Cognitive Psychology Flashcards
Hermann Ebbinghaus
1885, memory research, meaningless strings of letters to study capacity of our memory system, nonsense syllables, method of savings, forgetting curve
Edward Titchener (1867-1927)
structuralism, introspection, functionalism, behaviorism, Gestalt
Noam Chomsky
linguist, opposed behaviorist position that speech is best explained by operant conditioning
Structuralism
break consciousness down into its elements or specific mental structures
Method of savings
Hermann Ebbinghaus, after memorizing the insitial list, subtracted the number of times it took to rememorize the list from the number of times it originally took to memorize it, divided this by the original number and multiplied by 100, forgetting curve
Generation-Recognition Model
recall task taps the same basic process of accessing information in memory as does a recognition task , however a recall task requires an addtional processing stemp you have to generate infrormation rather than simply recognize it
Recency effect
words heard more recently are remembered best
Primacy effect
items presented first are remembered fairly well, not as strong as recency effect
Stage theory of mind
several different memory systems and that each system has a different function including sensory short-term/working and long-term
Sensory Memory
feleeting impressions of sensory stimuli
Visual memory
Iconic Memory
Auditory Memory
Echoic Memory
Whole-Report Procedure
how much information could be retained in sensory memory, looked at visual display for fraction of a second and asked to recall, usually 4/9
Partial Report Procedure
George Sperling, 3xx3 matrix of letters to challenge whole-report method, nine item limit, tones, avoided decay problem of whole-report procedure
Maintenance rehearsal
used to keep information in short term memory, repetition
Elaborative Rehearsal
get information in long term memory, organizing material and associating it with information you already have in long term memory
Procedural Memory
type of long term memory, how hings are done
Declarative memory
type of long term memory, explicit information, fact memory,s emantic and eisodic
Semantic memory
type of declarative memory, general knowledge meaning of words and concepts
episodic memory
memories for particular events, episodes, type of declarative memory
Long term memory
verbal encoded with meaning
Short term memory
verbal encoded by phonology
Spreading activation model
1975, Collins and Loftus, shorter the distance bewteween two words the closer the words are related to the semantic memory
Semantic feature-comparison model
Smith, Shoben, and Rips, 1970s, concepts are represented by sets of features some of which are required, some typical
Levels of Processing Theory/Depth of Processing Theory
Craik and Lockhart, only one memory system, three ways in which information can be processed, physical/visual, acoustical, and semantic - the deeper the processign the greater the effort the better you remember
Paivio’s dual-code hypothesis
visual and verbal encoding - abstract is verbal, concrete is verbal and visual
Decay theory
information in long-term memory is not used or reheard it will be forgotten, assumes that what you’ve learned in the meantime has no effect which is wrong
Inhibition theory
forgetting is due to the activities that have taken place between learning and recall - retroactive and proactive
retroactive inhibition
forget what you learned earlier as you learn something new
proactive inhibition
what you learned earlier interferes with what you learn later
Encoding specificity
assumption that recallw ill be best if the context at recall approximates the context during original encoding
State-dependent learning
suggests that recall will be better if your psychological and physical state at the time of recall is the same as when you memorized
Method of loci
system of associating information with some sequence of places with which you are familiar
Sir Frederick Bartlett
subjects reconstructed the story in line with their own expectations and schema - prior knowledge and expectations influence recall
Elizabeth Loftus
eyewitness memory, influences or confused by misleading information
Zeigarnik Effect
tendency to remember incomplete tasks better than completed tasks
Luchins water-jar problem
list of capacities of a number of jars and three empty jars, obtain a particular amount in one jar
Mental set
tendency to eep repeating solutions that worked in other situations
Functional Fixedness
inability to use a familiar object in an unfamiliar way
Creativity
cognitive ability that results in new ways of viewing problems or situations
Divergent thinking
Guilford, producing as many creative answers to a question as possible, most famous attempt to measure creativity
Heuristics
Kahneman, Tversky - short cuts or rules of thum to make decisions
Availability heuristic
how likely something is, based on how easily similar intsances can be imagined, we use hte information most readily available in memory to make deicions
representativeness heuristic
categorizing things on the basis of whether they fit the prototypical, stereotypical, or representative image of the category
Base-rate fallacy
overusing representativeness heuristic, using stereotypical factors rather than actual numerical information about which category is more numerous
Cognitive developmental theory
jean piaget, child’s capacity for symbolic thought which develops towards end of sensorimotor period
Learning theory
language is acquired through classical conditioning, operant condition, and or modeling (BF Skinner)
Nativist Theory
Chomsky - innate biological LAD
Surface Structure
actual word order of the words in a sentence - Chomsky
Deep/abstract structure
Chomsky - underlying form that specifies the meaning of a sentence
Transformational rules
how we can change one structure into another, a sentence into a question - chomsky
Whorfian hypothesis/linguistic relativity hypothesis
Benjamin Whorf, perception of reality and the way we think about the world is determined by the content of language
Macoby and Jacklin
better verbal abilities in girls than boys
Charles Spearman
individual differences in intelligence are largely due to variations in the amount of a general, unitary factor g
Primary Mental Abilities
Thurstone, 7 of htem
Robert Sternberg’s Triarchic theory
3 aspects to intellgience: componential on tests, experiential/creativity and contextual/street smarts
Howard Gardner’s theory/theory of multiple intelligences
western culture values linguistic and logical-mathematical more than others
Raymond Cattell
fluid and crystallized intelligence
Fluid Intelligence
Cattell, ability to quickly grasp relationships in novel situatiosn and make correct deductions - increases throughout childhood and adolescence, decrease with advanced age
Crystallized intelligence
Cattell, ability to understand relationships or solve problems that dpend on knowledge acquired as a result of schooling or other experiences - increases throughout the lifespan
Arthur Jensen
IQ entirely genetic, differences across racial lines
McClelland and Rumelhart
parallel distributed processes, information processing is distributed across the brain and done in parallel fasion
Metacogntion/Metamemory
person’s ability to think about and monitor cognition and memory respectively
