Cognitive Psych Final
Chapter 1
Terms to Know:
Cognition = mental activity, refers to the acquisition, storage, transformation, and use of knowledge.
Cognitive Psychology = Synonym for cognition and refers to the cognitive approach in psychology
empirical evidence = scientific evidence obtained through careful observation and experimentation
Introspection = carefully trained observers analyzing their own sensations and report them
Recency Effect = observation that our recall is especially accurate for the final items in a series of stimuli
Gestalt = an overall quality that transcends the individual elements
Gestalt Psych = emphasizes we have basic tendencies to organize things and that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts
Behaviorism = focus on objective observable reactions to stimuli and the environment rather than subjective processes like introspection
Operational Definition = a precise definition that specifies how a concept is to be measured
Cognitive Science = an interdisciplinary field that’s principal concern is answering questions about the mind and how it functions
AI = branch of computer science that seeks to explore human cognitive processes with computer models that show “intelligent behavior” and can accomplish the same tasks that humans do.
Pure AI = an approach which designs a program to accomplish a cognitive task as efficiently as possible
Computer Modeling = Attempts to take human limitations into account and thus create a program that performs a cognitive task in an analogous way to how humans would solve the problem.
The Computer Metaphor of the Mind and Information Processing = a metaphor for human cognitive processes that describes them like a computer
The Connectionist Approach = argues that cognitive process can be best understood in terms of linked networks
Cerebral Cortex = outer layer of the brain that is essential for your cognitive processes
Spreading Activation Theory = an analogous model for the association of ideas, memories, and the like, based on the notion that activation of one item stored in memory travels through associated links to activate another item.
Cognitive Neuroscience = combines research techniques of cognitive psychology with various methods for assessing the structure and function of the brain
Social Cognitive Neuroscience = uses neuroscience techniques to explore the kind of cognitive processes that we use in our interactions with other people
Brain Lesions = destruction of the brain in an area most often by strokes, tumors, or blows to the head and other accidents
Theories to Understand and be Able to Compare and Contrast:
Behaviorism vs Introspection
The Computer Metaphor of the Mind and Information Processing
Methods of Cognitive neuroscience
Other Things to Understand:
Ebbinghaus’ Forgetting Curve
The Cognitive Revolution
TMS
Event-Related Potential Technique
FMRI
PET
Chapter 3
Terms to Know:
Attention= concentration of mental activity
Top-down processing = when we concentrate our mental activity because we want to pay attention to some specific stimulus
Bottom-up processing = when a stimulus from the environment captures our attention and causes us to concentrate our mental activity
divided-attention task = trying to pay attention to two or more simultaneous stimuli
Multitasking = trying to accomplish two or more tasks at the same time
Task switching delays= It takes us time to change tasks, causing us to work more slowly and make more errors during the transitions
Selective Attention = paying attention to certain kinds of information, while ignoring other ongoing information
cocktail party effect = Even if you are paying close attention to one conversation, you may notice if your name is mentioned in a nearby conversation
working memory capacity = the brief, immediate memory for material that we are currently processing
Phobic disorder = an excessive fear of a specific object or situation
attentional bias = situation/phenomenon in which people pay extra attention to some stimuli or some features
Cognitive-behavioral approach = psychological problems arise from inappropriate thinking (cognitive factors) and inappropriate learning (behavioral factors)
Saccadic Eye Movement = series of little jumps of the eye bring the center of the retina (Fovea) over the words being read
Fixation = period between two saccadic movements where your visual system pauses briefly in order to acquire information that is useful for comprehending the written text
Perceptual Span = the number of letters and spaces that we perceive during a fixation
Parafoveal Preview = the fact that readers can access information about upcoming words even though they are currently fixated on a word to the left (in English) of those words
Regressions = moving your eyes backward to earlier material in the sentence or passage
Parietal Lobe = an area of the brain which processes your sense of touch and assembles input from your other senses into a form you can use
Unilateral Spatial Neglect = A condition in which a person ignores part of his or her visual field often as result to damage to the Parietal lobe
