Cognitive Lexicon

Question 1

Arousal

Answer 1

State of responsiveness to sensory stimulation or excitability.

-Terms: awake, alert, asleep, groggy, attending

Question 2

Orientation

Answer 2

Awareness of self in relation to person, place time and circumstance

Question 3

Attention

Answer 3

• Ability to deploy mental resources for purposes of concentration
• Various attentional demands including length of time (sustained attention), competing stimuli (selective attention), multiple simultaneous stimuli (divided attn), shifting back and forth between stimuli (alternating attn)

Question 4

Sustained Attention

Answer 4

• ability to maintain consistent behavioral response during continuous/repetitive activity (over time)
• Terms: vigilance, concentration, attn span

Question 5

Selective attn

Answer 5

maintain sustained attn in face of distracting or competing stimuli (ignore competing stimuli)

Question 6

Alternating Attn

Answer 6

• ability to shift attn flexibly back anf forth between tasks
• related to cognitive flexibility

Question 7

Divided Attn

Answer 7

Ability to simultaneously respond to multiple tasks or multiple task demands

Question 8

Memory

Answer 8

• process of information storage and retrieval.
• many conceptualizations: time based (STM, LTM), information processing (semantic, episodic, procedural); modality (visual, verbal); conscious (implicit, explicit)

Question 9

4 Steps of Memory

Answer 9

• attend
• encode
• storage
• retrieval

Question 10

Attend

Answer 10

• to gain access and use information

- inclusive of arousal, alertness and various attn processes

Question 11

Encode

Answer 11

• analysis of info to be remembered

- includes use of Associations, Elaboration, Rehearsal, Repetition

Question 12

Storage

Answer 12

Transfer of transient memory to location for permanent access/retention

Question 13

Retrieval

Answer 13

• the search for or activation of memory traces
• also process by which we make sure what we retrieve is accurate and appropriate for the setting
• uses recall and recognition

Question 14

Anterograde Amnesia

Answer 14

• deficit in new learning

- inability to recall information learned after brain damage

Question 15

Retrograde Amnesia

Answer 15

-difficulty recalling memories formed and stored prior to disease onset

Question 16

Sensory Memory

Answer 16

Brief moment of recall (few seconds) in response to a sensory stimuli

Question 17

Short Term Memory

Answer 17

• storage of limited info for short period of time

- eg. phone number digit length

Question 18

Working Memory

Answer 18

• set of processes which actively maintains (holds onto) and manipulates information until it is utilized, encoded or discarded
• keeping track of info needed in the moment

Question 19

Long Term Memory

Answer 19

-permanent storage of information with unlimited capacity

Question 20

Procedural Memory

Answer 20

Knowledge of automatic behavioral sequences, acquisition of perceptuomotor skills and learning of rules and sequences

• knowing how to perform a skill
• does not require conscious retrieval of the past
• Terms: implicit memory; non-declarative memory

Question 21

Declarative Memory

Answer 21

• conscious recollection and explicit knowledge base
• knowing something was learned with verbal retrieval
• includes episodic and semantic memmory
• Terms: explicit memory

Question 22

Episodic Memory

Answer 22

• Storage of events that are tagged in time, place, specific experience
• Autobiographical memory for contextually specific events
• e.g. knowing exactly where you were and what you were doing the day of 9/11

Question 23

Semantic memory

Answer 23

-knowledge of general world, facts, word meanings, classes of information

Question 24

Prospective Memory

Answer 24

• remembering to carry out intentions, future events

- remember upcoming appointments/chores

Question 25

Metamemory

Answer 25

-awareness of one’s own memory functioning

Question 26

Executive Functions

Answer 26

• Conscious coordination and control of behavior oriented toward accomplishment of goal-directed action
• includes initiation, planning, sequencing, organization and regulation of behavior

Question 27

Initiaion

Answer 27

-ability to start a behavior to respond to information or intentions

Question 28

Inhibition

Answer 28

• ability to stop a behavior independent of internal drives and external stimuli
• problems with this may appear as impulsiveness or perseveration

Question 29

Problem Solving

Answer 29

-ability to recognize a problem, ID possible solutions, develop action plan/strategy and execution of intention into action

Question 30

Task Persistence

Answer 30

• Ability to maintain attention and persist until task completion
• relies on working memory
• Sticking with a task

Question 31

Planning

Answer 31

• attainment of a goal through series of intermediate steps

- includes ability to organize

Question 32

organization

Answer 32

• to order steps and prepare time and sequence of behavior

- placing info, concepts and actions in order

Question 33

Generative Thinking

Answer 33

• Ability to generate solutions to a problem and think in a flexible manner
• application of previously learned concepts and behaviors to a variety of new situations
• Terms: cognitive flexibility

Question 34

Awareness

Answer 34

• degree of understanding one has regarding one’s own impairments
• includes appreciation of personal attributes (strengths/weaknesses) and initiation of compensatory strategies in response to known personal attributes
• Includes: intellectual awareness, emergent awareness and anticipatory awareness

Question 35

Intellectual Awareness

Answer 35

• ability to understand/know at some level a particular skill is impaired
• knowing a specific problem

Question 36

Emergent Awareness

Answer 36

-Ability to recognize a problem when it is actually happening

Question 37

Anticipatory Awareness

Answer 37

-ability to anticipate a challenge or problem and plan a strategy to compensate