AP Psych Cognitive Psychology Unit Vocab

Concepts: form the basis of thought (natural concepts: develop out of our everyday experiences & artificial / formal concepts: defined by a set of rules or characteristics)

Prototypes: the ideal example for any given concept

Schemas: frameworks for thinking

Assimilation: taking in new information but not changing the schema in light of it

Accommodation: taking in new information and changing the schema to incorporate the new information

Algorithms: attempting all solutions until the correct one is found.

Heuristics: using mental shortcuts to make judgements. Using heuristics can lead to errors in judgement.

• Representative heuristic: decisions are made according to prior expectations or stereotypes

• Availability heuristic: recalling the first or most vivid example that comes to mind

Mental set: a tendency to approach a problem in a particular way, often based on what has worked in the past.

Priming: occurs when an individual's exposure to a certain stimulus influences their response to a subsequent prompt, without any awareness of the connection

Framing: cognitive bias that describes how people's decisions are influenced by how information is presented, rather than the information's inherent qualities

Gambler’s Fallacy: the false belief that the probability of a random event changes based on the outcome of a previous event.
Sunk-Cost Fallacy: phenomenon whereby a person is reluctant to abandon a strategy or course of action because they have invested heavily in it, even when it is clear that abandonment would be more beneficial.

Executive functions: cognitive processes that allow individuals to generate, organize, plan, and carry out goal-directed behaviors and experience critical thinking

Creativity: a way of thinking that includes generating novel ideas and engaging in divergent (versus convergent) thinking. 

Functional fixedness: a cognitive bias that limits a person's ability to think of new or innovative ways to use an object

Confirmation Bias: tendency to search for information that confirms one’s preconceptions and ignoring, discounting or distorting contradictory evidence

Belief Bias: tendency for one’s preexisting beliefs to distort logical reasoning sometimes by making invalid/illogical conclusions seem valid/logical, or valid conclusions seem invalid

Belief Perseverance: holding on to initial belief after the basis for the belief has been discredited

TYPES OF MEMORY

Explicit memory: a type of memory that is more easily described or explained

• Episodic memory: the ability to recall specific past events and the details surrounding them

• Semantic memory: involving the capacity to recall words, concepts, or numbers, which is essential for the use and understanding of language

Implicit memory:

• Procedural memory: memory of procedures and processes

Prospective memory: the ability to remember to carry out a planned action or intention in the future

Flashbulb memory: a clear, deep, vivid memory of an emotionally significant moment or event

Long-term potentiation: a process by which synaptic connections between neurons become stronger with frequent activation

Types of Processing: involves processes and strategies to get information into memory

• Automatic: procedural and conditioned memories; space, time, frequency

• space: while studying, you often encode the place on a page where certain material appears; later, when you want to retrieve information you may visualize the location of that information on this page

• time: while going about your day, you unintentionally note the sequence of its events or length

• frequency: you effortlessly keep track of how many times things happen (example: this is the third time I’ve run into her/him today)

• Effortful: episodic and semantic memories

MEMORY THEORIES

Levels of Processing Model: memory is encoded on three levels from shallowest to deepest: structural, phonemic, and semantic. Deeper levels of processing leads to better memory retention.

Working Memory Model (proposed in 1974): examines how working memory engages with various components, including central executive, phonological loop, and the visuospatial sketchpad, to process information into long-term memory.

• Central executive: manages attention, suppresses irrelevant information, supervises the other memory components

• Phonological loop: includes the phonological store, which holds auditory speech information and the articulatory rehearsal process

• Visuospatial sketchpad: manipulates visual images and spatial information

Multi-Store Model: proposes 3 interacting systems (sensory memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory) that information must pass through to be remembered. Includes memory encoding, storage, and retrieval.

• Encoding: involves processes and strategies to get information into memory

  • Mnemonic devices: a technique that helps people memorize information by using patterns, rhymes, acronyms, or visual imagery

  • Chunking: grouping information into meaningful chunks, categories, or hierarchies

  • Spacing effect: distributed practice leads to stronger encoding than massed practice

  • Serial position effect: information presented at the beginning of a list (primacy effect) or at the end of a list (recency effect) will be more memorable than information presented in the middle of a list.

• Storage

  • Sensory memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory differ in storage duration and capacity

    • sensory memory (sensory register): the immediate and shortest of our memories and generally holds information for a fraction of a second (limited capacity but big)

      • echoic memory (via auditory encoding)

      • iconic memory (via visual encoding)

      • eidetic or photographic memory (imagery): recalling a picture in minute detail (with high precision) seconds after seeing the image (not hours, days later)

    • short-term memory (STM / primary working system): memory that holds 7+/- 2 bits of information for about 20 - 30 seconds (limited capacity)

    • long-term memory (LTM): relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system

  • Maintenance rehearsal: rehearsing information over time can prolong storage

  • Elaborative rehearsal: rehearsing information in ways that promote meaning helps with memory retention

  • Autobiographical memory may explain why memories connected to our own lives or selves are more memorable.

  • Types of amnesia can affect storage processes

• retrograde amnesia: unable to recall events that occurred before the development of amnesia

• anterograde amnesia: loss of the ability to create new memories after the event that caused the amnesia

• Alzheimer’s disease: a brain disorder that slowly destroys memory and thinking skills, and eventually, the ability to carry out the simplest tasks

• infantile amnesia: inability to recall early episodic memories due to the underdevelopment of the infant brain

• Retrieval: comes through recall (remembering without cues) or recognition (relies on retrieval cues)

  • Context-dependent memory: retrieval is enhanced when people are in the same environmental space as they were when they encoded the information

  • Mood-congruent memory: retrieval is enhanced when people are in the same mood as they were when they encoded the information

  • State-dependent memory: retrieval is enhanced when people are in the same physical state as they were when they encoded the information

  • Testing effect: learning and memory are improved when information is retrieved rather than just studied

  • Metacognition: thinking about thinking

  • Retrieval cues: search terms that can be used to activate memory (like Google search)

  • Recall: a retrieval method in which one must reproduce previously presented material

  • Recognition: a retrieval method in which one must identify information that is provided, which has previously been presented

FORGETTING

Forgetting curve: time is a significant factor in forgetting. Occurs rapidly after learning and levels off over time

Encoding failure, interference (proactive or retroactive), tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon

• Tip-Of-the-Tongue Effect (inadequate retrieval): temporary inability to retrieve specific name or information.

• Encoding failure: it takes place when information is not properly stored in LTM. We never remember what we fail to encode.

• Retrieval Failure: when information stored in long-term memory is available but momentarily inaccessible

• Proactive Interference: old information interferes with recalling new information

• Retroactive Interference: new information interferes with recalling old information

Psychodynamic theorists believe that memories can be forgotten to defend the ego from distress (repression)

Misinformation effect: occurs when a person's memory of an event becomes less accurate or distorted due to misleading information

Source amnesia: inability to recall when, where, or how you learned something, even though you retain the information itself

Constructive memory: memories are shaped by interpretations and feelings, and are not a direct reproduction of past events (memory consolidation and imagination inflation)