Psych Exam 2 (Chapter 9)

Cognition

• Mental activities related to thinking/knowing/remembering/communicating information

Metacognition

• A type of cognition where one thinks about their own thinking

Concepts

• Mental groupings of similar objects/events/people

• Natural concepts— some defining and some flexible characteristics

  • Have prototypes

• Formal concepts— very clearly defined rules/properties

• Help simplify communication and thinking

Prototype

• The best example of a category; may manifest as a mental picture

  • Ex: “crow” is the “bird” prototype

• We tend to shift the new people we meet to category prototypes (remember the people who fit a prototype best)

• We can become shortsighted/overlook things when it does not match our prototype

Algorithms

• Step-by-step procedures that guarantee a solution

• Can be very time-consuming

Heuristics

• Simpler thinking strategies (ex: eliminate illogical ideas/possibilities; try more likely solutions)

• Efficient, but are error-prone

• Consists of the availability and representativeness heuristics

Insight

• New (and potentially novel) solution comes quickly; strikes suddenly

• Frontal lobe activity → aha moment → burst of activity in the right temporal lobe

Confirmation bias

• Causes people to seek evidence supporting their ideas more eagerly

• Benefit: Can help quickly recognize supporting evidence

• Checking solutions that might not fit the belief can provide more information— disproving hypothesis proves more information

Fixation

• Becoming hung up on an incorrect view of a problem; inability to come to a fresh perspective; alternative solutions are not obvious

• Consists of paradigm paralysis and functional fixedness

Mental set

• The tendency to approach a problem with a mindset that worked previously

• Predisposes how we think

Intuition

• Fast and automatic; unreasoned feelings and thoughts

• Based on recognition from experience (unconscious knowledge)— constantly affects our judgments (often for our benefit)

• Serves an adaptive purpose

  • Learned associations surface as gut feelings

• Deliberative thinkers know the intuitive option and when to ignore it

Representativeness heuristic

• Judging the likelihood of something by comparing it to certain prototypes

• Ignores base rates

Availability heuristic

• Estimating how common an event is based on its mental availability/ease of recall

• Distorts risk judgment and fears

  • Tendency to fear the wrong things can be explained by genetics, fear of a lack of control, fear of immediate danger (rather than long-term danger)9

• Lack of available images (ex: climate change) can cause people to feel less worried

Overconfidence

• The tendency to overestimate one’s accuracy of knowledge and judgments

• Can lead to extreme political views, incorrect diagnoses, etc.

• Advantages:

  • People tend to live happier because they believe they have more time and make good decisions

  • People make hard decisions more easily

• Can be amended with clear feedback

Planning fallacy

• Results from overconfidence

• People tend to overestimate their future leisure time and income

Belief perserverance

• Tendency to cling to beliefs despite contrary evidence

Motivated reasoning

• Using conclusions to assess evidence

Framing

• The way an issue is presented can be a powerful persuasion tool

• Can potentially nudge people to make beneficial decisions (nudge attitudes and decisions)

Creativity

• Producing new and valuable ideas

• Relies on frontal lobes

• Supported by aptitude; requires convergent and divergent thinking

• Comprised of expertise, imaginative thinking skills, a venturesome/determined personality, intrinsic motivation, and a creative environment

• Can be improved by developing expertise, stepping aside to let the mind think passively, and experiencing other cultures/ways of thinking

Aptitude

• The ability to learn

Convergent thinking

• A type of thinking that involves giving a single right answer

• A component of creativity

Divergent thinking

• A component of creativity

• A type of thinking that involves considering many different possible answers

Imaginative thinking skills

• A component of creativity

• Involves seeing things in new ways, recognizing patterns, and making connections

Venturesome/determined personality

• A component of creativity

• Looks for new experiences, tolerates ambiguity and risk, and perserveres past obstacles

Intrinsic motivation

• A component of creativity

• Involves focusing on the enjoyment of the work itself

Creative environment

• A component of creativity

• An environment that fosters innovation, involves team-building and communication

Animal consciousness

• Apes demonstrate insight and foresight

• Other species invent behaviors and transmit them to offspring

  • Populations may have unique cultures in behavior

• Apes, magpies, and elephants have self-awareness (can recognize themselves in a mirror)

• Chimps show altruism

Language

• Spoken, written, or signed words and the ways we combine them to communicate meaning

• Info moves from mind to mind and allows us to comprehend what we haven’t seen

• Consists of phonemes, morphemes, and grammar

• Involves multitasking between different parts of the brain

  • Different neural networks in charge of different vowels, nouns/verbs, stories, etc.

