Chapter Three: Cognitive Foundations - Key Terms Flashcards
Abstract thinking
Thinking in terms of symbols, ideas, and concepts.
Accommodation
The cognitive process that occurs when a scheme is changed to adapt to new information.
Adolescent egocentrism
Type of egocentrism in which adolescents have difficulty distinguishing their thinking about their own thoughts from their thinking about the thoughts of others.
Age norms
Technique for developing a psychological test, in which a typical score for each age is established by testing a large random sample of people from a variety of geographical areas and social class backgrounds.
Assimilation
- The cognitive process that occurs when new information is altered to fit an existing scheme.
- In the formation of an ethnic identity, the approach that involves leaving the ethnic culture behind and adopting the ways of the majority culture.
Automaticity
Degree of cognitive effort a person needs to devote to processing a given set of information.
Cerebellum
A structure in the lower brain, well beneath the cortex long thought to be involved only in basic functions such as movement, now known to be important for many higher functions as well, such as mathematics, music, decision making, and social skills.
Cognitive development
Changes over time in how people think, how they solve problems, and how their capacities for memory and attention change.
Cognitive stage
A period in which abilities are organized in a coherent, interrelated way.
Cognitive developmental approach
Approach to understanding cognition that emphasizes the changes that take place at different ages.
Commitment
Cognitive status in which persons commit themselves to certain points of view they believe to be the most valid while at the same time being open to reevaluating their views if new evidence is presented to them.
Complex thinking
Thinking that takes into account multiple connections and interpretations, such as in the use of metaphor, satire, and sarcasm.
Componential approach
description of the information-processing approach to cognition, indicating that it involves breaking down the thinking process into its various components.
Concrete operations
Cognitive stage from age 7 to 11 in which children learn to use mental operations but are limited to applying them to concrete, observable situations rather than hypothetical situations.
Continuous
A view of development as a gradual, steady process rather than as taking place in distinct stages.
Critical thinking
Thinking that involves not merely memorizing information but analyzing it, making judgments about what it means, relating it to other information, and considering ways in which it might be valid or invalid.
Crystallized intelligence
Accumulated knowledge and enhanced judgment based on experience.
Cultural psychology
Approach to human psychology emphasizing that psychological functioning cannot be separated from the culture in which it takes place.
Dialectal thought
Type of thinking that develops in emerging adulthood, involving a growing awareness that most problems do not have a single solution and that problems must often be addressed with crucial pieces of information missing.
Discontinuous
A view of development as taking place in stages that are distinct from one another rather than as one gradual, continuous process.
Divided attention
The ability to focus on more than one task at a time.
Dualistic thinking
Cognitive tendency to see situations and issues in polarized, absolute, black-and-white terms.
Executive functioning
The ability to control and manage one’s cognitive processes.
Fluid intelligence
Mental abilities that involve speed of analyzing, processing, and reacting to information.
FMRI
A technique for measuring brain functioning during an ongoing activity.
Formal operations
Cognitive stage from age 11 on up in which people learn to think systematically about possibilities and hypotheses.
Frontal lobes
The part of the brain immediately behind the forehead. Known to be involved in higher brain functions such as planning ahead and analyzing complex problems.
Gray matter
The outer layer of the brain, where most of the growth in brain cells occurs.
Guided participation
The teaching interaction between two people (often an adult and a child or adolescent) as they participate in a culturally valued activity.
Hypothetical deductive reasoning
Piaget’s term for the process by which the formal operational thinker systematically tests possible solutions to a problem and arrives at an answer that can be defended and explained.
Imaginary audience
Belief that others are acutely aware of and attentive to one’s appearance and behavior.
Individual differences
Approach to research that focuses on how individuals differ within a group, for example, in performance on IQ tests.
Information processing approach
An approach to understanding cognition that seeks to delineate the steps involved in the thinking process and how each step is connected to the next.
Intelligence quotient
A measure of a person’s intellectual abilities based on a standardized test.
Jean Piaget
Influential Swiss developmental psychologist, best known for his theories of cognitive and moral development.
Long-term memory
Memory for information that is committed to longer-term storage, so that it can be drawn upon after a period when attention has not been focused on it.
Maturation
Process by which abilities develop through genetically based development with limited influence from the environment.
Median
In a distribution of scores, the point at which half of the population scores above and half below.
Mental operations
Cognitive activity involving manipulating and reasoning about objects.
Mental structure
The organization of cognitive abilities into a single pattern, such that thinking in all aspects of life is a reflection of that structure.
