Unit 5 Part 1B: Cognition and Language Mrs. Greth AP Psych

Cognition

all forms of knowing and awareness, such as perceiving, conceiving, remembering, reasoning, judging, imagining, and problem solving

Concept

mental category for classification/schema; a general idea about a thing or group of things from specific instances or occurences

ex) outer space

Prototype

matching new items to prototype provides a quick & easy method for storing items into concepts; the most typical example of a category

ex) draw a bird, recall the name of a good actor. image, object, picture

Creativity

what to include varies; must agree - originality/novel & appropriateness/useful

Convergent Thinking

narrowing the available problem solution; common or standard

ex) 10 + 10 = 20

Divergent Thinking

expanding the number of possible solution; multiple solutions

ex) different ways to build a house out of popsicle sticks

Algorithm

step-by-step methods; if correctly used an accurate solution is guaranteed

ex) x - 5 = 8, anagrams, detailed recipe

Heuristic

a simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgements and solve problems efficiently; faster but also more error-prone, or inaccurate, than algorithms

ex) asking others for help

Availability Heuristic

judgement or decision based on info that is easily retrieved from memory

ex) standard image of the earth is a globe/circle, no red starbursts in two packets from bag because first 3 didn’t have one

Representative Heuristic

estimating the likelihood of events in terms of how well they seem to match particular prototypes; can lead to stereotyping

ex) who would make a better politician? does your tattoo artist have tattoos?

Confirmation Bias

look only for evidence that supports your belief bias; ignore all other facts/evidence

ex) only watching CNN for political news

Belief Perseverance

maintain a belief even when presented with factual info

ex) trump supporters, marijuana is more potent today and contains higher levels of THC and is usually laced with other synthetic drugs making it more addictive

Mental Set

tendency to approach a problem with mind-set of what has worked for us previously; the standard idea

ex) when rewriting notes for bio helped Claudia get an A, she failed calculus doing the same

Functional Fixedness

describes why an individual develops an inability to use an object in more ways than it is traditionally intended to be used

ex) the inability of someone to realize that they can use a wrench to drive a nail into a piece of wood and not just a hammer

Overconfidence

tendency to be more confident than correct; causes us to overestimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgements

ex) a student completes a test and they think they score 90% when they actually scored 70%

Framing

perspective or phrasing of info that is used to make a decision; the way information is presented influences a decision

ex) lying to get something, wanting someone to go to a party and making it seem more fun that it will be

Hindsight bias

tendency to view the outcome as inevitable

ex) “i knew I was gonna get caught”

Gambler’s Fallacy

believed that random occurrence of events is more or less likely to occur based on previous events

ex) coin tosses have been more heads recently so the next have to be tails

Sunk-Cost Fallacy

tendency to continue with a path that one has already invested time, money, and or effort even if stopping would be more beneficial

ex) continue watching a movie after 30 minutes even if it has not peaked your interest, staying in a relationship even if unhappy.

Language

transmits knowledge and allows for mind-to-mind communication; human language. is semantic (meaningful)

Nonverbal Cues

a way of communication through body or emotions

ex) posture, facial expressions, eye gaze, gestures, tone of voice

Phoneme

smallest unit of sound (not the same as syllables); 44 phonemes in the English lang.

ex) P/S/Y/C/H/O/L/O/G/Y

Morpheme

smallest unit of meaningful sound; some are words, while others are parts of words

ex) how was your week end?

Semantics

the study of meaning in language

ex) someone who says that they've bought a new car, only for the car to turn out to be second-hand—however, the person feels that the car is new for them

Syntax

rules of grammer

ex) Sally hit the car

Universal Language Stages

1. Cooing

2. Babbling

3. Holophrase

4. Telegraphic Phrase

Cooing

sounds during infancy

Babbling state

4 months with phonemes

Holophrase

12 months one-word phase

Telegraphic speech

18 months 2 word stage, begin learning basic rules, commonly overgeneralize rules

Aphasia

impairment of language, usually caused by left hemisphere damage either to Broca’s area (impairing speaking) or to Wernicke’s Area (impairing understanding)

Overgeneralization

miss apply the rules; over simplify

ex) he hitted the ball with the bat