AP Psychology Unit 5 - Cognition

**Cognitive Psychology**

The study of internal mental processes (all the things that go on inside your brain)

**Metacognition**

When we think about our thinking, active control and awareness of our own thinking

**Concepts**

“Organization” Mental groupings of similar objects, events, ideas, or people

**Prototype**

“First Think Of” Mental image or the best example of a specific concept or category

**Convergent Thinking**

“Logic” Type of thinking that focuses on coming up with the single, well-established answer to a problem (limits creativity)

**Divergent Thinking**

“Imagination” Thought process or method used to generate creative ideas by exploring many possible solutions (creativity)

**Problem Solving**

The mental process that people go through to discover, analyze, and solve problems

**Algorithms**

Set of step-by-step procedures that provides the correct answer to a particular problem

**Heuristics**

“Rules of Thumb” An educated guess based on prior experiences that helps narrow down the possible solutions for a problem

**Representativeness Heuristic**

Comparing the present situation to the most representative mental prototype

**Availability Heuristic**

Basing decisions on examples and information that immediately spring to mind

**Insights**

“The Aha! Moment” A sudden and often new realization of the solution a problem, such as suddenly seeing a cause and effect relationship

**Wolfgang Kohler**

Studied chips trying to get bananas that were out of reach

**Mental Set**

Tendency people have to only use solutions that have worked in the past rather than looking for alternative ideas

**Functional Fixedness**

Tendency to view problems only in their customary manner

**Confirmation Bias**

A tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence

**Belief Perseverance**

“Denial” Tendency to hold on to beliefs even when evidence proves those beliefs to be wrong

**Overconfidence**

Tendency to overestimate our own knowledge, skill, or judgment

**Hindsight Bias phenomenon**

"I-knew-it-all-along" The tendency people have to view events as more predictable than they really are

**Framing (Cognitive Bias)**

The process of presenting or posing an issue or question, how an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and judgments people make

**Anchoring Effect (Cognitive Bias)**

Favoring the first information offered

**Language**

Spoken, written, or signed words and the ways we combine them to communicate meaning

**Phonemes**

Smallest meaningful unit of sound in a language

**Morphemes**

The smallest pairing of meaning to any given set of sounds

**Grammar**

The system of rules governing the structure and use of a language

**Babbling Stage**

Beginning at four months of age

**One-Word Stage**

Ages one and two, child speaks mostly in single words

**Two-Word Stage**

Age two, a child speaks mostly two-or three word statements “Get Ball”

**Telegraphic Speech**

child will use mostly nouns and verbs

**Overgeneralization**

a person applies something from one event to all other events

**Full Sentences**

By ages six to ten, children speak in full sentences and master syllable stress patterns to distinguish among words

**Skinner’s Theory of Language Acquisition**

Skinner believed children learn language through operant conditioning—that children receive “rewards” for using language in a functional manner

**Noam Chomsky, Inborn Universal Grammar**

All human languages contain nouns, verbs and adjectives, and humans are born with innate ability to acquire language, and even a genetic predisposition to learn grammatical rules

**Wernicke’s Area**

Region of the brain that is important for language development

**Broca’s Area**

Production of Speech. functions to help you put words together fluently to speak more than one word at a time, forming complete sentences

**Critical Periods for Language**

Childhood seems to represent a critical period for mastering certain aspects of language

**Linguistic Determinism**

“Language & Thought” Whorf’s hypothesis that language determines the way we think

**Intelligence**

The ability to learn from one’s experiences, acquire knowledge, and use resources effectively in adapting to new situation or solving problems

**Binet-Simon Intelligence Scale (1905)**

Binet and colleague Theodore Simon developed a series of tests designed to assess mental abilities (basis for modern intelligence tests)

**Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test**

Lewis Terman modified test for the United States, audience of varied ages and broader range of subjects

General Intelligence (***g factor)***

Charles Spearman Intelligence is a general cognitive ability that can be measured and numerically expressed

**John Horn & Raymond Cattell**

Determined that Spearman’s *g* should be divided into two factors of intelligence

**Fluid Intelligence**

refers to the ability to reason and think flexibly, tend to diminish with adult aging

**Crystallized Intelligence**

refers to the accumulation of knowledge, facts, and skills that are acquired throughout life, tend to increase with age

**Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences**

Theory describes eight distinct types of intelligence based on skills and abilities

**Savant Syndrome**

Condition in which a person otherwise limited in mental ability has an exceptional specific skill, such as in computation or drawing

**Robert Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory of Intelligence**

Suggested that some of Gardner's types of intelligence are better viewed as individual talents, so he made his based on three different factors: Analytical, Practical, and Creative Intelligences