The Orienting Attention Network = a network of brain regions responsible for the kind of attention required for visual search, in which you must shift your attention around to various spatial locations
The Executive Attention Network = a network of brain regions responsible for the kind of attention we use when a task focuses on conflict (inhibition)
Split-phrase switching = in dichotic listening task If you were told to attend to the right ear, you should just repeat that message with no problems, even though it is a confusing sentence. INSTEAD, almost all participants inadvertently switched to shadoring the other ear because that message “finished”
Consciousness = the awareness people have about the outside world and about their perceptions, images, thoughts, memories, and feelings
Mindless Reading = Your eyes may move forward in the text, but you do not process the meaning of the material
Mind Wandering = when your thoughts shift from the external environment in favor of internal processing (off task processing)
thought suppression = the attempt to eliminate thoughts, ideas, and images related to an undesirable stimulus
Ironic effects of mental control = a term used by Wegner to describe how our efforts can backfire when we attempt to control the contents of our consciousness
Theories to Understand and be Able to Compare and Contrast:
Variables that impact visual search tasks
Each bottleneck theory’s strengths and weaknesses
Feature Integration Theory
Other Things to Understand:
Dichotic listening task
The Stroop task
Visual search task
illusory conjunctions
Blindsight
Chapter 4
Terms to Know:
Short-term memory = the memory system responsible for holding on to a small amount of information that has been recently taken from the environment
Long-term memory = memory system that contains experiences and information accumulated throughout one’s lifetime
Chunk = memory unit consisting of strongly associated components
rehearsal = repeating the items to remember silently
Serial Position Effect = The U shape relationship between a words position in a list and its probability of accurate recall.
Recency effect = Better recall for items at the end of the list
Primacy effect = Better recall for items at the beginning of the list
Semantics = the meaning of words and sentences
Proactive Interference (PI) = When people have trouble learning new material because previous material interferes with new learning
Sensory Memory = a storage system that records information from each of the senses
Control Processes = intentional strategies, such as rehearsal, that people may use to improve their memory
Working Memory = Brief immediate memory for the limited amount of material that you are currently processing
working-memory approach = Our immediate memory is a multipart system that temporarily holds and manipulates information while we perform cognitive tasks.
Phonological loop = Working memory system that processes a limited number of sounds for a short period of time
Acoustic Confusions = when people confuse similar sounding stimuli
visuospatial sketchpad —processes both visual and spatial information
Episodic Buffer - temporary storehouse that can hold and combine information from the phonological loop, the visuospatial sketchpad, and long-term memory
Central Executive - integrates information from the phonological loop, the visuospatial sketchpad, the episodic buffer, and long-term memory
Episodic Buffer - temporary storehouse that can hold and combine information from the phonological loop, the visuospatial sketchpad, and long-term memory
Theories to Understand and be Able to Compare and Contrast:
Atkinson and Shiffrin's Model of Information Processing
Baddeley’s Model of Working Memory
Be able to explain the role of each part of the model
Be able to apply the model to various examples
Dr. Oberauer’s Model of working memory
Other Things to Understand:
The Brown/Peterson & Peterson Technique
Working memory and academic performance
Working memory and clinical applications
Chapter 5
Terms to Know:
● Working memory = The brief, immediate memory for material we are currently processing
● long-term memory = The high-capacity storage system that contains your memories for experiences and information that you have accumulated throughout your lifetime. ● Episodic memory = Your memories for events that happened to you personally; it allows you to travel backward in subjective time to reminisce about earlier episodes in your life ● Semantic memory = your organized knowledge about the world, including your knowledge about words and other factual information.
● Procedural memory = your knowledge about how to do something
● Encoding = when you process information and represent it in your memory ● Retrieval = you locate information in storage, and you access that information ● Distinctiveness = stimulus that is different from previous memory traces ● Elaboration = Deep processing that involves the connection of meaning and interrelated concepts
● The Self-Reference Effect = You remember more information if you try and relate it to yourself
● encoding-specificity principle = Recall is better if the context during retrieval is similar to the context during encoding.
