Studied by 5 people
cognition
all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating. (p. 356)
concept
a mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people. (p. 356)
convergent thinking
narrows the available problem solutions to determine the single best solution. (p. 357)
creativity
the ability to produce novel and valuable ideas. (p. 357)
divergent thinking
expands the number of possible problem solutions (creative thinking that diverges in different directions). (p. 357)
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). (p. 356)
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. (p. 361)
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. (p. 364)
belief perseverance
clinging to one's initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited. (p. 367)
confirmation bias
a tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence. (p. 362)
framing
the way an issue is posed; how an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and judgments. (p. 368)
heuristic
a simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently; usually speedier but also more error
insight
a sudden realization of a problem's solution; contrasts with strategy/based solutions. (p. 361)
intuition
an effortless, immediate, automatic feeling or thought, as contrasted with explicit, conscious reasoning. (p. 363)
mental set
a tendency to approach a problem in one particular way, often a way that has been successful in the past. (p. 362)
overconfidence
the tendency to be more confident than correct/to overestimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgments. (p. 365)
representativeness heuristic
judging the likelihood of things in terms of how well they seem to represent, or match, particular prototypes; may lead us to ignore other relevant information. (p. 364)
aphasia
impairment of language, usually caused by left hemisphere damage either to Broca's area (impairing speaking) or to Wernicke's area (impairing understanding). (p. 377)
babbling stage
beginning at about 4 months, the stage of speech development in which the infant spontaneously utters various sounds at first unrelated to the household language. (p. 374)
Broca's area
controls language expression an area of the frontal lobe, usually in the left hemisphere, that directs the muscle movements involved in speech. (p. 377?)
grammar
in a language, a system of rules that enables us to communicate with and understand others. In a given language, semantics is the set of rules for deriving meaning from sounds, and syntax is the set of rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences. (p. 373)
language
our spoken, written, or signed words and the ways we combine them to communicate meaning. (p. 372)
linguistic determinism
Whorf's hypothesis that language determines the way we think. (p. 379)
morpheme
in a language, the smallest unit that carries meaning; may be a word or a part of a word (such as a prefix). (p. 373)
one word stage
the stage in speech development, from about age 1 to 2, during which a child speaks mostly in single words. (p. 375)
phoneme
in a language, the smallest distinctive sound unit. (p. 373)
telegraphic speech
early speech stage in which a child speaks like a telegram/"go car"/using mostly nouns and verbs. (p. 375)
two word stage
beginning about age 2, the stage in speech development during which a child speaks mostly in two-word statements. (p. 375)
Wernicke's area
controls language reception/a brain area involved in language comprehension and expression; usually in the left temporal lobe. (p. 377)
emotional intelligence
the ability to perceive, understand, manage, and use emotions. (p. 612)
factor analysis
a statistical procedure that identifies clusters of related items (called factors) on a test; used to identify different dimensions of performance that underlie a person's total score. (p. 608)
general intelligence (g)
a general intelligence factor that, according to Spearman and others, underlies specific mental abilities and is therefore measured by every task on an intelligence test. (p. 608)
grit
in psychology, grit is passion and perseverance in the pursuit of long
intelligence test
a method for assessing an individual's mental aptitudes and comparing them with those of others, using numerical scores. (p. 607)
intelligence
mental quality consisting of the ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations. (p. 607)
savant syndrome
a condition in which a person otherwise limited in mental ability has an exceptional specific skill, such as in computation or drawing. (p. 609)
achievement test
a test designed to assess what a person has learned. (p. 619)
aptitude test
a test designed to predict a person's future performance; aptitude is the capacity to learn. (p. 619)
content validity
the extent to which a test samples the behavior that is of interest. (p. 622)
intelligence quotient (IQ)
defined originally as the ratio of mental age (ma) to chronological age (ca) multiplied by 100 (thus, IQ = ma/ca Ă— 100). On contemporary intelligence tests, the average performance for a given age is assigned a score of 100, with scores assigned to relative performance above or below average. (p. 618)
mental age
a measure of intelligence test performance devised by Binet; the chronological age that most typically corresponds to a given level of performance. Thus, a child who does as well as the average 8
normal curve (normal distribution)
a symmetrical, bell-shaped curve that describes the distribution of many types of data; most scores fall near the mean (about 68 percent fall within one standard deviation of it) and fewer and fewer near the extremes. (p. 621)
predictive validity
the success with which a test predicts the behavior it is designed to predict; it is assessed by computing the correlation between test scores and the criterion behavior. (Also called criterion
reliability
the extent to which a test yields consistent results, as assessed by the consistency of scores on two halves of the test, on alternate forms of the test, or on retesting. (p. 622)
standardization
defining uniform testing procedures and meaningful scores by comparison with the performance of a pretested group. (p. 621)
Stanford-Binet
the widely used American revision (by Terman at Stanford University) of Binet's original intelligence test. (p. 618)
validity
the extent to which a test measures or predicts what it is supposed to. (See also content validity and predictive validity.) (p. 622)
Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)
the WAIS is the most widely used intelligence test; contains verbal and performance (nonverbal) subtests. (p. 620)
cohort
a group of people from a given time period. (p. 625)
crystallized intelligence
our accumulated knowledge and verbal skills; tends to increase with age. (p. 626)
Down syndrome
a condition of mild to severe intellectual disability and associated physical disorders caused by an extra copy of chromosome 21. (p. 629)
fluid intelligence
our ability to reason speedily and abstractly; tends to decrease during late adulthood. (p. 626)
intellectual disability
a condition of limited mental ability, indicated by an intelligence score of 70 or below and difficulty in adapting to the demands of life. (Formerly referred to as mental retardation.) (p. 629)
heritability
the proportion of variation among individuals that we can attribute to genes. The heritability of a trait may vary, depending on the range of populations and environments studied. (p. 632)
polygenetic
intelligence appears to be polygenetic, involving many genes, with each gene accounting for less than 1 percent of intelligence variations (p. 633)
stereotype threat
a self-confirming concern that one will be evaluated based on a negative stereotype. (p. 642)
test bias (scientific meaning)
whether a test predicts future behavior only for some groups of test
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