Psych 5

Cognition

Cognition

The mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating.

Effortful processing

Encoding that requires attention and conscious effort.

Automatic processing

Unconscious encoding of incidental information, such as space, time, and frequency, and of well-learned information, such as word meanings.

Deep processing

Processing that requires more elaboration and rehearsal; creates a more detailed, meaningful, and easily recalled memory.

Shallow processing

Processing focused on surface-level qualities; does not contribute to deep understanding or easy recall.

Selective attention

The capacity for or process of reacting to certain stimuli selectively when several occur simultaneously.

Divided attention

A type of simultaneous attention that allows us to process different information sources and successfully carry out multiple tasks at a time.

Metacognition

Awareness and understanding of one's own thought processes.

Memory

The persistence of learning over time through the storage and retrieval of information.

Short-term memory

Activated memory that holds a few items briefly, such as the seven digits of a phone number while dialing, before the information is stored or forgotten.

Implicit memory

Retention independent of conscious recollection.

Long-term memory

The relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system; includes knowledge, skills, and experiences.

Sensory memory

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

Prospective memory

A form of memory that involves remembering to perform a planned action or recall a planned intention at some future point in time.

Explicit memory

Memory of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and "declare".

Encoding

The processing of information into the memory system—for example, by extracting meaning.

Visual encoding

The encoding of picture images.

Acoustic encoding

The encoding of sound, especially the sound of words.

Semantic encoding

The encoding of meaning, including the meaning of words.

Mnemonics

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

Imagery

Mental pictures; a powerful aid to effortful processing, especially when combined with semantic encoding.

Chunking

Organizing into familiar manageable units; often occurs automatically.

Rehearsal

The conscious repetition of information, either to maintain it in consciousness or to encode it for storage.

Spacing effect

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

Storage

The retention of encoded information over time.

Flashbulb memory

A clear memory of an emotionally significant moment or event.

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 need only identify items previously learned, as on a multiple-choice test.

Relearning

A measure of memory that assesses the amount of time saved when learning material for a second time.

Context-dependent memory

The improved recall of specific episodes or information when the context present at encoding and retrieval are the same.

Serial position effect

Our tendency to recall best the last and first items in a list.

Amnesia

The loss of memory.

Anterograde amnesia

A loss of the ability to create new memories after the event that caused amnesia.

Retrograde amnesia

A loss of memory-access to events that occurred, or information that was learned in the past.

Proactive interference

The disruptive effect of prior learning on the recall of new information.

Retroactive interference

The disruptive effect of new learning on the recall of old information.

Misinformation effect

Incorporating misleading information into one's memory of an event.

Source amnesia

Attributing to the wrong source an event we have experienced, heard about, read about, or imagined; at the heart of many false memories.

Hippocampus

A neural center that is located in the limbic system; helps process explicit memories for storage.

Long-term potentiation

An increase in a synapse's firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation; believed to be a neural basis for learning and memory.

Concept

A mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people.

Prototype

A mental image or best example of a category.

Algorithm

A methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem.

Heuristic

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

Creativity

The ability to produce novel and valuable ideas.

Convergent thinking

process of determining a straightforward and concrete solution to any

problem; involves speed, accuracy, and logic