PSYC100 - Module 2: Cognition- Exam #1

Metacognition

Thinking about thinking

Which is an example of metacognition?: Double-checking, self-questioning, self-assessing

All of them

Is meta-cognition innate? Why/Why not?

No, it has to be learned

Controlled Psychology

Cognitive tasks and mental activities that require our full, active, conscious attention and effort

System 1 vs System 2 Thinking

Fast, automatic, intuitive, unconscious

Slow, effortful, logical, conscious

What determines where we allocate our mental resources to?

Our motivation

Heuristics

Mental shortcuts that help us make decisions quickly with minimal effort

Availability Heuristic

We tend to base our assumptions on what information is presented to us/surrounded by most, not by the facts

Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristic

When we are given a number, we tend to focus on that initial number (anchor it), depending on next situation we do not adjust high/low as we expect.

Representativeness Heuristic

When we make instant judgements about which category something belongs in. (Ex. Making assumptions based on how someone looks)

Comparative Cognition

Study of thought and intelligence and non-human species

What is the g factor?

A concept of having a rating for general intelligence

What are the levels of memory?

Sensory, Short Term, and Long Term

What are the processes of memory?

Encode, Store, and Retrieval

Miller’s Magic Number

States that people can memorize +- 7 items in their memory at once

Maintenance Rehearsal 

Process of repeatedly saying or thinking about information to keep it in your short term memory

Chunking

Grouping individual pieces of information into a larger, more familiar units (chunks)

Schema

Describes patterns of thinking and behavior

Priming

Unconscious psychological process where exposure to a stimulus influences the response to a following stimulus

State Dependent Memory

Where you can recall memories better when you were in the state you encoded them originally

Decay

Information has dissolved over time and is lost forever

Interference

Having difficulty to recall information because our brain is processing something else at the same time

Insufficient Priming

Memory is stored correctly but there is not enough activation to locate it and move it from long term → short term memory

Disorganization

Information is stored but it cannot be found due to error in the manner the information was organized in

Retrograde Amnesia

Inability to remember things prior to the onset of memory loss

Anterograde Amnesia

The inability to form new memories.

Mnemonics

Combination of letters with each letter acting as a cue to an idea to remember

Conjunction Fallacy

Probability of A + B together is always less than A or B alone