● Dissociation = when a variable has large effects on Test A, but little or no effects on Test B;
○ or, when a variable has one kind of effect if measured by Test A, and the opposite effect if measured by Test B.
● Own-Ethnicity Bias = You are generally more accurate in identifying members of your own ethnic group than members of another ethnic group.
● Amnesia = A severe deficit in episodic memory
○ Retrograde amnesia = loss of memory for events that occurred prior to brain damage
○ Anterograde amnesia = loss of the ability to form memories for events that have occurred after brain damage
● Hippocampus = a structure underneath the cortex that is important in many learning and memory tasks.
● Emotion is a reaction to a specific stimulus
● Mood = a more general, long-lasting experience
● Pollyanna Principle = Pleasant items are usually processed more efficiently and more accurately than less pleasant items.
● Positivity Effect = people tend to rate unpleasant past events more positively with the passage of time
● Autobiographical memory = memory for events and issues related to yourself ● Schema = your mental model of general knowledge or expectations based on past experiences
● Consistency bias = tendency to exaggerate the consistency between our past feelings and beliefs and our current viewpoint
● Source monitoring = trying to identify the origin of a particular memory ○ Reality monitoring = trying to identify whether an event really occurred or was imagined
● flashbulb memory = memory for the circumstances in which you first learned about a very surprising and emotionally arousing event
● proactive interference= People have trouble recalling new material because previously learned old material keeps interfering with new memories.
● retroactive interference = People have trouble recalling old material because some recently learned new material keeps interfering with old memories.
● Constructivist Approach = emphasizes that we construct knowledge by integrating new information with what we know
Theories to Understand and be Able to Compare and Contrast:
● Levels-of-processing approach/depth-of-processing approach
● Explicit Versus Implicit Memory Tasks
● How Do Experts and Novices Differ
● The Recovered Memory/False Memory Controversy
○ In particular the recovered memory and false memory perspectives
Other Things to Understand:
● Encoding-Specificity Principle examples
● Effects of emotion on memory
● Anxiety Disorders effects on Memory Tasks
● The Post-Event Misinformation Effect
● Factors Affecting the Accuracy of Eyewitness Testimony
● The Relationship Between Memory Confidence and Memory Accuracy
Chapter 2:
Terms to Know:
● Distal stimulus = the actual object that is “out there” in the environment ● Proximal stimulus = the information registered on your sensory receptors ● Sensory Memory = a large-capacity storage system that records information from each of the senses with reasonable accuracy
● Iconic/Visual-Sensory Memory = preserves an image of a visual stimulus for a brief period after the stimulus has disappeared
● Retina = covers the inside back portion of your eye; it contains millions of neurons that register and transmit visual information from the outside world
● Primary Visual Cortex = located in the occipital lobe of the brain; it is the portion of your cerebral cortex that is concerned with basic processing of visual stimuli. ● Perception uses previous knowledge to gather and interpret the stimuli registered by the senses
● gestalt psychology = that humans have basic tendencies to organize what they see; without any effort, we see patterns rather than random arrangements ● Figure = a distinct shape with clearly defined edges
● Ground = the region that is “left over,” forming the background
● ambiguous figure-ground relationship = the figure and the ground reverse from time to time, so that the figure becomes the ground and then becomes the figure again. ● Illusory/subjective Contours = an illusion where we see edges even though they are not physically present in the stimulus.
● Templates = specific patterns that you have stored in memory. It then notes which template matches the stimulus.
