ch. 7 language + intelligence Flashcards
cognition
mental activities involved in acquiring, retaining, and using knowledge
thinking
manipulating mental representations of information to draw inferences and conclusions
mental images
mental representation of objects/events that aren’t physically present (not only visual senses)
concepts
mental category formed to group objects/events that share similar features
formal concept
concepts formed by learning the rules/features of a particular concept
natural concept
concepts formed by everyday experience, the rules of the concept aren’t clearly defined
prototype
the best instance of a particular concept
prototype theory of classifications
objects are put into concepts by comparing them to the prototype (rather than seeing if it fits the rules)
exemplars
memories of individual instances of a concept, an object is compared to multiple items not just the prototype
problem-solving
thinking/behavior directed towards a not readily available goal
trail and error
try a variety of solutions to eliminate those that don’t work, good for limited range of possible solutions
algorithm
step-by-step procedure that always produces the correct solution (eg math formulas)
heuristic
general rule-of-thumb strategy that only might work, lowers the number of possible solutions (eg break a problem into subgoals, or work backwards from a goal)
insight
a solution arrives in a sudden realization, rarely due to the conscious manipulation of concepts
intuition
coming to a conclusion without conscious awareness of the thought process involved
2 stage model of intuition
intuition includes the guiding stage (unconscious perception of a pattern of information) and an integrative stage (the representation of the pattern become conscious)
intuitive hunch
new idea integrates new information with existing knowledge from long term memory
functional fixedness
interferes with problem-solving, only view objects as functioning in the usual way, prevents seeing full range of objects use
mental set
interferes with problem-solving, the tendency to persist in solving problems with solutions that worked before
single-feature model
base decisions on a single feature to simplify the choice among many alternatives, good for minor decisions
additive model
generate a list of important factors, then rate each alternative on an arbitrary scale, add up scores- highest is the winner
elimination-by-aspects model
evaluate all alternatives 1 characteristic at a time and eliminate the choices without that characteristic