task to help control our learning.

concept

a mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people. (p. 365)

prototype

a mental image or best example of a category matching new items to a prototype provides a quick & easy method for sorting items into categories (as when comparing feathered creatures to a prototypical bird, such as a robin. (p. 365)

Jean Piaget

best known for his research on children’s cognitive development. created a theory that described the stages that children pass through in the development of intelligence & formal though processes.

schema

a concept or framework that organizes & interprets information. (p. 454)

assimilation

interpreting our new experiences in terms of our existing schemas. (p. 454)

accommodation

(1) in sensation & perception, the process by which the eye’s lens changes shape to focus near or for objects on the retina.

(2) in developmental psychology, adapting our current understanding (schemas) to incorporate new information. (pp. 223, 454)

creativity

the ability to produce new & valuable ideas. (p. 366)

convergent thinking

narrowing the available problem solutions to determine the single best solution. (p. 366)

divergent thinking

expanding the number of possible problem solutions; creative thinking that diverges in different directions. (p. 266)

robert sternberg

american psychologist best known for his intelligence theory, which states that there are 3 aspects to intelligence: creative, analytical, & practical intelligence.

executive functions

a set of cognitive processes that allow individuals to plan, organize, & regulate their behavior in order to achieve goals.

algorithm

a methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem, contrasts w/ the usually speedier — but also more error-prone — use of heuristics. (p. 370)

heurisitic

a simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgements & solve problems efficiently, usually speedier but also more error-prone than an algorithm.

insight

a sudden realization of a problem’s solution; contrasts w/ strategy-based solutions. (pp. 364, 370)

wolfgang kohler

a gestalt psychologist who became known for his experiments w/ chimpanzees & insight in problem solving. he believed that by perceiving the whole situation, chimps were able to create novel solutions to problems (rather than just by trial & error).

confirmation bias

a tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions & to ignore or distort contradictory evidence. (p. 371)

fixation

(1) in cognition, the inability to see a problem from a new perspective; an obstacle to problem solving.

(2) in personality theory, according to freud, a lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage, in which conflicts were unresolved. (pp. 371, 621)

mental set

a tendency to approach a problem in one particular way. often a way that has been successful in the past. (p. 371)

intuition

an effortless, immediate, automatic feeling or thought, as contrasted w/ explicit, conscious reasoning. (p. 372)

amos tversky

cognitive psychologist who studied availability & representative heuristics; studied systematic human bias & handling of risk; worked to develop “prospective theory” which explains irrational human economic choices.

daniel kahneman

psychologist who, along w/ amos tversky conducted research to discover factors that influence human judgment & decision making; he won the nobel prize for this work in 2002.

representativeness heuristic

estimating the likelihood of events in terms of how well they seem to represent, or match, particular prototypes; may lead us to ignore other relevant information. (p. 372)

availability heuristic

estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; if instances come readily to mind (perhaps because of their vividness), we presume such events are common. (p. 373)

overconfidence

the tendency to be more confident than correct — to overestimate the accuracy of our beliefs & judgments. (p. 375)

belief perseverance

clinging to one’s initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited. (p. 376)

framing

the way an issue is posed; how an issue is worded can significantly affect decisions & judgments. (p. 376)

nudge

(1) an intervention that changes people’s behavior in a predictable way w/o forbidding any options or significantly changing their economic incentives.

(2) small changes in the environment that are easy & inexpensive to implement.

memory

(1) the persistence of learning over time through the encoding, storage, & retrieval of information. (p. 326)

(2) ability to store & retrieve info over time.

recall

(1) a measure of memory in which the person must retrieve info learned earlier, as on a fill-in-the-blank test. (p. 327)

(2) requires a person to retrieve info from memory w/o any external cues.

recognition

(1) a measure of memory in which the person identifies items previously learned, as on a multiple-choice test. (p. 327)

(2) involves identifying previously learned information from a set of options.

relearning

(1) a measure of memory that assesses the amount of time saved when learning material again. (p. 327)

(2) measures how much faster someone can relearn previously learned material compared to learning it for the first time.

hermann ebbinghaus

a german psychologist who pioneered in memory studies. introduced techniques for quantitative measurement of mental processes & developed influential theories about learning & forgetting curves.

encoding

(1) the process of getting info into the memory system — for example, by extracting meaning. (p. 329)

(2) process by which we transform what we perceive, think, or feel into an enduring memory.

storage

(1) the process of retaining encoded information over time. (p. 329)

(2) process of maintaining information in memory over time.

retrieval

(1) the process of getting info out of memory storage. (p. 329)

(2) process of bringing to mind info that has been previously encoded & stored.

parallel processing

processing many aspects of a problem simultaneously; the brain’s natural mode of info processing for many functions. (pp. 126, 229, 329)

richard atkinson

proposed that we form memories in 3 stages (sensory, short-term, & long-term).

richard shiffrin

developed & helped establish a general theory of how we retrieve info from memory + theory of the interaction of automatic & attentive processes in cognition.

sensory memory

the immediate, very brief recording of sensory information in the memory system. (p. 329)

short-term memory

(1) activated memory that holds a few items briefly, such as digits of a phone number while calling, before the info is stored or forgotten. (p. 329)

(2) storage that holds info for more than a few seconds but less than a minute; can hold about 7 items.

long-term memory

(1) the relatively permanent & limitless storehouse of the memory system. includes knowledge, skills, & experiences. (p. 329)

(2) no known capacity limit, can hold info for hours, days, weeks, or years.

working memory

(1) a newer understanding of short-term memory that adds conscious, active processing of incoming auditory & visual information, & of information retrieved from long-term memory. (p. 329)

