8.1 - Thinking Flashcards
What is cognitive psychology?
seeks to understand how the mind works
Cognition
The mental activity that includes thinking and the understandings that result from thinking
What is the relationship between thinking and representations?
Thinkig is the mental manipulation of representations
- it allows us to take info, consider it, and use it
Representations is how knowledge about the world is stored in our brain
Analogical Representations
Mental representations that have some of the physical characteristics of what they represent
- usually images
(ex. movements of a clock represent the passage of time, maps correspond to geographical layout)
Symbolic Representations
Abstract mental representations that do not correspond to the physical features of objects or ideas
- usually words
(ex. “violin” doesn’t share any physical characteristics with the actual instrument)
What kind of representation do mind maps use?
Combine both analogical and symbolic representations
Categorization
Grouping things based on shared properties
- mental activity that reduces the amount of knowledge we need to hold in our memory
Concept
A category, or class, of related items consisting of mental representations of those items
Ways to form concepts and categories
Prototype theory
Objects are compared to a mental representation of the average member of a category (the “prototype”)
How does the prototype theory explain graded membership?
Graded membership suggests that some members of a category are better than others
(ex. a chikadee is a better member of the bird category that an ostrich is because of the characteristics it shares with the central member (ex. the stereotypical bird)) Whereas, an ostrichs is a peripheral member
what is rule-based categorization and what is a problem with it?
categorizing according to a set of rules or features (ex. triangle = 3-sided polygon)
“define a chair”
can’t just say “something you sit on” because of graded membership meaning some members of a category are better than others
Ways to form concepts and categories
Exemplar theory
comparing objects to a mental representation of specific examples from a category (the “exemplar”)
How is category membership determined?
all members of a category are examples, together they form the concept that determines category membership
What is the hierarchical model?
A way of categorizing based on hierarchy
- things with “shorter” distances in the hierarchy are easier to remember because they are central members
What are Rosch’s 3 levels of natural categories?
Superordinate, Basic, Subordinate