Metacognition
The capacity for “thinking about thinking” that allows adolescents and adults to reason about their thought processes and monitor them.
Mnemonic devices
Memory strategies.
Multiple thinking
Cognitive approach entailing recognition that there is more than one legitimate view of things and that it can be difficult to justify one position as the true or accurate one.
Mutual perspective taking
Stage of perspective taking, often found in early adolescence, in which persons understand that their perspective-taking interactions with others are mutual, in the sense that each side realizes that the other can take their perspective.
Myelination
Process by which myelin, a blanket of fat wrapped around the main part of the neuron, grows. Myelin serves the function of keeping the brain’s electrical signals on one path and increasing their speed.
neurons
Cells of the nervous system, including the brain.
Optimistic bias
The tendency to assume that accidents, diseases, and other misfortunes are more likely to happen to other people than to one’s self.
Organizational core
Term applied especially to cognitive development, meaning that cognitive development affects all areas of thinking, no matter what the topic.
overproduction or exuberance
A rapid increase in the production of synaptic connections in the brain.
pendulum problem
Piaget’s classic test of formal operations, in which persons are asked to figure out what determines the speed at which a pendulum sways from side to side.
Performance subtests
In the Wechsler IQ tests, subtests that examine abilities for attention, spatial perception, and speed of processing.
personal fable
A belief in one’s personal uniqueness, often including a sense of invulnerability to the consequences of taking risks.
Perspective taking
The ability to understand the thoughts and feelings of others.
Postformal thinking
Type of thinking beyond formal operations, involving greater awareness of the complexity of real-life situations, such as in the use of pragmatism and reflective judgment.
pragmatism
Type of thinking that involves adapting logical thinking to the practical constraints of real-life situations.
predictive validity
In longitudinal research, the ability of a variable at Time 1 to predict the outcome of a variable at Time 2.
preoperational stage
Cognitive stage from ages 2 to 7 during which the child becomes capable of representing the world symbolically–for example, through the use of language–but is still very limited in ability to use mental operations.
Prosocial
Promoting the well-being of others.
psychometric approach
Attempt to understand human cognition by evaluating cognitive abilities using intelligence tests.
reductionism
Breaking up a phenomenon into separate parts to such an extent that the meaning and coherence of the phenomenon as a whole becomes lost.
Reflective judgement
The capacity to evaluate the accuracy and logical coherence of evidence and arguments.
Relative performance
In IQ tests, performance results compared to those of other persons of the same age.
relativism
Cognitive ability to recognize the legitimacy of competing points of view but also compare the relative merits of competing views.
Scaffolding
The degree of assistance provided to the learner in the zone of proximal development, gradually decreasing as the learner’s skills develop.
Schemes
A mental structure for organizing and interpreting information.
Selective attention
The ability to focus on relevant information while screening out information that is irrelevant.
sensorimotor stage
Cognitive stage in first 2 years of life that involves learning how to coordinate the activities of the senses with motor activities.
Short term memory
Memory for information that is the current focus of attention.
social and conventional system perspective taking
Realizing that the social perspectives of self and others are influenced not just by their interaction with each other but by their roles in the larger society.
Social cognition
How people think about other people, social relationships, and social institutions.
Synapse
The point of transmission between two nerve cells.
Synaptic pruning
Following overproduction, the process by which the number of synapses in the brain are reduced, making brain functioning faster and more efficient but less flexible.
Test-retest reliability
Type of reliability that examines whether or not persons’ scores on one occasion are similar to their scores on another occasion.
theory of mind
The ability to attribute mental states to one’s self and others, including beliefs, thoughts, and feelings.
Siri is multiple intelligences
Howard Gardner’s theory that there are eight separate types of intelligence.
transracial adoption
The adoption of children of one race by parents of a different race.
Verbal subtests
In the Wechsler IQ tests, subtests that examine verbal abilities.
Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS-V)
Intelligence test for persons aged 16 and up, with six Verbal and five Performance subtests.
Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-V)
Intelligence test for children aged 6 to 16, with six Verbal and five Performance subtests.
White matter
The part of the brain that consists of myelinated axons.
Working memory
An aspect of short-term memory that refers to where information is stored as it is comprehended and analyzed.
zone of proximal development
The gap between how competently a person performs a task alone and when guided by an adult or more competent peer.
Absolute performance
In IQ tests, performance results compared to those of other persons, regardless of age.
Lev Vygotsky
Russian psychologist who emphasized the cultural basis of cognitive development.
Prefrontal cortex
The foremost part of the frontal lobe, involved indistinctively human functions such as planning and reasoning.
