AP Psychology Notes Unit 2: Thinking

Perceptions

Perception: The mental process of organizing sensory input into meaningful patterns.

Perceptual systems are systems that take stimuli and convert it into neural messages that the brain can understand

Processing incoming information

Bottom-up processing → Starts by noticing individual elements and then zooms out to appreciate the whole picture. Bottom-up processing is a method of information processing that starts with raw sensory input and builds up to a complete understanding.
Top-Down Processing → This approach is huided by our thoughts and higher level memtal processing. We move from the general concept to the specific example. We normally use this approach when we create perceptions from our senses, drawing on our experiences and internal prior expectations.

How We Perceive the World

Schemas: Mental frameworks or structures that can help us organize and interperet information about the world. They help us organize and understand new infromation or experiences.

Percpetual set: A top-down mental processing skill that refers to our disposition to percieve one aspect of a thing and not the other, and it influences everything we percieve.

Creates expectations that greatly influences how we see a stimulus

Gestalt Psychology

The fundamental rules that our minds use to organize sensory information. This is the study of the brain’s tendency to integrate pieces of information into meaningful wholes.

Figure and Ground Perception → A figure is what is focused on and the ground in the blurry background, which is likely ignored.
Grouping → The brains tendency to organize stimuli into groups, in order to process the complexity of the world. Proximity is the nearness/space of objects, Similarity is the grouping of similar items or items that share characteristics, Closure is the brains tendency to fill in the gaps to form a whole.

Attention

Attention is the interaction and sensation affected by both our internal and external processes.

Selective attention → We focus on one particular stimulus in our environment. We can flit from stimulus to stimulus conciously while our brains filter in relevent information and irrelevent information.
Cocktail Party Effect → The ability to focus on a single conversation in a noisy environment while filtering out other sounds.
Inattentional Blindness → When our focus is directed at one visual stimuli, leaving us blind to other stimuli.
Change Blindness → One type of inattentional blindness that is the inability to see changes in our environment when our attention is directed elsewhere.

Visual Perceptual Processes

Visual perceptual processes involve how our eyes, the neural pathways that relay visual information to our brain, and the brain’s own processing work together to help us understand the world around us.

Depth perception is the ability to see the world in three dimensions and accurately judge the distance of objects.

Binocular Depth Cues: We use both of our eyes to judge depth and distance.

Retinal disparity → The difference between the images the eyes perceive because of their slightly different images.
Convergance → Is the merging of retinal images by the brain. It is based on how inward the eyes need to move when focusing on an object.

Monocular Depth Cues: Depth perception cues that only require one eye.

Linear perspective → Parallel lines appear to converge as they recede into the distance.
Interposition → The partial blocking of one object infront of the other, leaving the viewer with the persective that the object infront is closer in distance.
Relative size → Objects that are smaller than an object is seen as further away, objects that are larger is seen as closer.
Relative clarity → Clearer objects are perceived to be closer than object that are fuzzy/blurry.
Texture Gradient → Texture of surfaces appears to change as distance from the observer increases. Example is that the further away from an object, the smoother it looks.

Visual Perception Constancies

Perceptual constancy is the ability to see objects as unchanging even as changes occur in point of view or illumination.

Apparent Movement

Apperent movement is the visual perception of movement when objects are not actually moving. Objects closer to a fixation point move faster and in opposing direction to those objects that are farther away from a fixation point, moving slower and in the same direction.

Thinking, Intelligence and Achievement

Concepts: Mental groupings of similar objects, events, ideas, or people.

We form categorial hierarchies from concepts

Prototype: A mental image of the best example of a specific concept or category

Metacognition: The active control and awareness of our own thinking. It is a complex process which we examine how we are thinking, the cognitive steps and biases, and our approach to a task.

Critical Thinking

When we go beyond acquiring new information using concepts, prototypes, and other cognitive activities and develop opinions and beliefs about that information, we are engaging in critical thinking.

Forming and Modifying Schemas

We form and modify schemas through assimilation and accomodation.

Assimilation → Allows us to make sense of our new situations by relating them to prior schemas without changing those schemas.
Accomodation → The creation of new categories because our current classification is inadequate. To accomodate, we take in new information and change the schema to incorporate that new information.

Executive Functions

Executive functions are a set of cognitive processes that help us manage and coordinate our thoughts and actions and achieve goal-directed behavior.

In other words: Cognitive processes that allow individuals to generate, organize, plan, and carry out goal-directed behaviors and experience critical thinking.

Executive functions help you come up with ideas and solutions to problems. It's like brainstorming different ways to tackle a task.
These functions are really important for things like schoolwork, work projects, and everyday tasks. They help you stay organized, make good decisions, and achieve your goals.

