Unit 2 - Cognition

Chunking

The process by which the mind divides large pieces(familiar pieces) of information into smaller units that are easier to retain in short-term memory.

Categorical classification

In classification tasks, the grouping of items on the basis of their shared function or membership in a similar category, for example, cow, dog, horse; tractor, bus, motorcycle.

Distributed practice

The strategy to boost the cognitive phenomenon in which distributing to-be-learned information across time in short, interrupted study sessions leads to better long-term retention than continuous, massed sessions.

Encoding

The processing of information into the memory system.

Spacing effect

a learning procedure in which practice periods for a task are separated by lengthy rest periods or lengthy periods of practicing different activities or studying other material, rather than occurring close together in time.

Hierarchies

A basic theory of the organization of long-term memory is hierarchies. The hierarchies' theory contends that long-term memory is organized through hierarchical arrangements of concepts.

Massed practice

Learning procedure in which practice trials occur close together in time, either in a single lengthy session or in sessions separated by short intervals.

Memory consolidation

The neurobiological processes by which a permanent memory is formed following a learning experience.

Method of lori

A mnemonic technique in which the items to be remembered are converted into mental images and associated with specific positions or locations.

Mnemonic device

Any device or technique used to assist memory, usually by forging a link or association between the new information to be remembered and information previously encoded.

Serial position effect

Our tendency to recall best the last and first items in a list.

Primary effect

Remembering the first thing on a list.

Recency effect

remembering the last thing on the list.

Grouping

Focuses on organizing items based on shared characteristics.

Amnesia

the loss of memory.

Rehearsal

the conscious repetition of information, either to maintain it in consciousness or to encode it for storage.

Alzheimer’s disease

A progressive neurodegenerative disease characterized by synapse loss, causing dementia and a significant decline in functioning.

Anterograde amnesia

A type of memory loss that occurs when you can't form new memories.

Retrograde amnesia

inability to recall previously learned information or past events.

Autobiographical memory

a persons memory for episodes or experiences that occurred in their own life. 

Elaborative rehearsal

an encoding strategy to facilitate the formation of memory by linking new information to what one already knows, is more detailed and involves additional memory aids like mnemonic devices.

Maintenance rehearsal

repeating items over and over (out loud or in your head) to maintain them in short-term memory, also known as rote memorization. 

Infantile amnesia

the commonly experienced inability to recall events from early childhood.

Long-term memory

the relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system. Includes knowledge, skills, experiences.

Memory retention

persistence of learned behavior or experience during a period when it is not being performed or practiced as indicated by the ability to recall, recognize, reproduce, or relearn it. And, the storage and maintenance of a memory. Retention is the second stage of memory, after encoding and before retrieval. The retentic encoded information over time.

Sensory memory

The immediate, very brief recording of sensory information in the memory system.

Short-term memory

activated memory that holds a few items briefly, such as the seven digits of a phone number while dialing, before the information is stored or forgotten.

Working memory

14. The brief retention of information in a highly accessible state. A newer understanding of short-term memory that focuses on conscious, active processing of incoming auditory and visual-spatial information, and of information retrieved from long-term memory.

Self-reference effect

finding personal connections to information, making them more memorable.

State-dependent memory

a condition in which memory for a past event is improved when the person is in the same biological or psychological state as when the memory was initially formed.

Mood-congruent

the finding that memory for an event can be recalled more readily when one is in the same emotional mood (eg, happy or sad as when the memory was initially formed; mood-dependent or

Context-dependent memory

learning that has occurred in a particular place or circumstance and is displayed only in that context and not when testing occurs in another context.

Metacognition

A deeper level of thinking that includes your ability to think about your thinking; how you understand, adapt, change, control, and use your thought processes. Awareness of one's own cognitive processes, often involving a conscious attempt to control them.

Memory recall

a measure of memory in which the person must retrieve information learned earlier, as on a fill-in-the-blank test. to transfer prior learning or past experience to current consciousness: that is, to retrieve and reproduce information; to remember.

