Final exam Flashcards
Define cognition
Any type of mental activity
Who was Wilhelm Wundt
Founder of experimental psychology, studied introspection
What did Hermann Ebbinghaus study?
Studied human memory
Mary Calkins
Reported a memory phenomenon called the recency effect
William James
Theorized about everyday psychological experiences
Fredrick Bartlett found that
people make systematic errors when trying to recall stories due to the influence of schemas on memory integration
What is behaviorism
A way of studying psychology which focuses on observable reactions to stimuli in the environment
What is gestalt psychology?
Emphasizes that humans have a basic tendency to organize what is seen, and that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Criticized introspection for breaking up experiences into parts and behaviorism for ignoring context of behavior
What is the cognitive revolution?
A strong shift away from behaviorist approaches towards organism internal processes
Define ecological validity
Studies are high in ecological validity if the conditions in which the research is conducted are similar to the natural setting where the results will be applied
What does the computer metaphor say? What is similar about brains and computers?
Our cognitive processes work like a computer. Both computers and human brains have limited capacities
What are the two arguments of the information-processing approach?
1) our mental operations are similar to a computer 2) information progresses through our cognitive system in a series of stages
What are the 5 themes of the textbook?
1) cognitive processes are active rather than passive
2) cognitive processes are efficient and accurate
3) cognitive processes handle positive information better than negative information
4) cognitive processes are interrelated and not isolated
5) many cognitive processes rely on both bottom up and top down processes
What are bottom-up processes?
Cognitive processing which begins with an external stimulus registered on the sensory receptors
What is top-down processing?
Cognitive processes which begin with internal processes such as memory, expectations, etc
What is the connectionist approach? What’s the other names for it?
Cognitive processes can be understood in terms of networks that link together neuron-like processing units. Also called the parallel distributed processing (PDP) approach and the neural-network approach
Brain lesions
Refers to destruction of an area of the brain
Positron emission tomography (PET)
Oldest. Measure of blood flow in the brain by injection of a radioactive chemical before working on a cognitive task. Does not provide time based information.
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)
A magnetic field is applied to the head which produces changes in oxygen atoms which are measured during a cognitive task. Does not provide time based info.
Event-related potential (ERP)
Records fluctuations in the brains electrical activity using electrodes. Provides time based info but not about which neural substrates are involved.
Magnetoencephalography (MEG)
Records magnetic field fluctuations in a shielded room with electrodes produced by neural activity. Provides time based info and neural substrates info. Newest.
Perception
Uses previous knowledge to gather and interpret the stimuli registered by the senses
Object recognition
Identification of a complex arrangement of sensory stimuli that is perceived as separate from the background
Distal-stimulus
The actual object in the environment
Proximal-stimulus
The information registered on your sensory receptors
Sensory memory
The large capacity storage system that records information from each of the senses with reasonable accuracy
Primary visual cortex
Portion of the cerebral cortex concerned with basic processing of visual stimuli
Illusory contours
When we see edges even though they are not physically present in the stimulus
Template matching theory
Theory of object recognition that states your visual system compares a stimulus with a set of templates stored in memory and finds a match
Feature-analysis models
Theory of object recognition which states that visual stimulus is composed of a small number of distinctive features
Recognition-by-components
An object recognition theory that says a certain view of an object can be represented as an arrangement of simple 3D shapes called geons
Word superiority effect
We can identify a single letter more accurately and quickly when it appears in a meaningful word
Change blindness
When we fail to detect a change in an object or a scene due to top down processing
Inattentional blindness
When we fail to notice a new object appear
Why is face perception different from normal object recognition?
We recognize faces in terms of its gestalt
Prosopagnosia
Inability to recognize human faces
Inter-speaker variability
Different speakers of the same language produce the same sound differently
Coarticulation
When you are pronouncing a particular phoneme your mouth remains in the same shape as when you pronounced the last phoneme
Phonemic restoration
When people fill in a missing phoneme by using context as a clue
The McGurk effect
When individuals must integrate both visual and auditory information
Special mechanism approach
A theory of speech perception which says humans are born with a specialized device that allows us to decode speech stimuli
Phonetic module
A special purpose neural mechanism that processes all aspects of speech perception, not auditory
General mechanism approach
Theory of speech perception which says we can explain speech perception without a special phonetic module
Divided-attention task
When you try to pay attention to two or more simultaneous messages, speed and accuracy suffer
Selective-attention task
When you try to pay attention to certain information while ignoring other ongoing information
What are three kinds of selective-attention tasks?
