Unit 2.2 - Cognition

Cognition

all mental abilities involved in thinking, knowing, and remembering

Executive functions

cognitive skills that work together, allowing us to generate, organize, plan, and implement goal-directed behaviors

• Helps us solve problems and make decisions efficiently

ex:human knot activity

Concepts

mental groupings or categories based and formed by items sharing similarities

ex: The concept of sports makes you think of soccer, baseball, football, basketball

Formal

strict rules for an item

ex: square have 4 sides

Informal (concepts)

common rules

ex: a school =/= house

Prototypes

mental image of best example of a category

ex: when someone tells to think of a bird, I think of a blue bird

Algorithm

step-by-step “formula” to find an answer

Heuristic

educated guessing to find an answer

Gambler’s fallacy

thinking you can predict the outcome of a chance event based on past chance events

ex: coin toss example

Sunk-cost fallacy

The tendency to continue to continue something because you have already invested in it

Mental set

Tendency to approach a problem in ONE particular way, especially if it was successful in the past

Belief persistence

Staying with your personal beliefs even with new information proves you wrong

Framing

How a situation is presented to you in order to push a certain meaning

ex: “smashed” vs. “hit” car experiment

• Connected to wording effects & priming

Fixation

inability to see a problem from a new perspective

Functional Fixedness

tendency of seeing objects as having only one solution

ex: paperclip test

Creativity

the ability to produce novel and valuable ideas

Expertise

Know what rules are before you can make them your own (the more we have the better)

Imaginative thinking skills

the ability to see things in new ways, making connections, etc

A venturesome personality

seeks new experiences, is ok with risk, and perseveres in overcoming obstacles

Intrinsic motivation

driven by interest, challenge, passion, etc

A creative environment

sparks, supports, and refines creative ideas

Convergent thinking

Looking to obtain ONE correct answer to a problem

Divergent thinking

Finding MANY solutions to the same problem

Intelligence

Our ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations

General intelligence

It’s like your brain’s overall “SAT score” — it shows how well you can think, learn, and solve problems across lots of different areas, not just one subject

G-factor (g)

variable for general intelligence

• your brain’s thinking ability; SAT is one way to estimate it

Factor analysis

Statistical procedure that identifies clusters of related items (factors) on a test

ex: math, reading, grammar, and science scores = ACT score

Intelligence testing

A method for assessing a person’t mental abilities through the comparison of others

Eugenics

Idea of controlling reproduction to favor “desirable” traits and discourage “undesirable” ones

• Founded by Francis Galton

Mental age

level of performance typically associated with children of a certain chronological age

• Developed by Alfred Binet

ex: average 10 year old would have a mental age of 10

Intelligence quotient (IQ)

originally defined by mental/chronological age, but today is measured by relative performance compared to the average

Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)

One of the most popular gifted programs

Aptitude tests

Designed to make predictions about FUTURE PERFORMANCES

ex: SAT score sees how well you will perform in college

Achievement tests

Designed to test what a person has ALREADY learned or mastered

ex: AP Psych test on unit 2.2 (which is what we learned)

Psychometrics

the study of how to measure things in psychology, like IQ, personality, emotions, and abilities (mental/brain skills)

Standardization

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

ex: If you score a 5 on an AP exam, you didn’t → you got a 5 compared to others who took the test

Normal Curve

A bell shaped curve that includes a normal distribution of scores

• Scores form a bell curve where most people score near the average and very few score extremely high or low

The Flynn Effect

the rise in intelligence performance over time and across cultures

• The average is higher

ex: you could likely score higher on the curve if you took the test back in the 30s

Percentile

the location of the score in the data

ex: SAT percentile after the test

Reliability

The extent to which the test yields consistent results

• test is given multiple times → see how similar results are each time (correlation)

• Good

Split-half

calculating the score by dividing the test into different parts then comparing

• Literally meaning to split the test into two different halves

Test-retest

Giving the same test twice then comparing scores

Validity

a test measures or predicts what is it supposed to measure

ex: a math test that only asks math questions → valid

a math test that only asks reading questions → invalid

Construct validity

HOW MUCH a test measures a concept or trait

ex: a test about self-esteem should have many questions about one’s feelings about themselves

Predictive validity

The test predicts behavior that it is designed to predict

Stereotype Threat

When a negative stereotype about your group makes you perform worse

Stereotype lift

When a negative stereotype about ANOTHER group makes you perform better

Fixed mindset

view that intelligence, abilities, and talents are UNchangable, even with effort

• Bad mindset

Growth mindset

a focus on learning and growing rather than giving up

• Good mindset

Emotional intelligence

ability to perceive, understand, manage, and use emotions

L. L. Thurstone’s 7 primary mental abilities

• Word fluency

• Verbal comp

• Spatial ability

• Perceptual speed

• Numerical ability

• Inductive reasoning

• Memory

Led to g-factor

Howard Gardner’s 8 independent intelligences

• included a broad range of skills beyond traditional school smarts

• believed a person’s intelligence included separate abilities

• one may excel in math, but struggle with verbal/reading skills

Robert Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory

There were three types of intelligences

• Creative

• Analytical (book smart)

• Practical

Representative huristics

A mental shortcut where you judge something based on how much it matches your prototype

• what it “should” look like

• First impression

Availability heuristics

A mental shortcut where you judge something based on how easily examples come to mind

• referring to a memory