Unit 7 - Cognition

Memory

The persistence of learning over time through the encoding, storage, and retrieval of information.

Recall

A measure of memory in which the person must retrieve information learned earlier, as on a fill-in-the-blank test.

Recognition

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

Relearning

A measure of memory that assesses the amount of time saved when learning material again.

Encoding

The process of getting information into the memory system—for example, by extracting meaning.

Storage

The process of retaining encoded information over time.

Retrieval

The process of getting information out of memory storage.

Parallel Processing

Processing many aspects of a problem simultaneously; the brain’s natural mode of information processing for many functions.

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 digits of a phone number while calling, before the information is stored or forgotten.

Long-Term Memory

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

Working Memory

A newer understanding of short-term memory that adds conscious, active processing of incoming auditory and visual information, and of information retrieved from long-term memory.

Explicit memory

Retention of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and “declare”. (Also called declarative memory).

Effortful Processing

Encoding that requires attention and conscious effort.

Automatic Processing

Unconscious encoding of incidental information, such as space, time, and frequency, and of well-learned information, such as word meanings.

Implicit Memory

Retention of learned skills or classically conditioned associations independent of conscious recollection. (Also called nondeclarative memory).

Iconic Memory

A momentary sensory memory of visual stimuli; a 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.

Chunking

Organizing items into familiar, manageable units; often occurs automatically.

Mnemonics

Memory aids, especially those techniques that use vivid imagery and organizational devices.

Spacing Effect

The tendency for distributed study of practice to yield better long-term retention than is achieved through massed study or practice.

Testing Effect

Enhanced memory after retrieving, rather than simply rereading, information. Also sometimes referred to as a retrieval practice effect or test-enhanced learning.

Shallow Processing

Encoding on a basic level, based on the structure or appearance of words.

Deep Processing

Encoding semantically, based on the meaning of the words; tends to yield the best retention.

Semantic Memory

Explicit memory of facts and general knowledge; one of our two conscious memory systems (the other is episodic memory).

Episodic Memory

Explicit memory of personally experienced events; one of our two conscious memory systems (the other is semantic memory).

Hippocampus

A neural center located in the limbic system; helps process explicit (conscious) memories—of facts and events—for storage.

Memory Consolidation

The neural storage of a long-term memory.

Flashbulb Memory

A clear, sustained memory of an emotionally significant moment or event.

Long-Term Potentiation (LTP)

An increase in a cell’s firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation, a neural basis for learning and memory.

Priming

The activation, often unconsciously, of particular associations in memory.

Encoding Specificity Principle

The idea that cues and contexts specific to a particular memory will be most effective in helping us recall it.

Mood-Congruent memory

The tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one’s current good or bad mood.

Serial Position Effect

Our tendency to recall best the last (recency effect) and first (primacy effect) items in a list.

Anterograde Amnesia

An inability to form new memories.

Retrograde Amnesia

An inability to retrieve information from one’s past.

Proactive Interference

The forward-acting disruptive effect of older learning on the recall of new information.

Retroactive Interference

The backward-acting disruptive effect of newer learning on the recall of old information.

Repression

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

Reconsolidation

A process in which previously stored memories, when retrieved, are potentially altered before being stored again.

Misinformation Effect

Occurs when misleading information has distorted one’s memory of an event.

Source Amnesia

Faulty memory for how, when, or where information was learned or imagined. (Also called source misattribution.) Source amnesia, along with the misinformation effect, is at the heart of many false memories.

Déjà Vu

That eerie sense that “I’ve experienced this before”. Cues from the current situation may unconsciously trigger retrieval of an earlier experience.

Cognition

All the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating.

Concept

A mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people.

Prototype

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

Creativity

The ability to produce new and valuable ideas.

Convergent Thinking

Narrowing the available problem solutions to determine the single best solution.

Divergent Thinking

Expanding the number of possible problem solutions; creative thinking that diverges in different directions.

Algorithm

A methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem. Contrasts with the usually speedier—but also more error-prone—use of heuristics.

Heuristic

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

Insight

A sudden realization of a problem’s solution; contrasts with strategy-based solutions.

Confirmation Bias

A tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence.

Fixation

In cognition, the inability to see a problem from a new perspective; an obstacle to problem solving.

Mental Set

A tendency to approach a problem in one particular way, often a way that has been successful in the past.

Intuition

An effortless, immediate, automatic feeling or thought, as contrasted with explicit, conscious reasoning.

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.

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.

Overconfidence

The tendency to be more confident that correct—to overestimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgments.

Belief Perseverance

Clinging to one’s initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited.

Framing

The way an issue is posed; how an issue is worded can significantly affect decisions and judgments.

Language

Our spoken, written, or signed words and the ways we combine them to communicate meaning.

Phoneme

In a language, the smallest distinctive sound unit.

Morpheme

In a language, the smallest unit that carries meaning; may be a word or a part of a word (such as a prefix).

Grammar

In a language, a system of rules that enables us to communicate with and understand others. Semantics is the language’s set of rules for deriving meaning from sounds, and syntax is its set of rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences.

Babbling Stage

Beginning around 4 months, the stage of speech development in which an infant spontaneously utters various sounds at first unrelated to the household language.

One-Word Stage

The stage in speech development, from about age 1 to 2, during which a child speaks mostly in single words.

Two-Word Stage

Beginning about age 2, the stage in speech development during which a child speaks mostly in two-word statements.

Telegraphic Speech

Early speech stage in which a child speaks like a telegram—”go car”— using mostly nouns and verbs.

Aphasia

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

Broca’s Area

Helps control language expression—an area of the frontal lobe, usually in the left hemisphere, that directs the muscle movements involved in speech.

Wernicke’s Area

A brain area involved in language comprehension and expression; usually in the left temporal lobe.

Linguistic Determinism

The strong form of Whorf’s hypothesis—that language controls the way we think and interpret the world around us.

Linguistic Influence

The weaker form of “linguistic relativity”—the idea that language affects thought (thus our thinking and world view is “relative to” our cultural language).