Solving Problems

Trail and error → We try different solutions until we find one that works.
Algorithms → A specific set of step-by-step instructions designed to perform a task or solve a problem.
Heuristics → “Rules of thumb”. Simple, thinking strategies that allow us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently. This is usually less-time consuming. Representatives heuristic are which we judge how closely something represents, or matches our prototype for a given category. The availability heuristic estimates the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory which can lead to incorrect assumptions or temptations.

Mental Set

Tendency to approach a problem in a particular way

Especially a way that has been successful in the past - may or may not be helpful in solving a new problem

Fixed mindset → The belief that abilities and intelligence are static traits that cannot be changed.
Growth mindset → the belief that intelligence and abilities can be developed through dedication, effort, and learning from mistakes, rather than

The Influence of Circumstances

Circumstances significantly shape decision-making since they provide the context within which choices are made.

Priming → Involves exposing people to certain stimuli that unconsciously influence subsequent behavior or decisions.
Framing → Cognitive bias in which the way information is worded influences how people percieve it and the decisions they make related to it. Framing involves presentinf information in a way that emphasizes certain aspects or perspectives while downplaying or omitting others.

Other Cognitive Biases

Gamblers fallacy: Occurs when people believe that the outcomes of random events are influenced by previous outcomes, even when they are actually independent. People mistakenly believe that if a certain even’t hasn’t occured recently, it is more likely to occur in the future. If an event occurs more frequently than normal during a given period, it will happen less frequently in the future.
Sunk-cost fallacy: Occurs when people continue investing time, money, or effort into a project or endeavor because they have already invested significant resources, even when continuing to invest would not be rational based on current circumstances.
Functional fixedness: Limits a person's ability to use objects or tools in new ways, based on their traditional, usual, or known functions. This concept illustrates how our mental schemas can sometimes prevent us from seeing alternative uses for an item

Creativity

Creativity is the ability to produce novel and valuable ideas within any discipline, including art, music, architecture, mathematics, science, and engineering. Any profession that involves solving problems or creating new ideas or new products relies on individual creativity.

Convergent thinking → A question invites only one correct answer which limits creativity
Divergent thinking → When a question or problem can have several or many responses.

What is Intelligence?

Intelligence: Ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations.

General intelligence (g) → Factor that Spearman and others believed underlies specific mental abilities. It is measured by every task on an intelligence test.
Multiple intelligences → The theory of multiple intelligences, proposed by Howard Gardner, suggests that intelligence is not a single general ability but rather a combination of several distinct intelligences.

Intelligence Test: a method of assessing an individual’s mental aptitudes and comparing them to those of others, using numerical scores.

Mental Age → A measure of intelligence test performance devised by Binet. Chronological age that most typically corresponds to a given level of performance (ex. child who does as well as the average 8-year-old is said to have a mental age of 8).
Intelligence Quotient (IQ) → Numerical measure of an individual's cognitive abilities compared to others in their age group, typically assessed through standardized tests.
Achievement Tests → Assess a person's knowledge or skills in a specific area, such as academic subjects or job-related tasks. They measure what an individual has learned or accomplished.
Aptitude Tests → Measure a person's potential for learning or mastering specific skills or tasks in the future. They assess innate abilities and predict future performance.
Flynn Effect → The trend of average IQ scores increasing over generations. It suggests a rise in general intelligence due to environmental and cultural factors.

PSYCHOMETRIC PRINCIPLES: Validity, Reliability, Standardization, Freedom from Bias

Validity “Very Accurate” the extent to which a test accurately measures what it is intended to measure.

Construct Validity checks if a test really measures what it's supposed to. It helps make sure the test gives the right results for what it's trying to find out.

Predictive Validity shows how well a test can forecast future outcomes or behaviors. It measures if test scores can predict future performance accurately.

Reliability “Repeat Results” consistency in test results over time and among different scorers. It assures that a test yields stable and dependable measurements.

Test-Retest Reliability assesses consistency by administering the same test to the same group twice. It measures how stable scores are over time

Split-Half Reliability divides a test into two halves and compares scores between them. It measures internal consistency by checking if both halves yield similar results.

Standardization the process of establishing consistent testing procedures and norms for administering and scoring psychological assessments.

Stereotype Threat the phenomenon where individuals underperform in situations where they feel at risk of confirming negative stereotypes about their social group.

Stereotype Lift the opposite of stereotype threat, occurs when individuals from stereotypically advantaged groups perform better on tests due to the positive expectations associated with their group.