cognition - mental activity involved in understanding, processing, and communicating information

thinking - paying attention to information, mentally representing it, reasoning about it, and making decisions about it

concept - mental category that

is used to class together objects, relations, events, abstractions, ideas, or qualities that have common properties

prototype - a concept of a category of objects or events that serves as a good example of the category

exemplar - a specific example

algorithm - a systematic procedure for solving a problem that works invariably when it is correctly applied.

Ex: Solving long division

systematic random search - an algorithm for solving problems in which each possible solution is tested according to a particular set of rules

heuristics - rules of thumb that help us simplify and solve problems.

Ex: Using a defensive strategy in chess that has been successful in the past

mental set - the tendency to respond to a new problem with an approach that was successfully used with similar problems.

insight - in Gestalt psychology, a sudden perception of relationships among elements of the mentally represented elements of a problem that permits its solution.

Ex: Looking for one's keys, not being able to find them at first, but remembering the last place one had them.

incubation - in problem solving, a process that may sometimes occur when we stand back from a frustrating problem for a while and the solution “suddenly” appears.

functional fixedness - the tendency to view an object in terms of its name or familiar usage

representativeness heuristic - a decision-making heuristic in which people make judgments about samples according to the populations they appear to represent.

availability heuristic - a decision-making heuristic in which our estimates of frequency or probability of events are based on how easy it is to find examples.

motivated reasoning - making decisions and judgments on the basis of emotion rather than careful evaluation of all the available evidence.

language - the communication of information by means of symbols arranged according to rules of grammar.

Prelinguistic vocalizations

Crying

Cooing

Babbling

holophrase - a single word used to express complex meanings.

overregularization - the application of regular grammatical rules for forming inflections (e.g., past tense and plurals) to irregular verbs and nouns.

intelligence - a general mental capability that involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly, and learn from experience.

g - Spearman’s symbol for general intelligence, which he believed underlay more specific abilities.

s - Spearman’s symbol for specific factors, or s factors, which he believed accounted for individual abilities.

primary mental abilities - according to Thurstone, the basic abilities that make up intelligence examples include word fluency and numerical ability.

Primary mental abilities:

 Visual and spatial abilities

 Perceptual speed

 Numerical ability

 Verbal meaning

 Memory

 Word fluency

Deductive reasoning

Inductive reasoning

Triarchic theory of intelligence by Robert Sternberg: 

Analytical Intelligence

Creative Intelligence

Practical Intelligence

Analytical intelligence - Abilities to solve problems, compare and contrast, judge, evaluate, and criticize.

Creative intelligence - Abilities to invent, discover, suppose, or theorize.

Practical intelligence - Abilities to adapt to the demands of one’s environment and apply knowledge in practical situations.

Measurement of intelligence 

IQ formula - Mental age divided by chronological age multiplied by 100

Heritability - the degree to which the variations in a trait from one person to another can be attributed to, or explained by, genetic factors.

Analytical intelligence - Abilities to solve problems, compare and contrast, judge, evaluate, and criticize.

Creative intelligence - Abilities to invent, discover, suppose, or theorize.

Practical intelligence - Abilities to adapt to the demands of one’s environment and apply knowledge in practical situations.

Reliability - the scores are rather consistent from testing to testing. 

Validity - scores correlate moderately to highly with the variables they are supposed to predict, such as school performance, even though motivation and adjustment to the school setting are also involved (Gygi et al., 2017; Nisbett, 2009).

Nurture vs Nature

nature - genetic influences.

nurture - environmental influence.

 Intelligence is inherited from parents at 40-60%