Cognitive Psychology Flashcards
Concept
A mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people
Prototype
A mental image or best example of a category. Matching items to a prototype provides a quick and easy method for sorting items into a category.
Creativity
Ability to produce new and valuable ideas.
Convergent Thinking
Narrowing the available problem solutions to determine the single best solution
Divergent Thinking
Expanding the number of possible problem solutions; creative thinking that diverges in different directions
Algorithm
A methodical, logical rule, or procedure that guarantees solving a problem.
Heuristic Representative
The representativeness heuristic involves estimating the likelihood of an event by comparing it to an existing prototype that already exists in our minds.
Insight
A sudden realization of a problem’s sollution
Heuristic Availability
The availability heuristic describes our tendency to use information that comes to mind quickly and easily when making decisions about the future.
Confirmation Bias
A tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence.
Fixation
In cognition, the inability to see a problem from a new perspective. Locked into one perspective.
Mental Set
A tendency to approach a problem in one particular way, often a way that has been successful in the past.
Overconfidence
The tendency to be more confident than correct. It is to overestimate the accuracy of our judgements and beliefs.
Belief Perserverance
Clinging to one’s initial conceptions after the basis of which they were formed has been discredited.
Framing
The way an issue is posed; how an issue is worded can significantly affect decisions and judgements.
Language
Our spoken, written, or signed words and the ways we combine them to communicate meaning.
Phoneme
Smallest distinctive sound unit in language.
Morpheme
Smallest unit that carries meaning; may be a word or a part of a word
Grammar
System of rules that allows humans to communicate and understand others.
Babbling Stage
It begins around 4 months after birth. The stage of speech development in which an infant spontaneously utters various sounds at first unrelated to the household language.
One-Word Stage
The stage in speech development, typically from age 1 to 2, during which a child speaks mostly in single words.
Two-Word Stage
Beginning about age 2, the stage in speech development during which a child speaks mostly in two word statements.
Telegraphic Speech
Early speech stage in which a child speaks like a telegram, using mainly nouns and verbs.
Critical Period
A critical period is defined as the time during which a given behavior is especially susceptible to, and indeed requires, specific environmental influences to develop normally.
Aphasia
Impairment of language, usually caused be left hemisphere damage either to Broca’s area (impairing speaking) or Wernicke’s Area (impairing understanding)
Broca’s Areas
Left Frontal Lobe. It controls language expression. It directs muscle movements directed in speech.