Chapter 9- Thinking, And Intelligence Flashcards
Cognition
The mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating.
Concept
A mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, and people.
Prototype
A mental image or best ex of a category.
Algorithm
A methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem.
Heuristic
A simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgements and solve problems efficiently; usually speedier but also more error prone than algorithm.
Insight
A sudden realization of a problems solution; contracts with strategy based solutions.
Confirmation bias
A tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence.
Mental set
A tendency to approach a problem in one particular way, often a way that has been successful in the past.
Intuition
An effortless, immediate, automatic feeling or thought, as contrasted with explicit, conscious reasoning.
Availability heuristic
Estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; if instances come readily to mind ( perhaps bc of their vividness), we presume such events are common.
Overconfidence
The tendency to be more confident than correct- to overestimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgments.
Belief perseverance
Clinging to ones initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited.
Framing
The way an issue is posed; how an issue is frame can significantly affect decisions and judgments.
Creativity
The ability to produce novel and valuable ideas.
Convergent thinking
Narrows the available problem solutions to determine the single best solution.
Divergent thinking
Expands the number of possible solutions ( creative thinking that diverges in different directions).
Language
Our spoken, written, or signed words and the ways we combine them to communicate meaning.
Phoneme
In a language, the smallest distinctive sound unit.
Morpheme
In a language, the smallest unit that carries meaning; may be a word or a part of a word ( such as a prefix).
Grammar
In a language, system of rules that enables us to communicate with and understand others. Syntax is the set of rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences.
Babbling stage
Beginning at about 4 months, the stage of speech development in which the infants spontaneously utters various sounds at first unrelated to the household language.
One-word stage
The stage in speech development, from about 1 to 2, during which a child speaks mostly in two-word statements.
Telegraphic speech
Early speech stage in which a child speaks like a telegram–“go car” using mostly nouns and verbs.
Two-word stage
Beginning about 2, the stage in speech development during which a child speaks mostly in two-word statements.
Aphasia
Impairment of language, usually caused by left hemisphere damage.
Broca’s area
Controls language expressions-an area of the frontal lobe ( left hemisphere) that directs muscle movements that involve speech.
Wernickes area
Controls language reception- a brain area involved in language comprehension and expression ( left hemisphere)
Linguistic determinism
Whorf’s hypothesis that language determines the way we think.
Intelligence
Mental quality consisting of the ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations.
General intelligence (g)
A general intelligence factor that, according to Spearman and others, underlines specific mental abilities and is therefore measured by every task on an intelligence test.
Savant syndrome
A condition in which a person otherwise limited in mental ability has an ex exceptional specific skill, such as computation or drawing.
Emotional intelligence
The ability to perceive, understand, manage, and use emotions .
Intelligence test
A method for assessing an individuals mental aptitudes and comparing them with those of others, using numerical scores.
Aptitude test
A test designed to predict a persons future performance; aptitude is the capacity to learn.
Achievement test
A test designed to asses what a person has learned.
Mental age
A measured of intelligence test performance devised by Binet; the chronological age that most typically corresponds to a given level of performance.
Stanford-Binet
The widely used American revision of Binet’s original intelligence test. ( by Terman at Stanford)
Intelligence Quotient ( IQ)
Defined originally as the ratio of mental age (ma) to chronological age (ca) X 100 ( IQ= ma/ca x 100) the average performance for a given age is assigned a score of 100.
Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)
The most widely used intelligence test; contains verbal and performance ( nonverbal) subtests.
Standardization
Defining uniform testing procedures and meaningful scores by comparison with the performance of a protested group.
Normal curve
The bell-shaped curve that describes the distribution of many physical and psychological attributes.
Reliability
The extent to which a test yields consistent results, as assessed by the consistency of scores on two halves of the test, or on retesting.
Validity
The extent to which a test measures or predicts what it is supposed to.
Content validity
The extent to which a test samples the behavior that is to interest.
Predictive validity
The success with which a test predicts the behavior it is designed to predict.
Crystallized intelligence
Our accumulated knowledge and verbal skills; tends to increase with age.
Fluid intelligence
Our ability to reason speedily and abstractly; tends to decrease during late adulthood.
Intellectual disability
A condition of limited mental ability, indicated by an intelligence test score of 70 or below and difficulty in adapting to demands of life.
Down syndrome
A condition of mild to severe intellectual disability and associated physical disorders caused by an extra copy of chromosome 21.
Heritability
The proportion of variation among individuals that we can attribute to genes. The heritability of a trait may vary, depending on the range of populations and environments studied.
Stereotype threat
A self- confirming concern that one will be evaluated based on a negative stereotype.
