Cognitive Development and Learning Principles

Accommodation

Modification of cognitive structures by new information.

Prototype

Most typical example of a category.

Bottom-up processing

Perception starts from stimulus to final perception.

Proactive interference

Old information hinders recall of new information.

Retroactive interference

New information hinders recall of old information.

Memory decay

Gradual loss of memory over time.

Forgetting curve

Decline of memory retention over time.

Spaced repetition

Reviewing material over spaced intervals for retention.

Ethical guidelines

Standards ensuring welfare in psychological research.

Informed consent

Participants' agreement after understanding study details.

Experimental research

Determines causality by manipulating variables.

Correlational research

Identifies relationships without variable manipulation.

Gestalt psychology

Whole perception is greater than the sum of parts.

Proximity

Objects close together are perceived as a group.

Similarity

Similar items are grouped together in perception.

Closure

Mind fills gaps to create complete objects.

Good continuation

Lines perceived as following the smoothest path.

Procedural memory

Memory for skills and actions performed unconsciously.

Explicit memory

Conscious recollection of facts and events.

Working memory

Temporary storage for processing and manipulation.

Sensory memory

Initial stage holding sensory information briefly.

Long-term potentiation

Strengthening synapses based on recent activity patterns.

Heuristics

Mental shortcuts easing decision-making processes.

Availability heuristic

Relying on immediate examples for evaluations.

Primacy effect

Better recall of first items in a list.

Recency effect

Better recall of last items in a list.

Context-dependent memory

Improved recall in the same context as learning.

Representative samples

Samples that generalize findings to a population.

Statistical significance

Results unlikely to occur by chance.

Flynn Effect

Rise in average IQ scores across generations.