108 final Flashcards
episodic memory
a person’s memory for specific events that were personally experienced
semantic memory
a mental thesaurus of knowledge a person possesses about words and other verbal symbols
Defining Attribute Theory
All concepts are defined by their attributes and organized hierarchically
Typicality Effects (problems with Defining Attribute Theory)
How prototypical an item is to the category
- people are slower to say a penguin is a bird than a canary is a bird even though they should be equally represented
Feature Analytical Approach
Categorizes items based on their defining features (necessary to the category) and characteristic features (not necessary but typical)
Feature Analytical and typicality effects
Stage one (typical) - if high or low overlap of all features, a yes or no is quick
stage two (atypical) - if moderate overlap, consider defining features
Prototype Theory
A concept is represented by a prototypical item. Includes characteristic features that are usually present not just necessary for the category
Superordinate
very broad categories, difficult to image
animal, plant, tool
Basic
levels at which categories are represented that contain the most useful information, easy to image
cats, tree
subordinate
highly specific example
siamese cat
What region do superordinate items activate?
prefrontal cortex
What region do subordinate items activate?
Parietal Region
Exemplar Theory
a concept is represented simply by all of the members that are in that concept
Issues with exemplar
implausible that people remember every example of every category
Ad Hoc categories
- people can create categories for items that are unlikely to be stored together (objects you can sit on)
War of the Ghost Story
People of English background (schema) read indigenous story and omitted details and produced shorter, more coherent stories.
Verbal labels (schemas on memory selection)
People’s memory of an image to replicate was impacted by the label they were given of the original sketch (if they were told two circles were glasses and asked to reproduce the image later, they will create an image that looks more prototypical of glasses)
Recall office material
people are highly likely to recall items in an office scene that fit the “office schema”
General rule of recalling material (office schema)
if time is limited and information describes a minor event = people remember schema consistent material
if information describes a major event that is inconsistent with schema = people will remember that item (huge wine bottle)
Whorfian hypothesis
language determines or influences thinking
Brown & Lenneberg (color vocabulary)
easy to name colors were more accurately remembered than hard to name colors
Heider (Dani Tribe)
- Dani only use 2 color words (light and dark)
- still remembered easy to name colors better
- suggested perception influences language not language influencing perception
Counting (chinese children)
Chinese numerical names are compatible with traditional 10-base numerations (15 is spoken as ten-five)
Chinese children learn to count earlier than american children
Phonology
the study of the way sound functions in the language
Phoneme
basic unit of sound
morphology
study of the internal structure of words
morpheme
smallest unit of meaning
free = old, the
bound = -er, -ist
semantics
the study of meaning, link between language and concepts
syntax
the grammatical rules that govern how words can be combined into sentences
pragmatics
knowledge of social rules that underlie language
Chomsky’s Approach to psycholinguistics
humans have an innate understanding of the principles of language
language is processed differently than other cognitive tasks
Surface Structure
the words that are actually spoken or written
Deep Structure
the underlying meaning of a sentence
Transformational rules
rules people use to convert deep structures into surface structure and vice versa
Challenges to Chomsky’s approach
people don’t take longer to process a sentence that requires numerous transformations
factors influencing comprehension
- negatives (the star isn’t above the ball)
- passive voice (the ball was thrown by sara)
- ambuiguity (he gave her cat food)
- complex syntax
neurolinguistics
the discipline that examines how the brain processes language
wernicke’s aphasia
grammar is right but content is meaningless
broca’s aphasia
meaning without grammar, connector words are gone
left hemisphere on language processing
superior language abilities
right hemisphere
modest language skills but superior at
- metaphor
-humor
-emotional tone
- remote associates
Asymmetrical dendritic branching
the right hemisphere’s dendrites are more spread out which may contribute to broader associations
Factors that influence eye fixations while reading
- word frequency
- ambiguous pronoun
- end of sentence
- dyslexia
Dual route approach to reading
recognize words directly through vision (direct route) and sounding out the word (indirect route)
Phonics approach to reading
