Ch 8 Cognitive Psychology: Thought, Language, and Intelligence

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering key terms and concepts across Unit 8 on thought, problem solving, decision making, language acquisition, and intelligence.

Cognition

All the mental activities associated with thinking, including knowing, remembering, solving problems, making judgments and decisions, and communicating.

Mental Representations

Internal mental symbols that stand for an object, event, or state of affairs in the world, allowing people to think about things even in their absence.

Concepts

Mental categories that group similar objects, events, ideas, or people.

Family Resemblance Structure

A characteristic of concept formation where members share a set of overlapping features rather than a single set of defining attributes, similar to how members of a biological family look alike.

Prototype

A best example or average member of a category that incorporates the features most commonly associated with a given concept.

Superordinate Concepts

Abstract, overarching categories in a concept hierarchy that encompass basic-level concepts, such as "furniture," "fruit," or "animal."

Basic-Level Concepts

Intermediate, economical categories in a concept hierarchy—such as "chair" or "apple"—that share strong family resemblance, defined prototypes, and are typically learned first.

Subordinate Concepts

Specific categories nested within basic-level concepts in a hierarchy, such as "rocking chair," "Granny Smith apple," or "hummingbird."

Well-Defined Problems

Problems that possess a clear starting state, an explicit goal, and an identifiable set of available options for reaching that goal.

Ill-Defined Problems

Problems characterized by hazy goals and indistinct paths or options for reaching a solution.

Trial and Error

A problem-solving approach that involves trying actions or strategies at random until finding one that works.

Algorithm

A step-by-step procedure or set of rules that guarantees a correct solution to a problem when followed correctly.

Insight

A sudden, conscious change in a person's understanding of a situation or problem, often accompanied by an "aha" feeling.

Mental Set

A preexisting mental framework or approach to solving a problem based on prior experience with similar problems.

Functional Fixedness

A cognitive tendency to focus solely on an object's typical functions, resulting in a failure to recognize novel functions that could solve a problem.

Restructuring

The process of altering one's understanding or mental representation of a problem in order to discover a novel path to a solution.

Bounded Rationality

Herbert Simon's proposal that human rational decision-making is constrained and bounded by limited cognitive resources, memory, attention, processing power, information, and time.

Controlled System

In dual-processing theory, a slow, effortful, conscious mode of thinking that enables logical analysis and rational deliberation.

Automatic System

In dual-processing theory, a fast, effortless, intuitive mode of thinking that operates outside of conscious awareness to make quick judgments.

Heuristics

Quick, intuitive mental shortcuts used by the automatic system to navigate everyday judgments and decisions efficiently.

Representativeness Heuristic

A mental shortcut in which the likelihood of an event or category membership is judged by how closely it resembles or matches a prototype.

Availability Heuristic

A mental shortcut for estimating the frequency or probability of an event based on the ease with which relevant examples come to mind.

Affect Heuristic

The tendency to rely on automatic feelings of positive or negative affect ("good-for-me" or "bad-for-me") associated with objects or events to guide judgments and decisions.

Ventromedial Frontal Cortex

A brain region critical for connecting affective and emotional reactions to the anticipated consequences of one's actions during decision making.

Confirmation Bias

The cognitive tendency to seek, interpret, and favor evidence that confirms preexisting beliefs while disregarding or discounting contradictory evidence.

Belief Perseverance

The tendency to cling to established beliefs even after the empirical evidence supporting them has been completely discredited.

Framing

The particular way an issue or choice is presented, which shifts reference points and significantly influences judgments and decisions.

Loss Aversion

The tendency of decision makers to strongly prefer avoiding potential losses rather than acquiring equivalent potential gains.

Overconfidence Bias

The tendency to overestimate the accuracy and precision of one's own knowledge, judgments, and predictive abilities.

Hindsight Bias

The tendency to believe, after an outcome has become known, that one foresaw or would have predicted it all along ("knew it all along").

Language

A shared system of symbols—including spoken, written, and signed words and gestures—and rules for combining them to communicate meaning.

Phonemes

The smallest, distinctive units of sound in spoken language, or distinctive hand movements and shapes in signed language.

Morphemes

The smallest units of language that convey meaning, including whole words as well as prefixes and suffixes.

Grammar

A comprehensive system of rules governing how language components at all levels (phonemes, morphemes, phrases, and sentences) are assembled to enable mutual comprehension.

Syntax

The specific set of grammatical rules in a language that dictate how words and phrases combine to form grammatically structured sentences.

Pragmatics

The practical and contextual rules governing how language is used socially, such as conversational turn-taking, intonation, gestures, and tone.

Linguistic Determinism Hypothesis

Benjamin Lee Whorf's proposal that the structure and vocabulary of different languages impose distinct ways of understanding reality, directly shaping and constraining thought.

Babbling

A developmental vocal stage starting around $6$ to $7$ months of age in which infants spontaneously produce repetitive consonant-vowel combinations.

