Cognition Flashcards
Metacognition
Thinking about the thought process itself (example: doublechecking, problem solving, rehearsal)
Automatic and Controlled Processes (ACP)
Theory that states that all cognitive processes fall into one or both of those two categories
Availability Heuristic
The easier it is to think of instances of something, the more often that seems to occur (boomers and crime on TV)
Anchoring Heuristic
When someone’s judgements are influenced by a reference point that can often be completely irrelevant (asking someone to guess from a range that goes way higher than reality, but they end up guessing high anyway)
Representativeness Heuristic
Relates to how we judge someone/something based on how it appears (saying someone on UMD’s campus who is wearing a Nebraska shirt is from Nebraska, even though it is more likely that they are from Maryland due to being at UMD)
Confirmation bias
Explains how our desire to be correct leads us to look for and remember information that confirms what we already believe
Comparative cognition
The scientific study of thought and intelligence in non-human species
Clever Hans
Horse who showed how unconscious cueing is a problem for animal science researchers
G Factor
Charles Spearman’s concept of a general intelligence, some core level of basic intelligence that underlies all other specific abilities
Emotional Intelligence
The ability to recognize your emotions, understand what they’re telling you, and realize how your emotions affect people around you
5 Parts of Emotional Intelligence
Self-Awareness
Self-Regulation
Motivation
Empathy
Social Skills
3 Levels of Memory
sensory (long enough for the brain to process information), short term, and long term
3 Stages of Memory
Encoding, Storage, Retrieval
Encoding
The initial learning of information
Storage
Maintaining information over time
Retrieval
The ability to access information when you need it
Miller’s Magic Number
George Miller proposed as a law of human cognition and information processing that humans can effectively process no more than seven units, or chunks, of information, plus or minus two, at any given time
Two types of memory errors
Forgetting and misremembering
Maintenance Rehearsal
Method of learning things by repeating them over and over, which helps with encoding the information
Schemas
Groups of information that are linked together because they are somehow related
Prime
A stimulus that activates a related concept, usually subconscious (perfume smell making you think of a person)
State-Dependent Memory
Says if you experience an event in one physiological state (e.g., drunk), your memory for the event is likely to be impaired if you later try to remember it in another physiological state (e.g., sober)
Encoding Specificity Principle
Proposes that memory performance depends on the similarity between the information comprising a memory trace and the information available at recall
Retrograde Amnesia
The inability to remember things prior to the onset of memory loss (head trauma)
Anterograde amnesia
An inability to form new memories, even though memories from the past remain intact (Alzheimer’s)
Amnesia
Overall loss of memory
Mnemonic
A device that helps you remember something
Types of mnemonics
Acronym
Acrostic (Father Charles Goes Down And Ends Battle)
Loci method (Imagine placing the items you want to remember in specific locations in a room with which you are familiar)
Image-name technique (Invent a relationship between the name and the physical characteristics of the person)
Chaining (Story where each word or idea you have to remember will cue the next idea you need to recall)
Etc
Elaborative Rehearsal
Involves forming associations with other meaningful thing, where the more associations you form when you encode the information, the more likely you are to encode, store, and retrieve the information later