● Feature-Analysis Theory = a relatively flexible approach in which a visual stimulus is composed of a small number of characteristics or components
● Distinctive Feature = Each individual visual characteristic that can be extracted from a visual stimulus
● Recognition-by-Components Theory = says that a specific view of an object can be represented as an arrangement of simple 3-D shapes called geons which are then combined to form meaning
○ Geons - simple 3d shapes
● viewer-centered approach = we store multiple views of objects, rather than a single view ● Word Superiority Effect = we can identify a single letter more accurately and more rapidly when it appears in a meaningful word than when it appears alone or in a string of unrelated letters
● Change Blindness = when we fail to detect a change in an object or a scene ● Inattentional Blindness = when we fail to notice when an unexpected but completely visible object suddenly appears
● Gestalt = the overall quality that transcends its individual elements ● Prosopagnosia = a condition where people can’t recognize human faces, despite perceiving other objects relatively normally
● Thatcher effect/face inversion effect = a phenomenon where it becomes more difficult to detect local feature changes in an upside-down face, despite identical changes being obvious in an upright face
● Phoneme = the basic unit of spoken language, such as the sounds a, k, and th ● Inter-speaker variability = the term used to refer to the observation that different speakers of the same language produce the same sound differently.
● Coarticulation = When you are pronouncing a particular phoneme, your mouth remains in somewhat the same shape it was when you pronounced the previous phoneme; in addition, your mouth is preparing to pronounce the next phoneme.
● Phonemic Restoration = You can fill in a missing phoneme, using contextual meaning as a cue
● McGurk effect = the auditory component of one sound is paired with the visual component of another sound, leading to the perception of a third sound
Theories to Understand and be Able to Compare and Contrast:
● Prototype vs Exemplar theories
● Feature analysis theories vs The Recognition-by-Components Theory ● Bottom up vs top down processing
Other Things to Understand:
● Why recognizing faces is sometimes believed to be different from other objects ● Why recognizing speech is sometimes believed to be different from other sounds ● Effects that can impact speech perception
Chapter 7:
Terms to Know:
● Mental Imagery (aka imagery) = refers to the mental representation of stimuli when those stimuli are not physically present in the environment
● Visual Imagery = the mental representation of visual stimuli
● Auditory Imagery = the mental representation of auditory stimuli.
● Analog Code = a representation that closely resembles the physical object. ● Propositional Code = an abstract, language-like representation; storage is neither visual nor spatial, and it does not physically resemble the original stimulus
● Demand Characteristics = all the cues that might convey the experimenter’s hypothesis to the participant.
● Auditory Imagery = the mental representation of sounds when the sounds are not physically present
● Pitch = a characteristic of a sound stimulus that can be arranged on a scale from low to high
● Timbre = a characteristic of sound describing the quality of a tone
● Cognitive map = a mental representation of geographic information, including the environment that surrounds us
● Spatial Cognition: made up of our thoughts about cognitive maps, remembering the world we navigate, and keeping track of objects in a spatial array
● Survey Knowledge = the relationship among locations that we acquire by directly learning a map or by repeatedly exploring an environment
● Heuristic = a general problem-solving strategy that usually produces a correct solution ● Border Bias = people estimate that the distance between two specific locations is larger if they are on different sides of a geographic border, compared to two locations on the same side of that border.
● Landmark effect = general tendency to provide shorter distance estimates when traveling to a landmark, rather than a non-landmark
● 90-degree-angle heuristic = tendency to "regularize" the angles so that they were more like 90° angles
● Rotation heuristic = We remember a slightly tilted geographic structure as being either more vertical or more horizontal than it really is
● Alignment heuristic = We remember a series of geographic structures as being arranged in a straighter line than they really are
● The Spatial Framework Model= Emphasizes that the above–below spatial dimension is especially important in our thinking, the front–back dimension is moderately important, and the right–left dimension is least important
● The Situated Cognition Approach = People make use of helpful information in the immediate environment or situation.
