Studied by 30 people
Looks like no one added any tags here yet for you.
selective attention
focusing conscious awareness on a particular stimulus.
inattentional blindness
failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed elsewhere.
change blindness
failing to notice changes in the environment; a form of inattentional blindness.
perceptual set
a mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another.
gestalt
an organized whole. Gestalt psychologists emphasized our tendency to integrate pieces of information into meaningful wholes.
figure-ground
the organization of the visual field into objects (the figures) that stand out from their surroundings (the ground).
grouping
the perceptual tendency to organize stimuli into coherent groups.
depth perception
the ability to see objects in three dimensions although the images that strike the retina are two-dimensional; allows us to judge distance.
visual cliff
a laboratory device for testing depth perception in infants and young animals.
binocular cue
a depth cue, such as retinal disparity, that depends on the use of two eyes.
convergence
a cue to nearby objects’ distance, enabled by the brain combining retinal images.
retinal disparity
a binocular cue for perceiving depth. By comparing retinal images from the two eyes, the brain computes distance — the greater the disparity (difference) between the two images, the closer the object.
monocular cue
a depth cue, such as interposition or linear perspective, available to either eye alone.
stroboscopic movement
an illusion of continuous movement (as in a motion picture) experienced when viewing a rapid series of slightly varying still images.
phi phenomenon
an illusion of movement created when two or more adjacent lights blink on and off in quick succession.
autokinetic effect
the illusory movement of a still spot of light in a dark room.
perceptual constancy
perceiving objects as unchanging (having consistent color, brightness, shape, and size) even as illumination and retinal images change.
color constancy
perceiving familiar objects as having consistent color, even if changing illumination alters the wavelengths reflected by the object.
perceptual adaptation
the ability to adjust to changed sensory input, including an artificially displaced or even inverted visual field.
cognition
all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating.
metacognition
cognition about our cognition; keeping track of and evaluating our mental processes.
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 a prototype provides a quick and easy method for sorting items into categories (as when comparing feathered creatures to a prototypical bird, such as a crow).
Jean Piaget
a Swiss developmental psychologist who suggested that children sort the knowledge they acquire through their experiences and interactions into groupings known as schemas
schema
a concept or framework that organizes and interprets information.
assimilation
interpreting our new experiences in terms of our existing schemas.
accommodation
in developmental psychology, adapting our current schemas (understandings) to incorporate new information.
creativity
the ability to produce new and valuable ideas.
convergent thinking
narrowing the available problem solutions to determine the single best solution.
divergent thinking
expanding the number of possible problem solutions; creative thinking that diverges in different directions.
Robert Sternberg
an American psychologist best known for his intelligence theory, which states that there are three aspects to intelligence--creative, analytical, and practical intelligence
executive functions
cognitive skills that work together, enabling us to generate, organize, plan, and implement goal-directed behavior.
algorithm
a methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem. Contrasts with the usually speedier — but also more error-prone — use of heuristics.
heuristic
a simple thinking strategy — a mental shortcut — that often allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently; usually speedier but also more error-prone than an algorithm.
insight
a sudden realization of a problem’s solution; contrasts with strategy-based solutions.
confirmation bias
a tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence.
fixation
in cognition, the inability to see a problem from a new perspective; an obstacle to problem solving.
mental set
a tendency to approach a problem in one particular way, often a way that has been successful in the past.
intuition
an effortless, immediate, automatic feeling or thought, as contrasted with explicit, conscious reasoning.
Amos Tversky & Daniel Kahneman
two influential psychologists who conducted groundbreaking research on human judgment and decision-making. Their work shed light on various cognitive biases and heuristics.
representativeness heuristic
judging the likelihood of events in terms of how well they seem to represent, or match, particular prototypes; may lead us to ignore other relevant information.
availability heuristic
judging 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 our beliefs and judgments.
belief perseverance
the persistence of one’s initial conceptions even after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited.
framing
the way an issue is posed; how an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and judgments.
nudge
framing choices in a way that encourages people to make beneficial decisions.
