Cognitive Psychology Flashcards
affordances
The aspects of objects and events that allow
their meaning to be perceived directly (Gibson).
artificial intelligence
Computer simulation of human
thinking (Newell, Simon).
attention
“The taking possession by the mind, in clear
and vivid form, of one out of what seem several
simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought”
(James).
availability
The ease with which an item can be brought
to mind as a label for experience (Asch, Tversky,
Kahneman).
channel capacity
Physiological mediating processes
responsible for representing stimulation (Hebb).
cocktail party phenomenon
Attending to one conversation
in a crowded room in which many other
conversations are ongoing (Cherry). See “dichotic
listening:’
concept attainment
The process by which categories are
learned (Bruner).
cybernetics
The science of communication and control
Wiener
deep structure
The abstract mental structure that
underlies surface structures of language, which are themselves derived from deep structure (Chomsky).
See “surface structure:’
dichotic listening
An experimental procedure in which
participants are exposed to two verbal messages
and required to answer questions posed in only one
of the messages (Broadbent). See “cocktail party
phenomenon:’
ecological validity
The extent to which the information
available to a perceiver is truly representative of the
environment (Brunswick, Neisser ).
feedback loop
A process in which the output of one part
of a system affects another part of the system, which
in turn affects the first part.
heuristics and biases
Rules of thumb, which may work
in some situations, but which mislead them in
others. Biases are ways in which we are predisposed
to make judgments (Tversky, Kahneman).
iconic storage
A brief period during which information
from a stimulus is preserved and available for further
processing (Neisser).
intuition (System 1)
A rapid, involuntary process the
output of which is only loosely monitored by reason
(Tversky, Kahneman). See “reason (System 2):’
law of small numbers
The belief that a small sample is
representative of the population from which it is
drawn (Tversky, Kahneman) See “representativeness
heuristic:’
long-term store
A relatively permanent aspect of memory
Atkinson and Shiffrin
method of serial reproduction
method that allows
the experimenter to track the way in which memory
changes over time with successive attempts at
recall (Bartlett).
minimax axiom
An axiom which states that people
“organize the perceptual field in such a way as to
maximize percepts relevant to current needs and
expectations and to minimize percepts inimical to
such needs and expectations” (Bruner).
parable of the watchmakers
A parable whose meaning
is that cognitive processes can be decomposed into
modules each of which solves a particular kind of
problem. By combining the appropriate modules,
problems of great complexity can be solved with the
same kinds of strategies that solve simple problems
(Simon).
pattern recognition
The process whereby a stimulus is
recognized as an instance of a particular category.
perceptual readiness
The degree to which one is prepared
to perceive what is in the environment (Bruner).
reappearance hypothesis
The hypothesis that information
is retrieved from memory in the form in which
it is stored (Neisser).
reason (System 2)
A controlled, effortful process of judgment
and decision making (Tversky, Kahneman).
See “intuition (System 1 ):’
