Chapter 7: Cognition

information-processing model

information-processing model

The principal model of memory is the three-box model, also called the

sensory memory

The first stop for external events is

George Sperling

demonstrated this in a series of experiments in which he flashed a grid of nine letters, three rows and three columns, to participants for 1/20th of a second.

Iconic memory

a split-second perfect photograph of a scene.

Echoic memory

an equally perfect brief (3–4 second) memory for sounds.

Selective attention

Sometimes selective attention is not as controlled.

working memory

Short-term memory is also called __ because these are memories we are currently working with and are aware of in our consciousness.

Long-Term Memory

is our permanent storage.

Explicit memories

(also called declarative memories) are what we usually think of first.

Implicit memories

(also called nondeclarative memories) are unintentional memories that we might not even realize we have.

Alexander Luria

studied a patient with eidetic memory who could repeat a list of 70 letters or digits.

Levels of Processing Model

This theory explains why we remember what we do by examining how deeply the memory was processed or thought about.

Recognition

is the process of matching a current event or fact with one already in memory (e.g. “Have I smelled this smell before?”).

Recall

is retrieving a memory with an external cue (e.g. “What does my Aunt Beki’s perfume smell like?”).

Hermann Ebbinghaus

(1850–1909) established that the order of items in a list is related to whether or not we will recall them.

primacy effect

predicts that we are more likely to recall items presented at the beginning of a list.

recency effect

is demonstrated by our ability to recall the items at the end of a list.

serial position effect (also called serial position curve)

Together the primacy effect and recency effect demonstrate the

tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon

This temporary inability to remember information is sometimes called the

semantic network theory

This theory states that our brain might form new memories by connecting their meaning and context with meanings already in memory.

flashbulb memories

are powerful because the importance of the event caused us to encode the context surrounding the event.

mood-congruent memory

or the greater likelihood of recalling an item when our mood matched the mood we were in when the event happened.

State-dependent memory

refers to the phenomenon of recalling events encoded while in particular states of consciousness.

Constructive Memory

can report false details of a real event or might even be a recollection of an event that never occurred.

interference

Another factor that causes forgetting is

Retroactive interference

Learning new information interferes with the recall of older information. If you study your psychology at 3:00 and your sociology at 6:00, you might have trouble recalling the psychology information on a test the next day.

Proactive interference

Older information learned previously interferes with the recall of information learned more recently. If a researcher reads you a list of items in a certain order, then rereads them differently and asks you to list them in the new order, the old list proactively interferes with recall of the new list.

anterograde amnesia

they cannot encode new memories

long-term ­potentiation

At the neurological level, researchers focus on a process called

Language

is intimately connected to cognition.

Phonemes

are the smallest units of sound used in a language.

morpheme

is the smallest unit of meaningful sound.

holophrastic stage or one-word stage

During which babies speak in single words (holophrases) is sometimes called the

telegraphic speech or two-word stage

The next language acquisition stage occurs at around 18 months and is called

overgeneralization or overregularization

This misapplication of grammar rules is called

language acquisition device

the ability to learn a language rapidly as children (this is also called the nativist theory of language acquisition).

Benjamin Whorf

theorized that the language we use might control, and in some ways limit, our thinking.

Describing Thought

Descriptions are thoughts, so we are attempting to describe thought using thought itself.

Concepts

are similar to the schemata

images

are the mental pictures we create in our minds of the outside world.

Problem Solving

Many researchers try to study thought by examining the results of thinking.

algorithm

is a rule that guarantees the right solution by using a formula or other foolproof method.

heuristic

is a rule of thumb—a rule that is generally, but not always, true that we can use to make a judgment in a situation.

Availability heuristic

Judging a situation based on examples of similar situations that come to mind initially.

Representativeness heuristic

Judging a situation based on how similar the aspects are to prototypes the person holds in his or her mind.

Overconfidence

is our tendency to overestimate how accurate our judgments are.

Belief bias

occurs when we make illogical conclusions in order to confirm our preexisting beliefs.

Belief perseverance

refers to our tendency to maintain a belief even after the evidence we used to form the belief is contradicted.

Framing

refers to the way a problem is presented.

convergent thinking

thinking pointed toward one solution,

divergent thinking

thinking that searches for multiple possible answers to a question.