Module 9: What's in your mind?

Cognitive Architecture: A theoretical framework that outlines the fundamental structure and organization of the mind, specifying its basic components, how they interact, and the flow of information to produce intelligent behavior.

Cognitive Capacity: The limited amount of mental resources available for cognitive processes such as attention, memory, and problem-solving. This capacity can vary depending on the individual and the task.

Cognitive Penetrability: The extent to which higher-level cognitive processes (like beliefs, goals, and expectations) can influence lower-level perceptual or cognitive processing. If a process is cognitively penetrable, our thoughts can alter what we perceive or how we process basic information.

Working Memory: A temporary, limited-capacity storage system that holds and manipulates information actively for a short period during cognitive tasks like learning, reasoning, and language comprehension.

Channel Capacity: Borrowed from information theory, this term metaphorically refers to the limited amount of information that a cognitive system can process effectively at any given time.

Chunking: A strategy to increase the capacity of working memory by grouping individual pieces of information into larger, meaningful units or "chunks."

Sternberg Search: An experimental paradigm used to study the retrieval of information from working memory. Participants quickly decide if a probe item was present in a previously memorized set of items. Reaction time is analyzed based on the size of the memory set.

Serial vs. Parallel Processing: Serial Processing: Cognitive operations are carried out one at a time in a sequence. Parallel Processing: Multiple cognitive operations are carried out simultaneously.

Self-terminating vs. Exhaustive Search: Concepts related to how we search through memory: Self-terminating Search: The search stops as soon as the target item is found. Exhaustive Search: The search continues through all items in the memory set, even after the target item has been identified.