Exam 3 Flashcards
Thinking
Process involving knowing, understanding, remembering, and communicating
Concepts
Groups of similar objects, events, or people
Prototypes
Best example that incorporates the features we associate with the category
ex. fruit -> apple
Category hierarchies
We organize concepts into category hierarchies
ex. when thinking of a border collie it starts from; Animals -> Wild or Domesticated -> Dogs, cats, or cows … -> all the way to the border collie
Problem solving
Include trial and error, algorithms, heuristics, and insight
Trial and error
Solving a problem through trying different strategies, learning from errors and eventually being successful
ex. parallel parking
Algorithms
Time consuming, testing all possibilities before getting to solution, computers use this
ex. unscramble the letters leolh
Heuristics
Simple, thinking strategies to make judgements and solve problems efficiently, taking mental shortcuts, less time consuming but more prone to error
Representativeness heuristics
Deciding whether a person or event belongs to a certain category by comparing person/event to the prototypical ones in that category, relies on stereotypes
ex. is a person who reads poetry and short and slim a truck driver or professor of classics?
Availability heuristics
We tend to make judgment on a problem with the information available to you
ex. coughing and what you think of when you hear someone coughing after hearing a siren vs not hearing a siren
Insight
Sudden novel realization of a solution to a problem, humans and animals have it (ah-ha moment), can be very powerful, shown to do better with complicated problems compared to people working on a paper
Confirmation bias
Tendency to search for information that confirms a personal bias
ex. police shooting of an unarmed suspects, polarization of opinion
Fixation
Inability to see a problem from a fresh perspective, messes with problem solving
Effects of framing
Presenting same issue in different but logically equivalent ways
ex. 75% lean vs 25% fat, 80% survive vs 20% die
Language
Spoken, written, or gestured work is the way we communicate meaning to ourselves and others
Phonemes
Smallest distinctive sound unit in a spoken language
ex. bat b-a-t, chat ch-a-t
Morpheme
Smallest unit that carries meaning of a word or part of a word
ex. Milk, watermelons water. melon. s
Grammar
System of rules in a language that enables us to communicate with and understand others
Semantics
Rules where we derive meaning of morphemes, words, and sentences
ex. adding -ed to laugh to show it happened in the past
Syntax
Rules for combining words into grammatically understandable sentences
ex. describing something with “decorations” before word in English, big high house
Aphasia
Impairment of language abilities that occurs while other mental abilities remain intact
Broca’s area
Region of frontal lobe in left hemisphere of the brain needed to produce speech
Wernicke’s area
Region in temporal lobe of left hemisphere of brain needed to understand language and to produce meaningful sentences
Language development
Babbling stage, one word stage, two word stage, longer phrases
Babbling stage
Beginning at 4 months to infant, spontaneously utters various sounds, deaf children can also do this with hang gestures
One word stage
Around first birthday, a child starts to speak one word at a time and is able to make family members understand him
ex. doggy may mean look at that dog right there
Two word stage
Before second year, child starts to speak two word sentences, telegraphic speech
ex. Go car, i would like to go to the car for a ride
Longer phrases
After telegraphic speech, children begin uttering longer phrases with sense and by early elementary start employing humor
ex. Mommy get ball
Critical period
Learning new languages gets harder with age
Language and thinking
Language and thinking intricately intertwine
Linguistic Determinism
Whorf (1956) suggested that language determines the way we think
ex. Hopi people don’t have past tense for verbs so they cannot think in past tense
Language influences thinking
For categorization of colors, English speakers have more variety but tribal speakers could only describe them in terms of shade. For cognition, some tribal languages only have 1, 2, and many so when doing cognition tasks involving more than 2 things… they struggled
Language influences thinking summary
The more diverse, in-depth, conceptual?, more “explanation or description of things”, does affect cognition and many other aspects of thinking
Intelligence
Ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use our knowledge to adapt to new situations
General intelligence
(g) proposed by Spearmen where it is more general, but is linked to many clusters that can be analyzed by factor analysis
Howard Gardner’s theory
Supports idea that intelligence comes in multiple dimensions, notes that brain damage or genetic defect may diminish one type of ability but not others
ex. people with savant syndrome tend to excel at other tasks unrelated to general intelligence
Gardner’s eight intelligences
Linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, intrapersonal (self), interpersonal (other people), naturalist
Sternberg’s three intelligences
Analytical intelligence, creative intelligence, practical intelligence
- Agrees with Gardner just suggests three rather than the many eight
Analytical intelligence
Intelligence assessed by intelligence tests
Creative intelligence
Intelligence that makes us adapt to novel situations, generating novel ideas
ex. what can you do with a trash bag?
