Cognitive Psych Flashcards
reacting time
elapsed time between stimulus presentation and subject’s response to it
eye movements
an “on-line” measure of information processing
brain imaging
used to associate various cognitive processes with various parts of the brain
forgetting curve
without practice, we forget rapidly, then at a certain point, forgetting occurs at a much lesser rate
(this is if you don’t practice)
encoding
putting information into memory
storage
retaining information in memory
retrieval
recovering the information in memory
recall
method of retrieval; independently reproducing information that you have been previously exposed to
recognition
method of retrieval; realizing that a certain stimulus event is one you’ve seen or heard before
generation-recognition
why you can usually recognize more than you can recall: model suggests that recall involves the same mental process involved in recognition plus another process not required for recognition
recency effect
words presented at end of list are remembered best
primacy effect
words presented at beginning of list are remembered second best
clustering
when asked to recall list of words, people tend to recall words belonging to same category
stage theory of memory
there are several different memory systems, and each system has a different function
3 memory systems
- sensory memory
- short-term memory
- long-term memory
sensory memory
contains fleeting impressions of sensory stimuli
whole-report procedure
showed subjects grid of 9, told them to say what they remembered, could only remember about 4
partial-report procedure
used grid of 9, told them which row to repeat, they said basically perfectly
sensory memory capacity: 9
short-term memory
link between our rapidly changing sensory memory & more lasting long-term memory
maintenance rehearsal
repeating information in STM to keep it there longer than 20 seconds
long-term memory
permanent storehouse of your experiences, knowledge, & skills
elaborative rehearsal
involves organizing material & associating it w/ info you already have in your long-term memory to put it in your LTM
procedural memory
remembering how to do things
declarative memory
remembering explicit information
semantic memory
remembering general knowledge
episodic memory
remembering particular events you have personally experienced
in STM, encoding of verbal material likely to be based on
phonology
in LTM, encoding of verbal material likely to be based on
meaning
semantic verification task
method used to investigate organization of semantic memory
spreading activation model
semantic memory organized into map of interconnected concepts; key is the distance between concepts
semantic feature-comparison model
semantic memory contains feature lists of concepts; key is the amount of overlap in the feature lists of the concepts
levels-of-processing theory
what determines how long you will remember material is not what memory system it gets into, but the way in which you process the material
3 ways of processing information according to levels-of-processing theory
- physical (visual)
- acoustical
- semantic
Paivio’s dual-code hypothesis
information can be encoded visually or verbally
schema
conceptual frameworks we use to organize our knowledge
decay theory
if information in LTM isn’t used or rehearsed, it will be forgotten
inhibition theory
suggests that forgetting is due to activities that have taken place between original learning & later attempted recall
proactive inhibition
what you learned earlier interferes with what you learn later
retroactive inhibition
happens when you forget what you learned earlier as you learn something new
encoding specificity
assumption that recall will be best if the context at recall approximates the context during original encoding
state-dependent learning
type of encoding specificity
- if the test is in a classroom, you should study in a classroom
mnemonic devices
techniques we use to improve likelihood that we will remember something
method of loci
system of associating information with some sequence of places with which you’re familiar
- mansion memorizing
Bartlett
prior knowledge & expectations influence recall
Elizabeth Loftus
eyewitness are wrong a lot
Zeigarnik effect
tendency to remember incomplete tasks better than completes tasks
mental set
tendency to keep repeating solutions that worked in other situations
- water-jug problem
functional fixedness
inability to use a familiar object in an unfamiliar way
- tacking candle to wall / matchbox
creativity
cognitive ability that results in new ways of viewing problems or situations
divergent thinking
thinking that involves producing as many creative answers to a question as possible
heuristics
short-cuts or rules of thumb; people use this to make decisions
availability heuristic
making decisions about frequencies based upon how easy it is to imagine the items involved
representativeness heuristic
categorizing things on the basis of whether they fit the prototypical image of the category
base-rate fallacy
ignoring numerical information about items being referred to when categorizing them
- using stereotypes rather than facts
phonemes
smallest sound units of language
field = f + e + l + d
morphemes
smallest units of meaning in language
walked = walk + ed
semantics
meanings of words and sentences
syntax
grammatical arrangement of words in sentences
learning theory
language acquired through classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and/or modeling
cognitive developmental theory
language continues to develop according to child’s cognitive level
- has to do with child’s capacity for symbolic thought
who was a proponent of learning theory of language?
Skinner
who was a proponent of cognitive developmental theory of language?
Piaget
nativist theory
some sort of innate, biologically based mechanism for language acquisition
language acquisition device (LAD)
built-in advanced knowledge of rule structures in language
surface structure of sentence
actual word order of words in sentence
deep / abstract structure of sentence
underlying form that specifies meaning of the sentence
transformational rules
tell us how we can change from one sentence form to another (ex: from sentence in active voice to passive voice)
Whorfian hypothesis
language determines how reality is perceived
gender differences in language
better verbal abilities in girls
fluid intelligence
Catell
ability to grasp relationships in novel situations & make correct deductions from them
increases throughout childhood & adolescence, levels off in young adulthood, begins a steady decline w/ advanced age
crystallized intelligence
Catell
ability to understand relationships or solve problems that depend on knowledge acquired as a result of schooling or other life experiences
- increases throughout lifespan
primary mental abilities
Thurstone
- verbal comprehension, number ability, etc.
triarchic theory
3 aspects to intelligence:
- componential
- experiential
- contextual
theory of multiple intelligences
Gardner
7 defined: musical ability, spatial, mathematical, linguistic, logical, etc.
parallel distributed processing
McClelland & Rumelhart
information processing distributed across brain is done in parallel fashion
metacognition / metamemory
person’s ability to think about & monitor cognition & memory