Overregularization Errors

Language errors occurring around age $5$ where children overextend regular grammatical rules to irregular words, producing forms like "runned" or "eated."

Larynx

The vocal structure in the throat that sits lower in adult humans than in other primates, allowing a wide range of vocal speech sounds while increasing choking risk.

Language Acquisition Device

Noam Chomsky's proposed innate, genetically determined neurological mechanism that automatically guides language learning when a child is exposed to speech.

Universal Grammar

Noam Chomsky's concept of an innate foundation of common grammatical principles and structural categories (such as nouns, verbs, negation, and questions) shared across all human languages.

Sensitive Period

A biologically limited developmental window during which language acquisition occurs most readily, after which complete linguistic proficiency becomes significantly harder to attain.

Less Is More Hypothesis

Elissa Newport's proposition that young children acquire language effectively because their cognitive processing limitations compel them to master the smallest structural building blocks first.

Intelligence

The capability to think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, reason, plan, solve problems, learn from experience, and acquire new knowledge.

Factor Analysis

A statistical technique developed by Charles Spearman that analyzes patterns of correlations across different test scores to identify underlying common factors.

General Intelligence ($g$ Factor)

A broad, overarching mental capability identified by Charles Spearman that underlies performance across all cognitive tasks and tests.

Fluid Intelligence ($g(F)$)

The component of general intelligence reflecting the ability to deliberately reason and tackle novel, unusual, and unfamiliar problems.

Crystallized Intelligence ($g(C)$)

The component of general intelligence consisting of accumulated knowledge, vocabulary, and learned strategies used to address familiar tasks.

Analytical Intelligence

In Robert Sternberg's triarchic theory, the ability to break problems down into component parts to solve them; commonly termed "book smarts" and measured on traditional IQ tests.

Creative Intelligence

In Robert Sternberg's triarchic theory, the ability to effectively handle new situations and generate innovative ideas and solutions.

Practical Intelligence

In Robert Sternberg's triarchic theory, the ability to reason skillfully and solve problems in everyday, real-world contexts ("street smarts").

Savant Syndrome

A rare condition in which an individual with significant cognitive or intellectual disabilities demonstrates extraordinary, highly specialized abilities.

Theory of Multiple Intelligences

Howard Gardner's proposal that human intelligence comprises eight distinct, independent modalities rather than a single general intellectual factor.

Mental Age

A measure of intellectual development formulated by Alfred Binet and Théodore Simon representing the average chronological age at which typical children achieve a given test score.

Intelligence Quotient (IQ)

A score derived on the Stanford-Binet test calculated with the formula: $\text{IQ} = \frac{\text{mental age}}{\text{chronological age}} \times 100$.

Eugenics

A movement initiated in the 1880s by Francis Galton aimed at selectively breeding human populations by encouraging only individuals deemed intellectually superior to reproduce.

Achievement Tests

Standardized tests, such as the ACT, designed to evaluate knowledge and skills acquired over a specific period of instruction.

Aptitude Tests

Standardized assessments, such as the SAT, designed to evaluate an individual's potential or capacity to learn new skills in the future.

Standardization

The process of establishing uniform testing procedures and interpreting scores relative to the normative performance of a representative, pretested group.

Normal Curve

A symmetrical, bell-shaped distribution of standardized test scores where most scores cluster near the mean ($100$ on the WAIS) with progressively fewer falling in the extremes.

Reliability

The degree to which an assessment tool yields consistent, repeatable measurements across different administrations (test-retest) or across test halves (split-half).

Validity

The extent to which an assessment tool accurately measures or predicts the specific construct or outcome it was designed to evaluate.

Predictive Validity

The ability of a test score to accurately forecast an individual's future performance on an external criterion, such as SAT scores predicting first-year college GPA.

Emotionality

The physiological component of test anxiety, characterized by bodily arousal symptoms like a pounding heart, dry mouth, and sweaty palms.

Stereotype Threat

The disruptive psychological concern experienced by members of a negatively stereotyped group that their performance might confirm negative cultural stereotypes.

Heritability

A statistical estimate measuring the proportion of observed phenotypic variation among individuals in a given population that is attributable to genetic differences.

Genomewide Complex-Trait Analysis (GCTA)

A genomic technique that estimates trait heritability by directly comparing DNA sequences among large cohorts of unrelated individuals.

Genetic Amplification

The empirical phenomenon in which genetic influences on individual differences in intelligence become increasingly pronounced as people age.

Pygmalion Effect

A self-fulfilling prophecy cycle in which interpersonal expectations shape behavior in ways that cause those initial expectations to come true.

Fixed Mindset

Carol Dweck's term for the belief that intellectual abilities and intelligence are innate, genetically fixed, and fundamentally unalterable.

Growth Mindset

Carol Dweck's term for the belief that intellectual abilities and intelligence can be cultivated, expanded, and developed through sustained effort and learning.