Chapter 9: Thinking and Intelligence Flashcards
Concepts
A mental category that groups objects, relations, activiites, abstractions, or qualities having common properties.
Basic Concepts
concepts that have a moderate number of instances and that are easier to acquire than those having few or many instances.
Prototype
an especially representative example of a concept.
Proposition
A unit of meaning that is made up of concepts and expresses a single idea (e.g., “apples are red”).
Cognitive Schemas
Integrated mental network of knowledge, beliefs, and expectations concerning a particular topic or aspect of the world (e.g., self-schemas, social schemas).
Mental Images
Mental representation that mirrors or resembles the thing it represents (occur in most sensory modalities)
Subconscious processes
Mental processes occuring outside of conscious awareness but accesible to consciousness when necessary (e.g., driving a car).
Non conscious processes
Mental processes occurring outside of and not available to conscious awareness.
Types of on conscious processes: Implicit learning, mindlessness
Implicit learning
Learning that occurs when you acquire knowledge about something without being aware of how you did so and without being able to state exactly what it is you have learned.
Mindlessness
Mental inflexibility, inertia and obliviousness to the present context.
Reasoning
Drawing conclusions or inferences from observations, facts, or assumptions.
Formal reasoning problems: problems solved using established methods (algorithms and logic); usually a single correct solution.
Informal reasoning problems: there is often no clearly correct solution.
Deductive Reasoning
When a conclusion follows necessarily from certain premises. If premises true, conclusion must be true.
Examples:
- All men are mortal. Joe is a man. Therefore, Joe is mortal.
- Bachelor’s are unmarried men. Bill is unmarried. Therefore, Bill is a bachelor.
Inductive Reasoning
When the premises provide support for a conclusion, but it’s still possible for conclusion to be false.
Examples:
- Suzy is a doctor. Doctors are smart. Suzy is assumed to be smart.
- All observed brown dogs are small dogs. Therefore, all small dogs are brown.
Informal Reasoning - Heuristic
Mental short-cut that suggests a course of action or guides problem-solcing but does not guarantee and optimal solution.
Informal Reasoning - Dialectical Reasoning
Process in which opposing facts and evidence are weighed and compared in order to determine the most reasonable conclusion based on evidence, reasoning, and logic.
Critical Thinking (Reflective Judgement)
- Pre-reflective stages: assumption that correct answers can be obtained through the senses of from the authorities
- Quasi-reflective stages: recognize limits to absolute certainty, realize judgements should be supported by reasons, yet pay attention to evidence that confirms beliefs.
- Reflective stages: consider eveidence from a variety of sources and reason dialectically.
Affect Heuristic
tendency to consult one’s emotions instead of estimating probabilities objectively.
Exaggerating The Improbable
Common bias to exaggerate the probability of rare events (e.g., getting in a plane crash)
Availability Heuristic
tendency to judge the probability of a type of event by how easy it is to think of examples or instances.
Avoiding Loss
We respond more cautiously when choices are framed in terms of the risk of losing something than if same choice framed in terms of gain
Framing Effect
The tendency for people’s choices to be affected by how a choice is presented or framed.
Fairness Bias
A sense of fairness often takes precedence over rational self-interest when people make economic choices.
Hindsight Bias
The tendency to overestimate one’s ability to have predicted an event once the outcome is known; the “i knew it all along” phenomenon.
Confirmation Bias
The tendency to look for or pay attention to only information that confirms one’s own belief.
Mental Sets
A tendency to solve problems using procedures that worked before on similar problems.
Cognitive Disonance
a state of tension that occurs when a person holds two cognitions that are psychologically inconsistent, or when a person’s belief is incongruent with his or her behaviour.
Intelligence
- An inferred characteristic of an individual, usually defined as the ability to profit from experience, acquire knowledge, think abstractly, act purposefully, or adapt to changes in the environment.
- Measured using either psychometric or cognitive approaches to understanding.
Mental age (MA) of a child
their skills and knowledge based on an IQ test.
Chronological age (CA)
actual age of the child
What intelligence test is used for children
Weschler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC*)
IQ scores
- IQ scores are distributed “normally”
- Bell-shaped curve
- Very high and low scores are rare
- 68% of people have IQ between 85-115
- 99.7% between 55-145
Culture and IQ tests
- Intelligence has a cultural element.
- Cultural values and experiences influence a person’s outcomes.
- IQ is important, but motivation and persistence might be even more important than IQ.
- Intelligence testing
Cognitive Views on Intelligence
- Assumes there are many kinds of intelligence and empathizes the strategies people use when thinking about a problem and arriving at a solution.
- Reject the g (general intelligence) factor as resulting from abilities taught and emphasized in school/society rather than how we think and problem-solve.
Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory
Emphasizes information processing strategies, the ability to creatively transfer skills to new sitatuions, and the practical application of intelligence.
Domains of Intelligence
Gardner argues that the domains of intelligence should be expanded to include:
Musical aptitude, kinesthetics intelligence, and capacity for into oneself, others or the natural world.
Emotional Intelligence
ability to indentify your own and other people’s emotions accurately, express your emotions clearly, and regulate emotions in yourself and others.
What is “g” factor?
General Intelligence factor
Cognitive Ethology
The study of cognitive processes in nonhuman animals
Anticipate future events, make plans, coordinate activities with others (e.g., Kohler (1925) and chimpanzee Sultan
Theory of Mind
- A system of beliefs about the way one’s mind and the minds of others work.
- Knowledge of how individuals are affected by their beliefs and feelings.
Qualifications of Language
- Combinations must be meaningful
- Must permit displacement
- Must have grammar that permits productivity
Anthropomorphism
The tendency to falsely attribute human qualities to nonhuman beings.
Anthropodenial
The tendency to think, mistakenly that human beings have nothig in common with other animals.
