chapter 8 vocab Flashcards
Algorithms
a methodical, logical rule/procedure that guarantees a solution to a particular problem
Availability heuristic
estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory
Babbling stage
at 4 months, stage of speech development, infant spontaneously utter various sounds at first
Belief bias/perseverance
clinging to one’s initial conceptions after the bias on which they were formed has been discredited
Bilingualism
acquisition of 2 languages that use different speech sounds, vocabs and grammatical rules
Cognition (thinking)
mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, communication
Concept
a mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people
Conceptual hierarchy
a multi level classification system based on common properties among items
Confirmation bias
a tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore/distort contradictory evidence
Conjunction fallacy
error that occurs when people estimate that the odds of 2 uncertain events happening together are greater than the odds of either event happening alone
Convergent thinking
narrowing down a list of alternatives to converge on a single correct answer
Creativity
ability to produce novel and valuable ideas
Decision making
process of evaluation alternatives and making choices among them
Divergent thinking
trying to expand the range of alternatives by generating many possible solutions
Expertise
a well-developed base of knowledge, furnishes the ideas, images and phrases we use as mental building blocks
Fixation
the inability to see a problem from a new perspective, by employing a different mental set
Framing
the way an issue is posed
Functional fixedness
the tendency to thinking of things only in terms of their usual functions, impediment to problem solving
Grammar
in a language, a system of rules that enables us to communicate with and understand others
Heuristic
a simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently
Insight
a sudden and often novel realization of the solution to a problem
Intuition
an effortless, immediate, automatic feeling/thought, as contrast with explicit, conscious reasoning
Language
our spoken, written, signed words and ways we combined them to communicate meaning
Language acquisition device (LAD)
Chomsky, an innate mechanism/process that facilitates the learning of language
Linguistic relativity hypothesis
language determines the way we think, Benjamin Lee Whorf
Long-term potentiation (LTP)
an increase in a cell’s firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation
Mental age
intelligence testing score that indicates that a child displays the mental ability typical of a child of that chronological (actual) age, the chronological age that most typically corresponds to a given level of performance
Mental set
a tendency to approach a problem in one particular way, often a way that has been successful in the past
Morphemes
in a language, the smallest unit that carries meaning
Nonsense syllables
consonant-vowel-consonant arrangements that do not correspond to words
One-word stage
stage in speech development, age 1-2, child speaks mostly in single words, begin to sue sounds to communicate meaning
Overconfidence
the tendency to be more confident than correct–overestimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgements
Phonemes
in language, the smallest distinctive sound unit
problem solving
active efforts to discover what must be done to achieve a goal that is not readily available
Representativeness heuristic
judging the likelihood of things in terms of how well they seem to represent, or match, particular prototypes
Prototypes
a mental image or best example of a category
Selective attention
allows one to focus on certain specific sensory information, while ignoring other sensory input
Semantics
the set of rules by which we derive meaning from morphemes, words and sentences, the study of meaning
Spacing effect
tendency for distributed study to result in better, longer-term retention than other methods
Syntax
the rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences in a given language
Telegraphic speech
early speech stage in which a child speaks like a telegram, “go car”, using mostly nouns and verbs
Theory of bounded rationality
idea that people tend to use simple strategies in decision making, often result in irrational decisions that are less optimal
Trial and error
trying possible solutions sequentially and discarding those that are in error until one works
Two-word stage
age 2, child speaks mostly 2 words statements
Overgeneralization (overregulation)
application of grammatical rules without making appropriate exceptions, language rules are applied too generally
