Cognition

Question 0

Charles Spearman’s 2-factor theory of intelligence

Answer 0

After studying students’ grades in various subjects, Spearman concluded that there are two types of intelligence:

General global intelligence: relatively constant level of mental performance across diverse mental tasks
Specific intelligence: outstanding abilities in a specific subject

Question 1

Intelligence (Ulrich Neisser)

Answer 1

The ability to understand complex ideas, to adapt effectively to the environment, to learn from experience, to engage in various forms of reasoning, and to overcome obstacles by taking thought.

Question 2

Intelligence quotient

Answer 2

A person’s mental age (calculated by the test) / his, her chronological age (his, her actual age) x 100 (to avoid dealing with fractions)

Question 3

Eugenics (literally ‘good genes’)

Answer 3

The goal of improving the genetic makeup of a population by reducing or eliminating allegedly inferior genes

Question 4

Social Darwinism

Answer 4

Social Darwinism is the conflict between social groups which results in the most socially capable or fit group coming out on top as the winner, usually in terms of influence and wealth. According to social Darwinism, rich people would succeed and poor people would fail.

Question 5

David Weschler

Answer 5

Created tests that were divided into 2 main areas: verbal-based questions and non-verbal tasks.

He also argued that a person’s educational and socioeconomic factors should be kept in mind when evaluating intelligence.

Question 6

Fluid intelligence

Answer 6

The ability to learn new ways of doing things

Question 7

Crystallized intelligence

Answer 7

The stockpile of knowledge accumulated throughout our lives

Question 8

The Flynn effect

Answer 8

The gradual but persistent increase in intelligence test scores over the years

Question 9

Howard Gardner’s theory of Multiple Intelligences

Answer 9

People have different ways of solving problems and different strengths.

1-Visual intelligence: picturing ideas, making mind maps
2-Linguistic intelligence: ability to write and speak well
3-Logical and mathematical intelligence
4-Musical intelligence: listening to something once and then playing it by ear
5-Bodily and kinesthetic intelligence: learning by doing, manipulating
6-Interpersonal intelligence: ability to work well with others
7-Intrapersonal intelligence: ability to reflect on your own emotions and thoughts
8-Naturalist intelligence: recognizing patterns in nature and classifying them

Question 10

Analytical intelligence

Answer 10

The ability to answer questions that have s single correct answer

Question 11

Divergent thinking

Answer 11

Coming up with multiple solutions to a single problem; linked to creativity.

Question 12

Creativity

Answer 12

The ability to come up with new and valuable ideas.

Expertise in a given subject encourages creativity. People are usually experts on the topic for which they generate creative ideas, because these areas of expertise are of intrinsic interest to them. Creative people also possess willingness to take risks.

Question 13

Language

Answer 13

System of communication that requires the ability to produce and understand spoken, signed, or written utterances.

Question 14

Phonemes

Answer 14

The smallest units of sound (vowels and consonants)

Despite the fact that infants are able to distinguish between all possible phonemes, they recognize, at the age of one when they start speaking words, which ones are allowed in their native language and which ones are not.

Question 15

Morphemes

Answer 15

The smallest units of meaning (like prefixes and suffixes).

Semantics is the study of how phonemes and morphemes produce meaning.

Question 16

Broca’s area

Answer 16

Part of the brain involved in the production of language

Question 17

Wernicke’s area

Answer 17

Part of the brain involved in the understanding of language

Question 18

Noam Chomsky

Answer 18

Linguist who believed that people have a universal grammar hard-wired in their brains.

Question 19

Stages of language development in children

Answer 19

Stage1: 2 months old; babbling syllables, which helps babies practice and get ready for producing speech.
Stage2: 6/7 months old; babbling repetitive syllables (including phonemes from their native languages); this helps them prepare physically for speech, but also to come to an understanding about what speech is for: communicating. Babies who learn sign language even babble with their hands.
Stage3: 12 months old; begin speaking words; holophrastic stage; produce 3-4 words; understand 30-40; tend to overextend the meanings of words (e.g.: ‘mama’ to all women).
Stage4: 18 months old; recognize and point to objects when they are named; can follow simple directions; speak in simple, 2-word sentences.
Stage5: 25 months old; begin to use complex sentences (3 or more words); by the age of 5, they know more than 10,000 words.

Question 20

Memory (the 3 steps for taking information in)

Answer 20

Encoding: in a personal meaningful way (by association, self-referencing, acronyms…)
Storage: short-term memory –> long-term memory
Retrieval: use of the same association as used for encoding; same mood or place encourages retrieval

Question 21

Memory categorization

Answer 21

Sensory memory (iconic memory + echoic memory) –> Short-term memory (info processed by working memory) –> Ignored / Put to use / On hold in long-term memory

Sensory memory: transfers environmental information received from the senses to the brain.

Short-term memory: can store between 5 to 9 items for 20/30sec; attention is crucial to maximizing it; chunking and rehearsal improve it.

Question 22

Long-term memories

Answer 22

Declarative memory (explicit memory): divided into two parts: semantic memory (general factual info, knowledge) and episodic memory (personal experiences, specific events).

Procedural memory (implicit memory): memory of how to perform a task or skill; cannot be expressed verbally; used automatically.

For improving long-term memory: self-referencing, rehearsal, spaced repetition, mnemonic devices.

Question 23

Information processing

Answer 23

Bottom-up processing: beginning by examining small details and piecing them together into a bigger picture.

Top-down processing: driven by previous knowledge; start with a big picture and direct your attention toward the details you are interested in.

Question 24

Hermann Ebbinghaus’ space repetition

Answer 24

Re-learning material at increasingly widely-spaced intervals

Question 25

Schema

Answer 25

Established patterns used to organize knowledge; a set of expectations for what something is like; your brain uses schemas to help you go through a new experience; can be misleading!

Question 26

Source amnesia

Answer 26

Remembering an information but not where it came from

Question 27

Misinformation effect

Answer 27

When people remember the wrong version of the story due to its being retold many times and modified.

Question 28

Choice-supportive bias

Answer 28

Brain’s trick to make you feel better about your decisions.

Question 29

Cognitive dissonance

Answer 29

Irritation about a choice to make, probably driven by the fear of being wrong

Question 30

Heuristics

Answer 30

Mental shortcuts that help us make decisions and judgements quickly.

Availability heuristic: helps us make a decision based on how easy it is to bring something to mind (having many examples in mind to illustrate the point).

Representativeness heuristic: helps us make a decision by comparing information to our mental prototypes (fits our mental representation of something); in many cases, it is succumbing to stereotypes.

Base-rate heuristic: helps us make a decision on probability.

Question 31

Emotional intelligence

Answer 31

The abilities to recognize and to manage emotions