Theories to Understand and be Able to Compare and Contrast:
● analog code vs. propositional codes
● Distance and Shape Effects on Cognitive Maps
● Be able to determine what heuristic is being used when presented with an example
Other Things to Understand:
● Mental rotation tasks
● Distance and Shape Effects on Visual Imagery
● Visual Imagery and Interference
Chapter 8
Terms to Know:
● Inference = the logical interpretations and conclusions that were never part of the original stimulus material
● Episodic memory = memory that contains information about events that have happened to us
● Semantic memory = Semantic memory includes general knowledge, lexical or language knowledge, and conceptual knowledge.
● Category = a set of objects that belong together which the cognitive system considers to be at least partly equivalent
● Concept = a mental representations of a category
● Situated Cognition Approach = the approach which emphasizes that our knowledge depends on the context surrounding us
● Prototype = the item that is most typical and representative of the category
○ Prototype Approach = We decide whether an item belongs to a category by comparing that item with a prototype
○ Prototypicality = the degree to which members of a category are representative of their category
● Graded Structure = members of categories are not all created equally in terms of prototypicality
● Typicality Effect = when judging whether an item belongs to a particular category, typical items are judged faster than atypical items
● Semantic Priming Effect = People respond faster to an item if it was preceded by an item with similar meaning
● Family Resemblance = no single attribute shared by all examples of a concept ● Superordinate-level Categories = higher-level or more general categories ● Basic-level Categories = moderately specific categories
● Subordinate-level Categories = lower-level or more specific categories
● Exemplar Approach = We first learn some specific examples of a concept (exemplars), then classify each new stimulus by deciding how closely it resembles those specific examples.
● Node = one unit located within the network
● Spreading Activation = A single activation expands or spreads from one node to other connected nodes
● Declarative knowledge = knowledge about facts and things
● Propositional network =a pattern of interconnected propositions
○ Proposition = smallest unit of knowledge that can be judged either true or false
● Spontaneous Generalization = using individual cases to draw a conclusion about a general category
● Default Assignment = drawing a conclusion about a specific member of a category using our category knowledge
● Schema = generalized, well-integrated knowledge about a situation, an event, or a person
● Script = simple, well-structured sequence of events
○ Life Script = a list of events that a person believes would be most important throughout his or her lifetime.
● Heuristic = a general rule that is typically accurate
● Boundary Extension = our tendency to remember having viewed a greater portion of a scene than was actually shown
● Abstraction = a memory process that stores the meaning of a message but not the exact words
● Verbatim Memory = word-for-word recall
● Constructive model of memory = People integrate information from individual sentences in order to construct larger ideas; later, they cannot untangle the constructed information from the verbatim sentences.
● False Alarm = occurs when people “remember” an item that was not originally presented
● Pragmatic view of memory = People pay attention to the aspect of a message that is most relevant to their current goals.
● Gender Stereotypes = widely shared sets of beliefs about the characteristics of different genders
Theories to Understand and be Able to Compare and Contrast:
● Prototype Approach
● Exemplar Approach
● Network models
● Act-R model
● Parallel Distributed Processing Approach
● Constructive model of memory
● Pragmatic view of memory
Other Things to Understand:
● Effects of Identifying a Script in Advance
● Schemas and Memory Selection
● Memory and stereotypes
Chapter 9:
Terms to Know:
● Phoneme = the basic unit of spoken language, such as the sounds a, k, and th. ● Morpheme = the basic unit of meaning
● Morphology = the study of morphemes
● Syntax = the grammatical rules that govern how we organize words into sentences
● Grammar = encompasses both morphology and syntax; it therefore examines both word structure and sentence structure
● Semantics = the area of psycholinguistics that examines the meanings of words and sentences
● Pragmatics= our knowledge of the social rules that underlie language use
● Ambiguous Sentences = sentences may have identical surface structures but very different deep structures
● Transformational Rules = the rules we use to convert deep structures into surface structure that we can actually speak and write.
