AP Psych - Cognition & Problem Solving

Unit 2

Metacognition

thinking about thinking

Cognition

mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating

Executive Functions

cognitive processes that allow us to create, organize, plan, & carry out plans & think critically

Concepts

• mental groupings of similar things

• form the basis of thought

Concepts

Schema

cognitive concept we use to organize info

Schema

Assimilation

adding new info to schema but not changing it

Schema

Accommodation

create new schema for new info

Prototypes

• form concepts by developing there

• mental image of a category (schema)

Trial & Error Learning

try different solutions until we find one that works

Algorithms

methodical, logical rule that attempts until the correct one is found

Heuristics

simple thinking strategy

Representativeness Heuristic

making a judgement based in our prototype and/or prior expectations

Stereotype

generalized belief about a group

Availability Heuristic

making a judgement by recalling the first or most vivid example the comes to mind

Insight

a sudden realization of the solution to a problem

Intuition

effortless, immediate automatic feeling or thought, gut instinct

Mental Set

using past experiences, habits, or strategies that have been successful to try to solve a problem

Priming

a stimuli unconsciously triggers a memory that influences your perception and decision making

Gambler’s Fallacy

bias that leads to an incorrect belief that the outcome of random events are influenced by previous outcomes

Sunk-Cost Fallacy

bias that leads one to continue a task (ex. investment) because they’re invested tine, money or energy into something you must continue

Hindsight Bias

the tendency to believe, after learning an outcome, that one would have forseen

Overconfidence

our tendency to be more confident and to overestimate the accuracy of our beliefs, rather than being correct

Confirmation Bias

a tendency to search for information that supports our beliefs & ignore or distort info that is contrary to it

Belief Perspective

we cling to our initial concepts even after they have been discredited

Fixation

the inability to see a problem from a new perspective by employing a different mental set

Mental Set

a tendency to approach a problem in one way, often a way that’s been successful before

Functional Fixedness

a tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual functions

Creativity

a way of thinking that includes generating novel (new) ideas and engaging in divergent thinking

Divergent Thinking

process of creating multiple unique and creative solution

Convergent Thinking

process of arriving at one solution