COGNITION: MENTAL IMAGERY | CONCEPT AND PROTOTYPE Flashcards
instinctual (System 1) and deliberate (System 2)
two types of thinking
involves making quick decisions and using cognitive shortcuts, is guided by our innate abilities and personal experiences
System 1
which is relatively slow, analytical, and rule-based, is dependent more on our formal educational experiences
System 2
from a Latin word meaning “to know”
Thinking, or cognition
can be defined as mental activity that goes on in the brain when a person is processing information, organizing it, understanding it, and communicating it to others
Thinking, or cognition
includes memory, but it is much more
Thinking
aware of the information in the brain but also are making decisions about it, comparing it to other
information, and using it to solve problems.
Thinking
also includes more than just a kind of verbal “stream of consciousness.”
When people think, they often have images as well as words in their minds
Thinking
_ memories are encoded in the form of sounds and also as visual images, forming a mental picture of the world
short-term memories
representations that stand in for objects or events and have a picturelike quality
mental images
one of several tools used in the thought process
mental images
They have found that it does take _ to view a mental image that is larger or covers more distance than a smaller, more compact one
longer
participants were asked to push a button when they had imagined themselves moving from one place on the island to another. As the graph below the picture shows, participants took longer times to complete the task when the locations on the image were farther apart.
Kosslyn’s Fictional Island 1978
researchers have been able to see the overlap that occurs in brain areas activated during visual mental imagery tasks as compared to actual tasks involving visual perception
functional magnetic resonance imagery (fMRI)
frontal cortex
cognitive control
temporal lobes
memory
parietal lobes
attention and spatial memory
occipital lobes
visual processing
are only one form of mental representation
Mental images
Another aspect of thought
processes, ideas that represent a class or category of objects, events, or activities.
Concepts
use to think about objects or events without having to think about all the specific examples of the category.
Concepts
not only contain the important features of the objects or events people want to think about, but also they allow the identification of new objects and events that
may fit
Concepts
can have very strict definitions
Concepts
Concepts defined by specific rules or features are called _ concepts and are quite rigid
formal concepts
concepts people form not as a result of a strict set of rules, but rather
as the result of experiences with these concepts in the real world
natural concepts,
Formal concepts are well defined, but _ concepts are
“fuzzy”
natural concepts
_ concepts are important in helping people understand their surroundings in a less structured manner than school-taught formal concepts, and they form the basis for interpreting those surroundings and the events that may occur in everyday life.
natural concepts
a concept that closely matches the defining characteristics of the concept
prototype
most basic examples of concepts
prototype
develop according to the exposure a person has to objects in that category
prototypes
also matters in the formation of prototypes
CULTURE
a 3 combination to identify objects in our daily lives
1.concepts
2.prototypes
3.mental images
mental generalizations about objects, places, events, and people (for example, one’s _ for “library” would no doubt include books and bookshelves),
schemas
a kind of schema that involves a familiar sequence of activities (for example, “going to a movie” would include traveling there, getting the ticket, buying snacks, finding the right theater, etc.).
scripts
_ not only help people think, but also they are an important tool in problem solving,
CONCEPTS
a type of thinking that people engage in every day and in many different situations
PROBLEM SOLVING
_ and _ are mental tools that can be used to solve problems and make decisions.
images and concepts
_ occurs when a goal must be reached by
thinking and behaving in certain ways.
Problem solving occurs
one aspect of decision making, or identifying, evaluating, and choosing among several alternatives.
Problem solving
also known as a mechanical solution. Refers to trying one solution after another until finding one that works.
Trial and Error (Mechanical Solutions)
_ solutions can also involve solving by rote
Mechanical solutions
a learned set of rules, how word problems were solved in grade school,
rote
One type of rote solution is to use an ?
algorithm
are specific, step-by-step procedures for solving certain types of problems, always result in a correct solution, if there is a correct solution to be found, and you have enough time to find it.
Algorithms
Mathematical formulas are what?
Algorithms
a useful part of some computer programs.
systematic search algorithm
humans aren’t as fast as computers and need some other way
to narrow down the possible solutions to only a few.
Heuristics
“rule of thumb,”
Heuristics
a simple rule that is intended to apply to many situations.
Heuristics or “rule of thumb,”
very specific and will always lead to a solution,
algorithm
educated guess based on prior experiences that helps narrow down the possible solutions for a problem.
heuristic
Using a _ is faster than using an algorithm in many cases, but unlike algorithms, it will not always lead to the correct solution.
heuristic
What you gain in speed
is sometimes lost in accuracy.
heuristic
_ heuristic is used for categorizing objects and simply assumes that any object (or person) that shares characteristics with the members of a particular category is also a member of that category.
representativeness heuristic
_ heuristics is a handy tool when it comes to classifying plants but doesn’t work as well when applied
to people.
representativeness heuristic
can cause errors due to ignoring base rates,
the actual probability of a given event.
representativeness heuristic
can be used—or misused—to create and
sustain stereotypes
representativeness heuristic
based on our estimation of the frequency or likelihood of an event based on how easy it is to recall relevant information from memory or how easy it is for us to think of related examples
availability heuristic,
A useful heuristic that does work much of the time is to work backward from the goal.
Working Backward
involves breaking down a goal into subgoals.
rule of thumb, or heuristic
Sometimes it’s better to break a goal down into _, so that as
each _ is achieved, the final solution is that much closer.
Subgoals