**Analytical Intelligence**

Solving a well-defined problem with a single answer

**Practical intelligence**

experimental style that leads to specific learning

**Creative intelligence**

Generating new ideas to help adopt to novel situations

**Emotional Intelligence**

The ability to perceive, control, and evaluate emotions

**Wechsler Intelligence Scales (WAIS)**

Intelligence test that was first published in 1955 and designed to measure intelligence in adults and older adolescents

**Heritability**

Portion of variation among individuals in a population that results from genetic causes

**Flynn Effect (James Flynn)**

IQ scores have been rising worldwide

**Psychometricians**

“Measurement Psychologists” Focus on methods for acquiring and analyzing psychological data

**Standardization**

Two-part test development procedure:

* Establishes test norms from the test results of the larger representative sample


* Ensures that the test is both administered and scored uniformly for all test takers

**Norms**

Each test taker completes the test under the same conditions as all other participants in the sample group

**Norm-referenced test**

to compare sample group of test takers to entire population taking the test

**Achievement Tests**

**D**esigned to measure a person's level of skill, accomplishment, or knowledge in a specific area

**Aptitude Tests**

Designed to assess what a person is capable of doing or to predict what a person is able to learn or do, often used to assess academic potential or career suitability

**Group Tests**

Standardized tests can be administered in groups, widely used & efficient

**Individual Tests**

Tests administered to one person by a trained professional

**Reliability**

“Consistency” The tendency of a test to produce the same scores again and again each time it is given to the same people

**Test-Retest Reliability**

(Best for Intelligence) administering a test twice at two different points in time

**Split-Half Reliability**

measures the extent to which all parts of the test contribute equally to what is being measured

**Validity**

The degree in which a test actually measures what it’s supposed to measure

**Content Validity**

test measures all aspects of what it is designed to measure

**Predictive Validity**

test accurately forecasts performance on a future measure

Ethics & Standards in Testing

Numerous professional organizations, including APA have produced documents detailing appropriate technical and professional standards for psychological tests to promote the welfare of test takers

**What IQ Tests Measure**

Interested in looking at your ability to use logic to solve problems, to recognize patterns, and to make rapid connections between different points of information

**Normal Distribution**

Bell-shaped curve in which the majority of scores lie near or around the average score

**Intellectual Disability**

Score two or more standard deviations below the norm on a traditional IQ test (70 IQ or below)

**Intellectually Gifted**

Very few individuals (approximately 0.2%) receive a score of more than 145 (indicating a very high IQ)

**Memory**

Learning that has **persisted over** time, information that has been stored and can be retrieved

**Recall**

Being able to access the information without being cued (fill in the blank test without word bank)

**Recognition**

Identifying information after experiencing it again

(multiple choice test)

**Relearning**

The process by which we learn something for the second time. This learning process often occurs faster than the first time (study for cumulative final)

**Information-Processing Model**

Model of memory, compares our mind to a computer in a series of three stages

**Encoding**

The process of putting information into the memory system

**Storage**

The creation of a permanent record of the encoded information

**Retrieval**

The calling back of stored information on demand when it is needed

**Parallel Processing**

The brain's ability to make sense of several different incoming stimuli at the same time

**Atkinson-Shiffrin Three-Stage Model of Memory**

Three different memory systems characterized by **time frames** 

**Sensory Memory**

External events from our senses are held just long enough to be perceived 

**Iconic Memory**

Sensory input to the visual system goes into iconic memory,  duration of less than a second

**Echoic Memory**

The branch of sensory memory used by the auditory system

**Haptic Memory**

The branch of sensory memory used by the sense of touch

**Short-Term Memory**

The information we are currently aware of or thinking about

**Long-Term Memory**

All the memories we hold for periods of time longer than a few seconds

**Fergus Craik & Robert Lockhart’s Levels-of Processing Model**

How long and how well we remember information depends on how deeply we process the information when it is encoded 

**Shallow Processing**

Encoding on a basic level based on the structure of appearance

**Maintenance Rehearsal**

Straight repeating of information in order to memorize it to prolong its presence in STM , can increase the length of time information can be stored to about thirty seconds

**Deep Processing**

Occurs when we attach meaning to information and create associations between the new memory and existing memories 

**Semantic Encoding**

**Encode the meaning of a word and relate it to similar words with similar meaning**

**Chunking**

Process of taking individual pieces of information (chunks) and grouping them into larger units

**Short-Term Memory (STM)**

The capacity for holding a small amount of information in an active, readily available state for a brief period of time (about 20 to 30 seconds)

**Baddeley’s Working Memory**

System in your brain that allows you to temporarily retain and **manipulate** the stored information involved in a complex process

**Active State Memory**

Working memory contains the information of which you are immediately aware

**Memory Span**

Number of items a person can remember and repeat back using attention and short-term memory

**Long-Term Memory (LTM)**

The storage of information over an extended period