APP Cognition Vocab 1

Modules 34-36

representativeness heuristic

judging the likelihood of things in terms of how well they seem to represent, or match, particular prototypes; may lead one to ignore other relevant information

language

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

B.F. Skinner

behaviorist; believed that we can explain language development with familiar learning principles, such as association, imitation, and reinforcement

convergent thinking

narrowing the available problem solutions to determine the single best solution

divergent thinking

expands the number of possible problem solutions (creative thinking that diverges in different directions)

cognition

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

concept

a mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people

prototype

a mental image or best example of a category; matching new items to it provides a quick and easy method for including items in a category

algorithm

a methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem; contrasts with the usually speedier, but more error-prone, heuristics

heuristic

a simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently; usually speedier but more error-prone than algorithms

insight

a sudden and often novel realization of the solution to a problem; it contrasts with strategy-based solutions

inductive reasoning

informal reasoning; trying to asses the believability of a conclusion based on the evidence to support it--use a heuristic

deductive reasoning

formal reasoning; process of following a set of rigorous procedures to reach correct conclusions--use an algorithm

confirmation bias

a tendency to search for information that confirms one's preconceptions

fixation

the inability to see a problem from a new perspective; an impediment to problem solving

mental set

a tendency to approach a problem in a particular way, often a way that has been successful in the past

functional fixedness

the tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual functions, an impediment to problem solving

availability heuristic

estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; if instances come readily to mind (perhaps because of their vividness_) we presume such events are common

overconfidence

the tendency to be more confident than correct--to overestimate the accuracy of one's beliefs and judgments

framing

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

belief perseverance

clinging to one's initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited

Noam Chomsky

linguist; believed that children learn the language of their environment, but believed that they acquire untaught words and grammar too quickly to be related to learning principles; universal grammar, language acquisition device

phoneme

in a language, the smallest distinctive sound unit

morpheme

in a language, the smallest unit that carries meaning; may be a word or a part of a word (such as a prefix)

grammar

in a language, a system of rules that enables us to communicate with an understand others

semantics

the set of rules by which we derive meaning from morphemes, words, and sentences in a given language; also, the study of meaning

syntax

the rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences in a given language

receptive language

the understanding of language

productive language

the ability to produce words (use language)

babbling stage

beginning at about 4 months, the stage of speech development in which the infant spontaneously utters various sounds at first unrelated to the household language

one-word stage

the stage in speech development, from about age 1 to 2, during which a child speaks mostly in single words

two-word stage

beginning about age 2, the stage in speech development during which a child speaks mostly two-word statements

telegraphic speech

early speech stage in which a child speaks like a telegram--"go car"--using mostly nouns and verbs and omitting auxiliary words

linguistic determinism

Whorf's hypothesis that language determines the way we think

Benjamin Whorf

language theorist, linguistic determinism (language affects thinking)

Wolfgang Kohler

a founder of Gestalt Theory, his studies with apes led him to a view of problem solving as an active process of insight

creativity

the ability to produce novel and valuable ideas

Brainstorming

coming up with as many solutions to a problem as possible in a short period of time with no censoring of ideas

intuition

the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning.

Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman

psychologists who researched heuristics and their effects on decision making

universal grammar

Noam Chomsky's theory that all the world's languages share a similar underlying structure

false consensus effect

the tendency to overestimate the extent to which others share our beliefs and behaviors