● Lexical Ambiguity = the fact that a single word can have multiple meanings
● Syntactic Ambiguity = when a sentence has an ambiguous structure, sometimes without punctuation
● Neurolinguistics = the discipline that examines the underlying neurological structures and systems that support language and language-related processes
● Aphasia = an acquired difficulty communicating, typically as a result of damage to the brain caused by a stroke or a tumor
○ Broca’s Aphasia = an expressive-language deficit aphasia as a result of damage to Broca’s area
○ Werinicke’s Aphasia = a receptive-language deficit aphasia as a result of damage to Werinicke’s area
● Lateralization = each hemisphere of the brain has somewhat different functions
● Mirror system =a network of neurons in the brain’s motor cortex that are activated when you watch someone perform an action.
● Dual-Route Approach to reading = skilled readers employ both a Direct-access route (recognize word directly through vision) and an Indirect-access route (recognize word by first sounding out the word)
● Discourse = interrelated language units larger than a sentence
● Theory of Mind = In everyday life, people try to figure out the mental state of other people in their lives.
● Metacognition = your knowledge about your cognitive processes, as well as your control of these cognitive processes.
○ Metacomprehension = your thoughts about your own comprehension
Theories to Understand and be Able to Compare and Contrast:
● Chomsky’s Approach
● Cognitive–Functional Approach
● Incremental Interpretation
● Reading vs Spoken Language
● dual-route approach to reading
○ The Indirect-Access Route
● Whole-word approach
● Phonics approach
● The Constructionist View of Inferences
Other Things to Understand:
● Effects of Negation and the Passive Voice
● Syntactic Complexity
● On-line language processing measures
● Effects of syntactic ambiguity
● Factors affecting reading comprehension
Chapter 10:
Terms to Know:
● Slip-of-the-tongue errors = errors in which sounds or entire words are rearranged between two or more different words
● Prosody = the “melody,” intonation, rhythm, and emphasis of speech
● Narrative = type of discourse in which someone describes a series of actual or fictional events
● Iconic gestures = gestures that represents the concept about which a speaker is talking ○ Deictic gestures = pointing to an object or location
○ Beat Gestures = gestures occuring in rhythm that matches the speech rate and prosodic content
● Common Ground = occurs when conversationalists share similar background knowledge, schemas, and perspectives necessary for mutual understanding
● Directive = a sentence that requests someone to do something
● Direct request = resolves the interpersonal problem in a very obvious fashion
● Indirect request = uses subtle suggestions to resolve an interpersonal problem, rather than stating the request in a straightforward manner.
● Frame = mental structures that simplify reality
● Working memory = the brief, immediate memory for material that you are currently processing; working memory also coordinates your ongoing mental activities.
● Bilingual Speaker = a person who is fluent in two different languages ● Multilingual Speaker = someone who speaks more than two languages.
● Simultaneous Bilingualism = Bilinguals/Multilinguals that learn two languages simultaneously during childhood
● Sequential Bilingualism = Bilinguals/Multilinguals who’s native language is referred to as their first language, and the nonnative language that they acquire is their second language
● Age of acquisition = the age at which you learned a second language
● Critical period hypothesis = your ability to acquire a second language is strictly limited to a specific period of your life.
● Phonology = the sounds of speech
● Translation = converting a text written in one language into a second written language ● Interpreting = converting a message in one language into a second language
Theories to Understand and be Able to Compare and Contrast:
● Speech Errors
● Narrative Structure
● Parts of working memory implicated in writing
● Advantages and Disadvantages of Bilingualism
Other Things to Understand:
● Embodied Cognition
● Language Production and Writing
● The Role of Working Memory in Writing
● Effects of expertise in writing
● Simultaneous Interpreter
Chapter 6:
Terms to Know:
● Memory strategy = mental activities that can help to improve your encoding and retrieval ● Elaboration = concentrating on the specific meaning of a particular concept ● Rehearsal repeating the information you want to learn or remember
● Distinctiveness = one memory trace should be different from all other memory traces ● Self-reference effect = you enhance long-term memory by relating the material to your own experiences
● Encoding Specificity = recall is often better if the context at the time of encoding matches the context at the time when your retrieval will be tested
● Total time hypothesis = The amount you learn depends on the total time you devote to learning.