readers recognize words by trying to pronounce individual letters (indirect route)
whole word approach
argues readers can directly connect the written word (as an entire unit) with the meaning this word represents
- emphasizes context within sentence
evidence countering whole word approach
- even skilled readers achieve only about 25% accuracy when looking at incomplete sentence and guessing which word is missing
- poor readers fail to learn fluently with this approach
prescriptive models
models describing the best way to make a decision
descriptive models
models describing the way decisions are actually made
classical decision theory
assumed decision makers:
- knew all the options available
- understood the pros and cons of each option
- rationally made their final choice
- goal was the maximize value of decision
satisficing
to obtain an outcome that is good enough
- do not consider total range of options
- consider options one by one until one meets our minimum standard
maximizers
examine as many options as possible
- made more money
- tend to experience more regret
- tend to experience more depressive symptoms
satisficers
tend to settle for something that is satisfactory
- happier with their jobs
Kahneman and Tversky
proposed a small number of heuristics guide human decision making
representative heuristic
people judge a sample is likely if it is similar to the population from which the sample was selected
availability heuristic
people make judgements about the frequency or likelihood of an event by how easily it comes to mind (in the news; people overestimate # of people who died in a tornado and fire but underestimated drowning and asthma)
anchoring and adjustment heuristic
presentation order:
1… * 8 gets a smaller guess (people anchor onto 1)
8* …1 gets a larger guess people anchor onto 8
framing effect
positively framing led to preferences for certain outcome
negative framing led to preference for risky outcome
overconfidence
people tend to have unrealistic optimism about their abilities, judgements, and skills
Planning fallacy study
asked students to give best and worst case scenario for completing task, people took longer to complete task than even their worst case scenario
hindsight bias
occurs when people feel they “knew it all along”
well defined problem solving
steps to solution are clear
ill defined problem solving
steps to solution are vague
matrices
use a matrix to solve a problem, fill in all of the unknowns to keep track of them
diagrams
represent abstract information in a concrete fashion
analogy
use better understood problem to solve a new problem
means end heuristic
identify ends you want and then figure out the means to reach them, divide into subproblems
hill climbing technique
people choose the step that gets them closest to the goal
problem of local maxima
states that are closer to the goal than any other neighboring states but are still not the goal
- have to overcome by stepping back
expertise and problem solving
- better memory skills
- faster problem solving
- better understanding metacognitive skills
- experts underestimate time novices will require to solve a problem in their area of expertise
mental set and problem solving
using the same solution from previous problems even though the problem could be solves in an easier way
functional fixedness
assign stable uses for an object
noninsight problems
gradual solutions, can identify when you are closer to the solution (algebra problem)
insight problems
seems impossible until sudden solution appears (riddle)
physical distance when problem solving
insight problems that were thought to be composed in distant institutes were solved more accurately
temporal distance when problem solving
more accurate problem solving if imagining yourself a year from now vs tomorrow
right/left hemisphere and problem solving
solved problems easier if hint was given in the left visual field (to correspond with right hemisphere)
mirror system/ mirror neurons
-mirror neurons are active when watching someone perform and action and when you perform the action yourself
- active when trying to listen to someone talking in noisy setting
Bradshaw & Nettleton (reading with similar sounding words)
showed people pairs of words that were similar in spelling but different in sound (mown, down) -> people asked to read the first word silently and the second word out loud. Results showed that the participants experienced no hesitation pronouncing the second word
Luo (1998) (words with similar meaning but different spelling)
instructed the students to read a series of pairs of words and decide whether the two words were unrelated or related. (Lion and Bare) people frequently made errors because they judged their semantic meaning (bear) to be similar
situated cognition
use helpful information from our immediate environment to process information
embodied cognition
use our own bodies to draw information (waving our hands when we have tip of the tongue experience)
