General Psychology 281: Chapter 7 – Cognition – Flashcards
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Cognition
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the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experiences and senses.
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Thinking (cognition)
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mental activity that goes on in the brain when a person is storing and attempting to understand information and communicating the info to others.
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Mental Image
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Area of the cortex associated with stored knowledge send information to the visual cortex where the image is perceived in the "mind's eye."
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Concepts
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ideas that represent a class or category of objects, events, or activities. An abstract idea or general notion.
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Prototype
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A concept that closely matches the defining characteristics of the concept. They develop according to the exposure a person has to objects in that category.
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Formal Concepts
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Concepts defined by specific rules or features.
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Natural Concepts
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Concepts that people form, not as a result of a strict set of rules, but rather as the result of experiences with these concepts in the real world.
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Problem Solving
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A type of thinking that people engage in everyday and in many different situations, occurs when a goal must be reached by thinking and behaving in a certain way.
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Decision Making
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Involves identifying, evaluating, and choosing among several alternatives.
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Trial and Error (mechanical solution)
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One possible solution after another is tried until a successful one is found.
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Algorithms
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Very specific, step by step procedure for solving certain types of problems. (Ex. Math problems)
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Heuristic
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Rule of thumb. A simple rule that is intended to apply to many situations. (Ex. an educated guess based on prior experience.)
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Representative Heuristic
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Used for categorizing objects, assumption that any object (or person) sharing characteristics with the members of a particular category is also a member of that category
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Availability Heuristic
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Estimation the frequency or likelihood of an event based on how easy it is to recall relevant information from memory or how easy it is for us to think of related examples.
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Subgoals
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Breaking a goal down into several different parts.
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Insight
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When the solution to a problem seems to come suddenly. "AHA" moment.
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Problem-Solving Barriers
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Ways of thinking that occur more or less automatically, influencing attempts to solve problems without any conscious awareness of that influence.
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Functional Fixedness
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Thinking about objects only in terms of their typical uses.
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Mental Set
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The tendency for people to persist in using problem-solving patterns that have worked for them in the past (a method).
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Confirmation Bias
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The tendency to search for evidence that fits ones beliefs while ignoring any evidence that does not fit those beliefs (a set of beliefs).
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Creativity
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Coming up with entirely new ways of looking at the problem or unusual, inventive solutions. The process of solving problems by combining ideas or behaviors in new ways.
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Convergent Thinking
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Type of thinking in which a problem is seen as having only one answer, and all lines of thinking will eventually lead to that single answer, using previous knowledge and logic (Logical method of problem solving) (Many things=1 solution).
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Divergent Thinking
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Type of thinking in which a person starts from one point and comes up with many different ideas or possibilities based on that point (one point = many solutions).
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Intelligence
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The ability to learn from ones experiences, acquire knowledge, and use resources effectively in adapting to new situations or solving problems.
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g Factor
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The ability to reason and solve problems (general intelligence).
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s Factor
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Task specific abilities in certain areas such as music, business or art (specific intelligence).
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Analytical Intelligence
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The ability to break problems down into component parts, or analysis, for problem solving (book smarts).
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Creative Intelligence
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The ability to deal with new and different concepts and to come up with new ways of solving problems (like divergent thinking).
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Practical Intelligence
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The ability to use information to get along in life and become successful (street smarts).
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Mental Age
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The average age at which children could successfully answer a particular level of questions.
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Chronological Age
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Number of years since birth.
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Intelligence Quotient
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A number representing a measure of intelligence. Resulting from dividing ones mental age by chronological age and multiplying the result by 100 to get rid of any decimals (IQ=MA/CA X 100).
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WAIS
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The Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale
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WISC
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Wechsler's Intelligence scale for children.
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WPPSI
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Wechsler's Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence.
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Reliability
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The tendency of a test to produce the same scores over and over again each time it is given to the same person.
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Validity
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the degree to which the test actually measures what it is supposed to measure.
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Standardization
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The process of giving the test to a large group of people that represent the kind of people for whom the test is designed.
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Norms
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the standard against which all others who take the test would be compared (bell curve)
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Normal curve
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A distribution in which the scores are most frequent around the mean, or average, and become less and less frequent the further away from the mean they occur.
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Deviation IQ Scores
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A type of intelligence measure that assumes that IQ is normally distributed around a mean of 100 with a standard deviation of about 15.
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Cultural Bias
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People raised in a different culture , or even a different economic situation from the one in which the designer of an IQ test is raised are not likely to perform well on such a test.
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Gifted
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The 2% of the population falling on the upper end of the normal curve and typically possessing an IQ of 130 or above.
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Emotional Intelligence
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The awareness of and ability to manage ones own emotions to facilitate thinking and attain goals, as well as the ability to understand emotions in others.
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Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis
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The theory that thought processes and concepts are controlled by language.
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Cognitive Universalism
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Concepts that are universal and influence the development of language.
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Musical, Logical/Mathematical, Verbal/Linguistic, Visual/Spatial, Movement, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, Naturalist, Existentialist
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Gardner's Nine Intelligences
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Creativity, Analytical, Practical
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Sterberg's Triarchic Theory Intelligences
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Intellectual Developmental Disorder, Mental Retardation, or Developmentally delayed (A neurodevelopmental disorder)
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The three ways that Intellectual Disability is defined.