● Distributed practice effect = You will remember more material if you spread your learning trials over time.
○ Spaced learning = spread your learning trials over time
○ Massed learning = learning the material all at once
● Desirable difficulty = a learning situation that is somewhat challenging, but not too difficult
● The testing effect = being tested on material also boosts your long-term recall for that material.
● Mnemonics = mental strategies designed to improve your memory
○ Keyword method = you identify an English word (the keyword) that sounds similar to the new word you want to learn.
○ Chunking = combine several small units into larger meaningful units
○ Hierarchy Technique =organize items in a series of classes from general to specific
○ first -letter technique = compose a word or sentence using the first letters of the words you are trying to remember
○ Narrative technique = make up stories that link a series of words together ● Retrospective memory = remembering information you acquired in the past ● Prospective memory = remembering that you need to do something in the future ● External memory aids = any device, external to yourself, that facilitates your memory in some way
● Metacognition = your knowledge and control of your cognitive processes ● Metamemory = people’s knowledge, monitoring, and control of their memory ● Metacomprehension = your thoughts, knowledge, monitoring, and control of your language comprehension
● Foresight Bias = when people overestimate the number of answers that they will supply on a future test
● Tip-of-the-tongue effect = Subjective experience of knowing the target word for which you are searching, but cannot recall it right now; generally an involuntary effect ○ Tip of the finger effect = the subjective experience of knowing the target sign, but that sign is temporarily inaccessible
● Feeling-of-knowing effect = subjective experience of knowing some information, but cannot recall it right now; more conscious experience
Theories to Understand and be Able to Compare and Contrast:
● The testing effect
● Mnemonic techniques
● Prospective and retrospective memory
● Metamomory and effects
Other Things to Understand:
● Memory improvement strategies
Chapter 11:
Terms to Know:
● Problem representation = the way you translate the elements of the problem into a different format
● Matices = a grid showing all possible combinations of items
● Diagrams = a representation of abstract information in a concrete fashion ● Hierarchical Tree Diagram = a figure that uses a tree-like structure to show various possible options in a problem. This kind of diagram is especially helpful in showing the relationship between categorized items
● Situated cognition approach = We often use helpful information in our immediate environment to create spatial representations; importance of external situation/context. ● Embodied cognition approach = We often use our own body and our own motor actions, in order to express our abstract thoughts and knowledge; importance of own body as context.
● Algorithm = a well-defined procedure or set of rules that is used to solve a problem or accomplish a task or that is used for conducting a series of computations ● Exhaustive search = try all possible answers till you get the correct answer ● Heuristic = general rule/strategy in which you ignore some alternatives and explore only those alternatives that seem especially likely to produce a solution
● Analogy approach = using a solution to a similar, earlier problem to help in solving a new problem
● Problem Isomorphs = a set of problems that have the same underlying structures and solutions, but different specific details.
● Surface Features = such as the specific objects and terms used in the question
● Structural Features = the underlying core that they must understand in order to solve the problem correctly.
● Means-Ends heuristic = divide the problem into subproblems and try to reduce the difference between the initial state and the goal state for each of the subproblems ● Hill climbing heuristic = When you reach a choice point, choose the alternative that seems to lead most directly toward your goal.