Recognition memory

A measure of memory in which the person needs only identify items previously learned, as on a multiple-choice test.

Retrieval

The process of getting information out of memory storage. 

Retrieval cues

A prompt or stimulus used to guide memory recall. 

Testing effect

enhanced memory after retrieving, rather than simply rereading, information. The finding that taking a test on previously studied material leads to better retention than does restudying that material for an equivalent amount of time. Although testing is often conceptualized as an assessment tool, this finding suggests that testing (or retrieval practice) can also be considered a learning tool.

Constructive memory

remembering conceived as involving the use of general knowledge stored in one's memory to construct a more complete and detailed account of an event or experience by changing or filling in various features of the memory. 

Encoding failure

A breakdown in the process of getting information into the cognitive system; when this occurs, the information doesn't get into memory.

Forgetting curve

A graphic depiction of the amount of forgetting over time after learning has taken place. In his pioneering studies of forgetting, which involved lists of nonsense syllables, Hermann Ebbinghaus was the first to show that there is generally a sudden drop in retention shortly after learning, followed by a more gradual decline thereafter.

Imagination inflation

The increased likelihood that a person will judge an event as having actually occurred (e.g., during childhood) when they imagine the event before making such a judgment.

Memory consolidation

The neurobiological processes by which a permanent memory is formed following a learning experience

Misinformation effect

a phenomenon in which a person mistakenly recalls misleading information that an experimenter has provided, instead of accurately recalling the correct information that had been presented earlier.

Proactive interference

The disruptive effect of old learning on the recall of new information.

Retroactive interference

The disruptive effect of new learning on the recall of old information.

Source amnesia

impaired memory for how, when, or where information was learned despite good memory for the information itself. 

Repression

In psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense mechanism that banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories from consciousness.

Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon

The experience of attempting to retrieve from memory a specific name or word but not being able to do so. Usually, the name or word is eventually retrieved, but while on the TOT, it seems to hover tantalizingly on the rim of consciousness. 

Interference

The blocking of learning or of memory retrieval by the learning or remembering of other conflicting material. Sources that can cause this are prior learning (see proactive interference), subsequent learning (see retroactive interference).

Achievement tests

tests designed to assess what a person has learned. 

Aptitude tests

tests designed to predict a person's future performance.

Chronologicalage

the amount of time elapsed since an individual's birth, typically expressed in terms of months and years.

Construct validity

the degree to which a test or instrument is capable of measuring a concept, trait, or other theoretical entity. 

Predictive validity

Evidence that a test score or other measurement correlates with a variable that can only be assessed at some point after the test has been administered or the measurement made.

Validity

The degree to which empirical evidence and theoretical rationales support the adequacy and appropriateness of conclusions drawn from some form of assessment. The extent to which a test measures or predicts what it is supposed to measure or predict. 

G (general intelligence)

A general intelligence factor that, according to Spearman and others, underlies specific mental abilities and is therefore measured by every task on an intelligence test.

Flyn effect

The gradual cross-cultural rise in raw scores obtained on measures of general intelligence.

Mixed mindset

The belief that your intelligence, talents and other abilities are set in stone.

Growth mindset

The belief that a person's intelligence and abilities can grow and improve with practice.

Intelligence test

A method for assessing an individual's mental aptitudes and comparing them with those of others, using numerical scores.

Intelligence quotient (IQ)

defined originally as the ratio of mental age to chronological age multiplied by 100.

Reliability

The trustworthiness or consistency of a measure, that is, the degree to which a test or other measurement instrument is free of random error, yielding the same results across multiple applications to the same sample.

Mental age

A measure of intelligence test performance devised by Binet; the chronological age that most typical!! Corresponds to a given level of performance. 