(2) stores & manipulates information.

central executive

responsible for controlling attention, coordinating resources btwn different components of working memory, & integrating new info w/ long-term memory.

phonological loop

the speech & sound-related component of working memory & holds verbal & auditory information.

visuospatial sketchpad

system which allows us to hold or manipulate visual and/or spatial information received from our senses or accessed from long-term memory.

neurogenesis

the formation of new neurons. (p. 117)

eric kandel

neuroscientists who conducted research on sea slugs to study the biological basis for memory. his work focused on how changes in synaptic connections contribute to learning & long-term memory formation.

long-term potentiation (LTP)

(1) an increase in a cell’s firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation; a neural basis for learning & memory. (p. 342)

(2) process whereby communication across the synapse between neurons strengthens the connection, making further communication easier.

explicit memory

(1) retention of facts & experiences that one can consciously know & “declare”. (also called declarative memory.) (p. 330)

(2) act of consciously or intentionally retrieving past experiences, processed in hippocampus & frontal lobes.

effortful processing

encoding that requires attention & conscious effort. (p. 330)

automatic processing

unconscious encoding of incidental info, such as space, time, & frequency, & of well-learned info, such as word meanings. (p. 331)

implicit memory

(1) retention of learned skills or classically conditioned associations independent of conscious recollection. (also called nondeclarative memory.) (p. 331)

(2) influence of past experience on later behavior, even w/o effort/awareness of recollection. processed in cerebellum & basal ganglia.

iconic memory

(1) a momentary sensory memory of visual stimuli; a picture-image memory lasting no more than a few tenths of a second. (p. 332)

(2) fast-decaying store of visual information.

echoic memory

(1) a momentary sensory memory of auditory stimuli; if attention is elsewhere, sounds & words can still be recalled within 3 or 4 seconds. (p. 332)

(2) fast-decaying store of auditory info.

george a. miller

psychologist who theorized that short-term memory can hold btwn 5-9 pieces of info. this info can be stored in single units called bits or in groupings called chunks. creating chunks of info allows you to hold more info in short-term memory.

chunking

(1) organizing items into familiar, manageable units; often occurs automatically. (p. 333)

(2) combining small pieces of info into larger chunks that are more easily held in the short-term memory.

mnemonics

memory aids, especially those techniques that use vivid imagery & organizational devices. (p. 333)

spacing effect (distributed practice)

(1) the tendency for distributed study or practice to yield better long-term retention than is achieved through massed study or practice. (p. 334)

(2) the tendency for distributed study or practice to yield better long-term retention.

testing effect

(1) enhanced memory after retrieving, rather than simple re-reading, info. also sometimes referred to as a retrieval practice effect or test-enhanced learning. (pp. 20, 335)

(2) the finding that long-term memory is often increased when some of the learning period is devoted to retrieving the to-be-remembered info.

shallow processing

encoding on a basic level, based on the structure or appearance of words. (p. 335)

deep processing

encoding semantically, based on the meaning of the words; tends to yield the best retention. (p. 335)

semantic memory

(1) explicit memory of facts & general knowledge; one of our 2 conscious memory systems (other is episodic memory). (p. 340)

(2) facts & knowledge, form of explicit memory.

episodic memory

(1) explicit memory of personally experienced events; one of our 2 conscious memory systems (other is semantic memory).

(2) experienced events, form of explicit memory.

hippocampus

a neural center located in the limbic system; helps process for storage explicit (conscious) memories of facts & events. (pp. 106, 340)

memory consolidation

the neural storage of a long-term memory. (p. 340)

flashbulb memory

a clear, sustained memory of an emotionally significant moment or event. (p. 342)

priming

(1) the activation, often unconsciously, of certain associations, thus predisposing one’s perception, memory, or response. (pp. 211, 345)

(2) the activation of particular associations in our memory; often unconscious.

encoding specificity principle

(1) the idea that cues & context specific to a particular memory will be most effective in helping us recall it. (p. 345)

(2) principle stating that the ability of a cue to aid retrieval depends on the degree to which it taps into info that was encoded at the time of original learning. cue helps us recreate memory (ex. taking a test in the room you learned the material in).

mood-congruent memory

(1) the tendency to recall experiences that are consistent w/ one’s current good or bad mood. (p. 346)

(2) the tendency to more easily remember events that have a congruence w/ one’s current mood.

serial position effect

(1) our tendency to recall best the last (recency effect) & first (primary effect) items in a list. (p. 347)

(2) suggests that we best remember the first & last items in a series & find it difficult to remember items in the middle.

interleaving

a process where students mix, or interleave, multiple subjects or topics while they study in order to improve their learning.

anterograde amnesia

an inability to form new memories. (p. 351)

retrograde amnesia

an inability to retrieve info from one’s past. (p. 351)

proactive interference

(1) the forward-acting disruptive effect of older learning on the recall of new info. (p. 354)

(2) old blocks new — the disruptive effect of prior learning on the recall of new info.

retroactive interference

(1) the backward-acting disruptive effect of newer learning on the recall of old info. (p. 354)

(2) new blocks old — the disruptive effect of new learning on the recall of old info.

repression

in psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense mechanism that banishes from consciousness anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, & memories. (pp. 355, 621)

reconsolidation

(1) a process in which previously stored memories, when retrieved, are potentially altered before being stored again. (p. 356)

(2) memories can become vulnerable to disruption when they are recalled, requiring them to be consolidated again.

elizabeth loftus

american psychologist who specializes in understanding memory. focused her research on how memories aren’t always accurate & the notion that repressed memories can be false memories created by the brain.

misinformation effect

occurs when misleading info has distorted one’s memory of an event. (p. 357)