  • Brain divides speaking, perceiving, thinking, and remembering into subfunctions

Phonemes

• Smallest distinctive sound units (not necessarily letters)

• Consonant phonemes carry more information than vowel phonemes

• 869 across all languages; English uses about 40

Morphemes

• The smallest language units that carry meaning

Grammar

• A system of rules for language

• Semantics— deriving meaning from sounds

• Syntax— ordering words into sentences

Universal grammar

• Proposed by Chomsky

• Suggests that there is an inborn, biological predisposition to learn grammar rules, explaining why kids learn language quickly and use grammar well

• All languages share some similarities (noun + verb + adjectives; order of words similar sometimes)

• In reality, grammar is learned as kids discern patterns in the language they hear, they are NOT built with specific language/grammar rules

Receptive language

• The ability to understand what is said to and about oneself

• At 4 months, babies can recognize differences in speech sounds and read lips

• At six months, infants recognize object names

• At 7+ months, infants can segment sounds into words and analyze which syllables often go together

Productive language

• The ability to produce words

Babbling stage

• The beginning of productive language; starts at around four months

• Babies imitate talking and make a wide range of possible sounds

  • Includes sounds from various languages

  • Mostly consonant-vowel pairs with tongue in front of the mouth and/or opening and closing of the lips

• At ten months, the babbling begins to resemble the household language

• Without exposure to other languages, babies lose their ability to discriminate and produce sounds and tones outside their native language

One-word stage

• Occurs at about one year old

• Babies begin using sounds to communicate meaning; a single word generally represents an entire sentence

• Babies can also be trained to associate pictures with words

Two-word stage

• Achieved at about 2 years old

• Infants use telegraphic speech— noun + verb

• Follow rules of syntax

Language critical period

• By seven, those who haven’t been exposed to any language (signed or spoken) cannot master an language

Aphasia

• Impairment of language

• Can be caused by damage to Broca’s or Wernicke’s area

Broca’s area

• Located in the left frontal lobe

• Controls speaking

Wernicke’s area

• Located in the left temporal lobe

• Controls understanding of others’ sentences and logical sentence order

Monkey signing experiments

• Criticisms:

  • Apes have great difficulty learning signs

  • May just be imitating for a reward

  • Researcher’s subject to perceptual set (see what they want to see)

• Washoe (a chimp) taught her son signs

• Kanzi (bonobo) could understand syntax in spoken English

Linguistic determinism

• Language shapes basic ideas (proposed by Wharf)

• “Things do not exist unless we have words for it”

• Modern psychologists find this ideology too extreme— subjects capable of unsymbolized (worldess, imageless) thoughts

Linguistic relativism

• A milder version of linguistic determinism— words influence thinking

• Ex:

  • People tend to differ in personality/sense of self between languages

  • Perceived differences grow as we assign different names

Benefits of bilingualism

• Bilingual children show better social skill (can understand other perspectives)

• Bilingualism helps with early brain development

• Advances language development

• Speaking another language can protect healthy brain functions later in life

Mental models

• A group of propositions representing understanding of objects and processes that guides our interaction with those things; help us make decisions efficiently

  • Ex: model of actions to take when headache

• Potential issues may arise when we apply a model for one situation to another

Functional fixedness

• A type of fixation where one believes that only one object can accomplish their purpose

Levels of sentence structure

• Surface structure— describes how words concretely fit together

• Deep structure— meaning behind sentences (ex: the true meaning of a proverb)

• Transformational grammar

  • Speaking: deep → surface

  • Listening: surface → deep