Split halt reliablity

A measure of the internal consistency of surveys, psychologicaltests, questionnaires, and other instruments or techniques that assess participant responses on particular constructs; determined by dividing the total set of items (e.g., questions) relating to a construct of interest into halves (e.g., odd-numbered and even-numbered questions) and comparing the results obtained from the two subsets of items thus created. The closer the correlation between results from the two versions, the greater the internal consistency of the survey or instrument. 

Standardization

16. defining 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.

Test-retest reliability

A measure of reliability obtained by administering the same test twice over a period of time to a group of individuals.

Stereotype lift

a performance boost that occurs when downward comparisons are made with a denigrated outgroup.

Intelligence

mental quality consisting of the ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations. 

Cultural test bias

partiality of a test in favor of individuals from certain backgrounds at the expense of individuals from other backgrounds. The partiality may be in the content of the items, in the format of the items, or in the very act of taking a test itself.

Test bias

The tendency of scores on a test to systematically over- or underestimate the true performance of individuals to whom that test is administered, particularly because they are members of specific groups (e.g., ethnic minorities, one or the other gender).

Iconic memory

A momentary sensory memory of visual stimuli; a photographic or picture-image memory lasting no more than a few tenths of a second.

Echoic memory

A momentary sensory memory of auditory stimuli; if attention is elsewhere, sounds and words can still be recalled within 3 or 4 seconds.

Implicit memory

Retention independent of conscious recollection, non-declarative memory.

Retrieval

The process of getting information out of memory storage.

Explicit memory

Memory of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and "declare."

Effortful processing

Encoding that requires attention and conscious effort. 

Prospective memory

The memory for intentions, remember to do something ahead of time.

Encoding

the processing of information into the memory system-for example, by extracting meaning. The conversion of a sensory input into a form capable of being processed and deposited in memory; the first stage of memory processing, followed by retention and then retrieval.

Deep processing

processing at this semantic level, which usually involves a degree of elaboration, produces stronger, longer-lasting memories.

Long-term memory

the relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system. Includes knowledge, skills, and experiences.

Long-term potentiation

An increase in a synapse's firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation. Believed to be a neural basis for learning and memory. 

Phonemic processing  

type of processing the process of encoding sounds, actual words, and other auditory input for storage and retrieval 

Levels of Processing Model (Craik & Lockhart)

a model developed by Craik and Lockhart that says the level of encoding leads to level of recall.

Multi-store Model (Atkinson & Shiffrin)

a theory developed by Atkinson and Shiffrin, hypothesizing that information can move through and be retained in any of several memory storage systems, usually of a short-term and a long-term variety.

Episodic memory

the ability to remember personally experienced events associated with a particular time and place.

Semantic memory

memory for general factual knowledge and concepts, of the kind that endows information with meaning and ultimately allows people to engage in such complex cognitive processes as recognizing objects and using language.

Semantic encoding

cognitive encoding of new information that focuses on its meaningful aspects as opposed to its perceptual characteristics. This will usually involve some form of elaboration; the encoding of meaning, including the meaning of words. 

Automatic processing

the quality of a behavior or mental process that can be carried out rapidly and without effort or explicit intention. Unconscious encoding of incidental information, such as space, time, and frequency, and of well-learned information, such as word meanings.

Central executive

in the working memory model, a component that manages the activities of the phonological loop and visuospatial sketchpad.

Working memory

the brief retention of information in a highly accessible state. A newer understanding of short-term memory that focuses on conscious, active processing of incoming auditory and visual-spatial information, and of information retrieved from long-term memory.

Phonological loop

in the working memory model, a component that holds and manipulates auditory information over short intervals of time. 

Working memory model (Baddeley & Hitch)

a memory model proposed by Baddeley and Hitch the short-term maintenance and manipulation of information necessary for performing complex cognitive tasks such as learning, reasoning, and comprehension. 

Visuospatial sketchpad

in the working memory model, a component that briefly holds and manipulates information about the appearance of objects and their location in space.