Carry things in it, make art with it, use it as protection or “clothing”/rain coat
Practical intelligence
Intelligence that is required for everyday tasks, examine realistic situations and creating solutions/conclusions, not step by step procedures
ex. street smarts, can you make a sandwich?, how to take care of a baby?
Emotional intelligence (EQ)
Perceive emotions, understand emotion, manage emotion, and use emotion
ex. Understand a person’s performance at a job
Percieve emotions
Recognize/understand emotions in faces, music, and stories
Understand emotions
Predict emotions, how they change and blend
ex. why are they smiling?
Manage emotions
Express emotions in different situations
Use emotion
Utilizing emotions to adapt or be creative
ex. loss of a loved one and relate with person to relieve them
Physical proximity cultural value
Determined by culture, individualistic cultures like US need to have at least 3 feet from another to be comfortable, collectivistic cultures like many Asian cultures, don’t mind closeness as much or have a smaller threshold
Genetic Influences to intelligence
Contribution between genetics and intelligence, genetic input is greater than environmental input
Sex chromosome genetic significance
XX (female) and XY (male), boys can either acquire the A dom. or a rec. while girls will usually acquire dominant allele A. This then means that men will have extremely high or low intelligence and women will have more average in the middle intelligence. In the end, men and women both have the same average intelligences just in different forms.
Consciousness
Awareness of ourselves and our environment, subjective, self reported, individual perspective
Self-consciousness
Process of thinking about oneself, understand and see ourselves, mirror test
Forms of consciousness
Physiologically induced daydreaming can be hallucination and dreaming with oxygen starvation. Psychologically induced daydreaming can be sensory deprivation, dreaming can be hypnosis.
Circadian rhythm
Occurs on a 24 hour cycle and include sleep and wakefulness, biological clock, most sensitive to sun light but can be altered by artificial light (blue light). Light triggers decrease in melatonin and increase in nightfall. Young people tend to have longer circadian rhythm than 24 hours which causes a delay for sleep unintentionally.
Sleep stages 1-2
Light sleep, brain enters high amplitude, slow, regular wave form called theta waves (5-8 cps). Daydreaming shows theta waves.
Sleep stages 3-4
Deep sleep, brain activity slows down, large slow delta waves (1.5-4 cps).
Stage 5
REM sleep, still asleep the brain engages in low amplitude fast and regular beta waves (15-40 cps) much like awake-aroused state. At this time person has rapid eye movements and reports vivid dreams.
During REM
Our motor cortex is working and active and sending messages to the rest of the body but the brainstem blocks these messages before reaching your body preventing any movements. Basically paralyzed and cannot be easily awakened, body’s protective function. Incoming signals come in but outgoing signals do not.
Sleep paralysis
REM sleep may linger after you wake up called sleep paralysis, you could wake up and not have any control of your body as the brain stem has not deactivated its protective mechanism.
90-minute cycles during sleep
With each 90 minute cycle, stage 4 deep sleep decreases and the duration of REM sleep, inverse relationship of deep sleep and REM sleep on graph
Sleep disorders
Insomnia, narcolepsy, sleep apnea
Insomnia
A persistent inability to fall asleep, more common with old age
Narcolepsy
Overpowering urge to fall asleep that may occur while talking or standing up again with old age
Sleep apnea
Failure to breathe for short periods when asleep
What do people usually dream?
Work or school, interactions with romantic partners or family (indoors)… dreams are more negative than positive
Wish fulfillment theory
Freud said dreams release unconscious mental energy through wish fulfillment, little evidence
