Unit 2 AP Psychology Flashcards

Cognition

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

Metacognition

Cognition about our cognition; keeping track of an evaluating our mental processes.

Concept

A mental grouping of similar object, 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.

Schema

A concept or framework that organizes and interprets information.

Assimilation

Interpreting our new experiences in terms of our existing schemas

Accommodation

Adapting our current schema to incorporate new information.

Creativity

The ability to produce new and valuable ideas

Convergent thinking

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

Divergent thinking

Expanding the number of possible problems, solutions; creative, thinking that divergent and different directions.

Executive function

Cognitive skills that work together, enabling us to generate, organized, plan, and implement goal directed behavior.

Algorithm

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

Heuristic

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

Insight

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

Confirmation bias

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

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

Judging the likelihood of events in terms of how well they seem to represent, or match, particular prototype; may lead us to ignore other relevant information.

Availability heuristic

Touching the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; if instances come readily to mind, we presume such events are common.

Belief perseverance

The persistence of one’s Initial conceptions, even after the basis on which they reformed has been discredited.

Framing

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

Nudge

Framing choices in a way that encourages people to make beneficial decisions

Memory

The persistence of learning overtime 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 in 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 overtime

Retrieval

The process of getting information out of memory storage

Parallel processing

Processing multiple aspects of a stimulus or problem simultaneously

Sensory memory

The immediate, very brief recording of sensory information in the memory system.

Short term memory

Briefly activated memory of a few items that is later stored or forgotten.

Long-term memory

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

Working memory

A newer understanding of short-term memory; conscious, active processing of both incoming sensory information and information retrieve from long-term memory.

Central executive

A memory component that coordinates the activities of the psychological loop and visuopatial sketchpad

Visuospatial sketchpad

A memory component that briefly holds information about object’s appearance and location in space.

Neurogenesis

The formation of new neurons

Long-term potentiation

An increase in a nerve cells firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation; a neural basis for learning and memory.

Explicit memory

Retention of facts and experiences that we can consciously know and declare.

Effortful processing

Encoding that requires attention and conscious effort.

Automatic processing

Unconscious encoding of incidental information, such as a space, time, and frequency, and a familiar or well learned information, such as sounds, smells, and word meetings.

Implicit memory

Retention of learned skills or classically, conditioned associations, independent of conscious recollection.

Iconic memory

A momentary sensory memory, a visual stimuli; a photographic or 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 recorded within three or four seconds.

Chunking

Organizing items and into familiar, manageable unit; often occurs automatically.

mnemonics

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

Spacing effect

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

Testing effect

Enhance memory after achieving, rather than simply rereading, information

Shallow processing

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

Deep processing

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

Semantic memory

Explicit memory facts in general knowledge; one of our two conscious memory systems

Explicit memory

Explicit memory of personally experienced event; one of our two conscious memory systems

Hippocampus

A neural center located in the Olympic system helps process explicit memories of facts and events for storage.

Memory Consolidation

The neural storage of long-term memory

Flashbulb memory

A clear memory of an emotionally significant moment or event

Priming

The activation, often unconsciously, particular associations in memory.

Encoding specificity principle

The idea that cues in context 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

The tendency to recall best the last items initially, and the first items in a list after a delay

Interleaving

A retrieval practice strategy that involves mixing the study of different topics

Retrospective memory

Retrieve memories from both the past

Prospective memory

Our intended future actions

Retrieval cues

When you notice a target piece of information such as the name of the person sitting next to you in class and you associated with other bits of information about your surroundings, mood, seating position, and so on.

Anterograde amnesia

An inability to form new memories

Retrograde amnesia

An inability to remember information from one’s past

Proactive interference

The Ford acting disruptive, effective 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 conscious anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories

Reconsolidation

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

Misinformation effect

Occurs my memory, has been corrupted by misleading information

Source amnesia

Faulty memory for how when or where information was learned or imagined. Source amnesia, along with the misinformation effect, is that the heart of many false memories.

Déjà vu

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

General intelligence

According to Spearman and others, underlies all mental abilities, and is therefore measured by every task on a intelligence test

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 person’s total score

Fluid intelligence

Our ability to reason speedily and abstractly; tends to decrease with age, especially during late adulthood

Crystallized intelligence

Our accumulated knowledge and verbal skills; tends to increase with age.

Intelligence test

A method for assessing an individuals mental attitudes, and comparing them with those of others, using numerical scores.

Achievement test

A test designed to assess what a person has learned

Aptitude test

A test designed to predict a person’s future performance; aptitude is the capacity to learn.

Mental age

A measure of intelligence test performance device by Bennet; the level of performance typically associated with children of a certain chronological age. Thus a child who does well as an average eight-year-old is said to have a mental age of eight.

Intelligent quotient

Defined originally as the ratio of mental age to chronological age multiplied by 100. On contemporary intelligence test, the average performance for a given age is assigned a score of 100

Psychometrics

The scientific study Of the measurement of human abilities, attitudes, and traits.

Standardization

Defining uniform testing procedures and meaningful scores by comparison with the performance of a pretested group.

Normal Curve

The bell shaped curve that describes a distribution of many physical and psychological attributes. Most scores fall near the average, and fewer and fewer scores lie near the extreme.

Reliability

The extent to which a test yields consistent results, as assessed by the consistency of scores on two halves of the test, on alternative forms of the test, or on retesting.

Validity

The extent to which a test measures or predicts what it is supposed to

Content validity

The extent to which a test samples, the behavior that is of interest.

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.

Constructive validity

How much a test measures a concept or trait.

Cross-sectional study

Research that compares people of different ages at the same point in time.

Longitudinal study

Research that follows and retesta the same people overtime

Growth mindset

A focus on learning and growing rather than viewing abilities as fixed

Fixed mindset

The view that intelligence abilities and talents are unchangeable, even with effort.

Stereotype threat

A self confirming concern that one will be evaluated based on a negative stereotype.