Cognition and Language Flashcards
What is the bottom-up process?
The bottom-up process occurs when peripheral stimulus controls what grabs our attention
What is the top-down process?
The top-down process occurs when we deliberately decide to shift our attention.
What is the preattentive process?
The preattentive process occurs when we identify stimuli because it stands out immediately.
What is the attentive process?
The attentive process requires to search through items in series when processing stimulus.
What is change blindness?
Change blindness is the failure to detect changes in parts of a scene.
What’s the difference between ADD and ADHD?
Both ADD and ADHD are characterized by easy distraction, impulsiveness, moodiness, and failure to follow through on plans. ADHD also comes with excessive activity and fidgeting.
What is spreading activation?
Spreading activation is a process where thinking about a concept will activate, or prime, other concepts linked to it.
What are the two systems of thinking?
System 1 is for quick, automatic processes.
System 2 is for whatever requires attention, and largely relies on working memory.
What is representativeness heuristic?
Representativeness heuristic is decision-making based on the similarity to the typical prototype of the event / circumstance and the assumption that an item that resembles members of a category is probably also in that category.
What is base-rate information?
Base-rate information describes the percentage of a population that demonstrates some characteristic, and looks at how common the two categories are between two items.
What is the availability heuristic?
Availability heuristic is decision-making based on the assumption that examples/things that can be easily recalled are common or typical.
What are some common errors in human cognition?
- Overconfidence
- Confirmation bias - accepting a hypothesis and then look- ing for evidence to support it instead of considering other possibilities.
- Framing effect - the tendency to answer a question differently when it is framed differently
- Sunk cost effect - the willingness to do something undesirable because of money or effort already spent
What’s the difference between near and far transfer?
Near transfer is the benefit to a new skill based on practice of a similar skill.
Far transfer is the benefit from practicing something less similar.
What is Chomsky’s theory of a language acquisition device and what are its criticisms?
Chomsky’s theory of a language acquisition device suggests that we have a built-in mechanism for acquiring language, and that we are hard-wired to sort input form 20-80 phonemes, but we lose this ability by 12 months.
His theory is not widely researched on because there is no concrete way to test and prove it.
What is Williams syndrome?
Wiliams syndrome is a genetic condition characterized by mental retardation in most regards but surprisingly good use of language relative to their other abilities.
What is Broca’s aphasia?
Broca’s aphasia is a condition characterized by difficulties in language production.
What is Wernicke’s aphasia?
Wernicke’s aphasia is a condition marked by impaired recall of nouns and impaired language comprehension, despite fluent and grammatical speech.
What is the word-superiority effect?
The word-superiority effect suggests that people identify the letter more accurately when it is part of a word than when it is presented by itself.
What are the different types of eye movements?
Fixations - when your eyes are stationary, usually for smaller or more familiar words
Saccades - quick eye movements from one fixation point to another
What is resemblance theory?
Resemblance theory suggests that we identify members of a category based on characteristic features.
What is exemplar theory?
Exemplar theory suggests that we categorise information by comparing the image to other instances stored in our memory of members within the category and making a judgment about inclusion.
What is the prototype theory by Rosch?
The prototype theory suggests that concepts are defined by a prototype.
What is prospect theory / loss aversion?
Prospect theory suggests that the risk we willing to take depends on whether it is to avoid a loss or achieve a gain. It is more important to avoid losses than achieve comparable gains.
What is confirmation bias?
Confirmation bias is when we seek to confirm what we already believe.
What is distraction?
Distraction is when we get sidetracked by irrelevant information and it distracts us from effective problem solving.
What is mental set?
Mental set is our tendency to stick to solutions which have worked in the past.
What is functional fixedness?
Functional fixedness is our tendency to rely on a function for an object and ignore other possible uses.
Define insight.
Insight is the sudden discovery of the correct solution following incorrect attempts based primarily on trial and error.
What is conjunction fallacy?
Conjunction fallacy is the basic flawed assumption that two events are more likely to occur together than either individual event.
What is gambler’s fallacy?
Gambler’s fallacy is the belief that the odds of an event increase if the event has not occurred recently.
What are fast and frugal heuristics?
Fast and frugal heuristics are shortcuts that guide us in decision-making about probabilities.
What is Whorf’s theory of linguistic relativity?
Linguistic relativity suggests that one’s language determines one’s thoughts.
What’s the difference between phonemes and morphemes?
Phonemes are smallest units of sound, e.g. “c” at
Morphemes are the smallest units of meaning in a language, e.g. “un-friend-ly”
What is the difference between semantics and syntax?
Semantics is the understanding the meaning of words and word combinations.
Syntax is the structure of a language, underlying rules of order/function for how words can be combined to form phrases and sentences
What are overregularizations?
Overregularisations are grammatical rules incorrectly generalized to “exception” cases.
What is fast-mapping?
Fast-mapping is the rapid adding of words into vocabularies after one exposure, typically seen in children.
What is the difference between overextensions and underextensions?
Overextensions is when one word is over-applied to a broader range of objects or actions.
e.g. all animals are called ‘doggy’
Underextensions is when one word is incorrectly believed to apply to only one member of a group or classification.
e.g. the generic word ‘cat’ refers to their personal pet cat
Define expressive / productive language.
Expressive language is the ability to express yourself through language and communication.
Define receptive language.
Receptive language is the ability to comprehend, process and integrate the meaning of language.
