Chapter 7 Thinking, Language and Intelligence: Module 21 Flashcards
Cognitive Psychology
The branch of psychology that focuses on the study of higher mental processes, including thinking, language, memory, problem solving, knowing, judging, and decision making.
Thinking
The manipulation of representations of information.
Mental images
Representations in the mind that resemble the object or even being represented.
Concepts
A mental grouping of similar objects, event, or people.
Prototypes
Typical, highly representative examples of a concept.
Algorithm
A rule that, if applied appropriately, guarantees a solution to a problem.
Heuristic
A thinking strategy that may lead us to a solution to a problem or decision, but-unlike algorithms- may sometimes lead to errors.
Preparation
Understanding and diagnosing problems
Productions
Generating solutions.
Judgement
Evaluating solutions.
Well-defined problem
Both the nature of the problem itself and the information needed to solve it are available and clear.
Ill-defined problem
The specific nature of the problem is unclear and the information required to solve the problem is even less obvious.
Arrangement problems
Require the problem solver to rearrange or recombine elements in a way that will satisfy certain criterion. ex. Anagrams and puzzles
Problem of inducing structure
Person must identify the existing relationship among the elements presented and construct a new relationship among them.
Transformation problems
Consist of an initial state, a goal state, and a method for changing the initial state into the goal state.
Means-ends analysis
Involves repeated tests for differences between the desired outcome and what currently exists.
Subgoals
Diving a problem into intermediate steps.
Insight
A sudden awareness of the relationships among various elements that had previously appeared independent of one another.
Functional fixedness
The tendency to think of an object only in terms of its typical use.
Mental Set
The tendency for old patterns of problem solving to persist.
Confirmation bias
The tendency to seek out and weight more heavily information that supports one’s initial hypotheses, and to ignore contradictory information that supports alternative hypotheses or solutions.
Means-ends analysis
Involves repeated tests for differences between the desired outcome and what currently exists.
Subgoals
Diving a problem into intermediate steps.
Insight
A sudden awareness of the relationships among various elements that had previously appeared independent of one another.