● Expertise = consistent exceptional skill and performance on representative tasks for a particular area
● Mental set = using the same solution from previous problems, even though the problem could be solved by a different, easier method
● Fixed Mindset = you believe that you possess a certain amount of intelligence and other skills, and that no amount of effort can help you perform better
● Growth Mindset = you believe that you can cultivate your intelligence and other skills ● Functional fixedness = we assign stable/fixed uses to an object
● Stereotype threat = If you belong to a group that is hampered by a negative stereotype, and you think about your membership in that group, then your performance may suffer. ● Insight problems = a problem that seems impossible until sudden solution appears; light bulb, “aha”
○ Non-insight problems = a problem that you solve gradually
● Creativity = finding solutions that are novel and useful
● Divergent production = a measure of creativity in terms of the number of different responses made to a test item
● Extrinsic motivation = desire to work on a task to earn a promised reward ● Intrinsic motivation = motivation to work on a task for its own sake, because you find it interesting, exciting, or personally challenging
Theories to Understand and be Able to Compare and Contrast:
● Theories of problem solving
● Problem solving strategies
● The Analogy approach
● Factors that influence problem solving
● Insight vs non-insight problems
Other Things to Understand:
● Stereotype threat effects
● Factors that influence creativity
Chapter 12:
Terms to Know:
● Deductive reasoning = given some specific premises, judge whether those premises allow you to draw a particular conclusion, based on the principles of logic
● Syllogism = two statements that we must assume to be true, plus a conclusion; ● Propositional Calculus =a system for categorizing the four kinds of reasoning used in analyzing propositions/statements
○ Propositions = statements
○ Antecedent = the first proposition or statement; the antecedent is contained in the “if. . .” part of the sentence
○ Consequent = the proposition contained in the “then. . .” part of the sentence. ● Belief Bias Effect = when people make judgments based on prior beliefs and general knowledge, rather than on the rules of logic
● Confirmation Bias = People tend to try to confirm or support a hypothesis rather than try to disprove it.
● Decision Making = assessing and choosing among several alternatives ● The Representativeness Heuristic = People judge that a sample is likely if it is similar to the population from which the sample was selected.
● Small sample fallacy = we assume a small sample will be representative of the population from which it was selected
● Base rate = how often an item occurs in the population
○ Base-rate fallacy = emphasizing the representativeness and under-emphasizing important information about base rates
● Conjunction Rule = The probability of the conjunction of two events cannot be larger than the probability of either of its constituent events.
○ Conjunction Fallacy = when people judge the probability of the conjunction of two events to be greater than the probability of a constituent event
● Availability Heuristic = We tend to estimate frequency or probability in terms of how easy it is to think of relevant examples
● The Recognition Heuristic = When comparing the relative frequency of two categories, if people recognize one category and not the other, they conclude that the recognized category has the higher frequency.
● Illusory correlation = People believe that two variables are statistically related, even though there is no real evidence for this relationship.
● Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristic = When making an estimate, people begin with a first approximation (anchor) and then make adjustments to that number on the basis of additional information.
● Confidence Interval = a range within which we expect a number to fall a certain percentage of the time
● Ecological rationality = People create a wide variety of heuristics to help them make useful, adaptive decisions in the real world.
● Default heuristic = If there is a default option, then people will generally be more likely to choose it.
● Framing effect = the outcome of a decision can be influenced by: the background context of the choice and the way in which a question is worded
● Overconfidence = Confidence judgments are higher than they should be, based on actual performance.
● My-side bias = Overconfidence that one’s own view is correct in a confrontational situation; often results in conflict; cannot even consider the possibility that their opponent’s position may be at least partially correct.
● Planning Fallacy = people tend to underestimate the amount of time (or money) required to complete a project
● Hindsight = judgments about events that already happened in the past ○ Hindsight bias = judging an event as inevitable, after the event has already happened;
● Maximizers = judging an event as inevitable, after the event has already happened; ● Satisficers = people who tend to settle for something that is satisfactory (satisficing decision-making style)
Theories to Understand and be Able to Compare and Contrast:
● The 4 kinds of conditional reasoning outcomes
○ Affirming the Antecedent
○ Affirming the Consequent
○ Denying the Antecedent
○ Denying the consequent
● Dual Process Theory
● The Representativeness Heuristic examples
● Availability Heuristic examples
● Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristic
● The Recognition Heuristic
● Default Heuristic
Other Things to Understand:
● Difficulties with Linguistically Negative Information
● Difficulties with Abstract Reasoning Problems
● Strategies for completing projects on time