Dichotic listening, stroop effect, visual search
What do we know from dichotic listening tasks?
People can only process one message at a time
What is the cocktail party effect?
When you notice your name dropped at a party even when you’re paying close attention to a different convo
What is the stroop effect?
People take a long time to name the color when it’s used to print an incongruent word, demonstrating selective attention because they are distracted by the word
Feature-present/feature-absent effect
People can typically located a feature that is present faster than a feature that is absent
Saccadic eye movements
Very fast movement of the eyes from one spot to the next, during reading to bring the center of the retina over the words
Fixation
Occurs during the period between two saccadic eye movements when your visual system pauses to get information for reading comprehension
Perceptual span
The number of letters and spaces that we perceive during a fixation
Parafoveal preview
Readers can access information about upcoming words even though that are fixated on words to the left
The orientating attention network is responsible for
shifting your attention around to various spatial locations like in visual search
People who have brain damage in the parietal region of the right hemisphere of the brain have trouble noticing visual stimulus on which side of their visual field?
Left
Executive attention network
Responsible for attention we use during conflict as it inhibits automatic responses to stimuli
Distributed attention
When you register all features of a field simultaneously
Focused attention
Identifying one object at a time
Illusory conjunction. Give example.
Inappropriate combination of features, such as combining an objects shape with a different objects color
Consciousness
The awareness people have about the outside world, their perceptions, images, thoughts, memories, and feelings. Focused attention that is not automatic
Are people conscious of their mental processes?
No, often they are conscious of the product of thoughts
Thought suppression
Produces ironic effects of mental control
What does blindsight reveal about consciousness?
People can perform a cognitive task quite accurately with no conscious awareness that their performance is accurate. Meaning some info from the retina travels outside the visual cortex
Provide the summary of the neuroscience research on attention
One kind of attention tasks activates the frontal lobe, and another activates the parietal lobe
Triesman’s integration theory (2 parts)
We sometimes look at a scene using distributed attention and sometimes use focused attention, meaning they form a continuum
Mind wandering occurs when
Your thoughts shift from the outside world to your inner thoughts
The bottleneck theory is inadequate for accounting for attention because
It underestimates the flexibility of our attention
Working memory
Brief, immediate memory for the limited amount of material that you are currently processing
What did George Miller and Peterson Peterson discover about memory?
Material held in memory for less than one minute is frequently forgotten
Serial-position effect
Refers to the U-shaped relationship between a words position in a list and its probability of accurate recall
Proactive interference
People have trouble learning new material because previously learned material keeps interfering
How can PI be released?
If the semantic category is shifted
What was Atkinsons & Shiffrins model of memory?
The classic information processing model, with sensory memory, short term memory, and long term memory
What was Baddeley’s model of memory?
Working memory with the central executive, phonological loop, visuaspatial sketchpad, episodic buffer, and long term memory
Phonological loop
Processes language and sounds for short periods of time using a limited specialized storage system
Acoustic confusions
When people confuse similar sounding stimuli
Name three instances where the phonological loop is used
Self-talk
Learning new words
Problem solving
What does the visuospatial sketchpad do?
Processes both visual and spatial information using a limited specialized storage system
What are three instances where the visuospatial sketchpad is used?
Finding your way to a location
Tracking a moving object
Visualizing a scene
What part of the brain is active in the phonological loop?
Part of the left frontal and temporal lobe
What part of the brain is active in the visuospatial sketchpad?
Right hemisphere of the cortex
What does the central executive do?
Integrates information from the phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad, episodic buffer, and long term memory.
What part of the brain is involved in the central executive?
Frontal region of the cortex
What is the episodic buffer?
Within Baddleys working memory model, it serves as a temporary storehouse that holds and combines information from the phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad, and long term memory.
What is long-term memory?
A high capacity storage system that contains memories of experiences and information accumulated over the lifetime
What is episodic memory?
Memories for events that happened to you personally
What is semantic memory?
A top down process from long term memory involving your organized knowledge about the world
What is procedural memory?
Your knowledge about how to do something
What does Craik and Lockhart’s levels-of-processing approach argue?
That deep meaningful processing of information leads to more accurate recall than shallow sensory processing
Deep levels of processing encourage recall because of which two factors? Describe.
Distinctiveness: meaning the stimulus is different than other memory traces
Elaboration: means rich processing in terms of meaning and interconnected concepts
What is the self-reference effect?
You remember more information when you relate the information to yourself as it encourages deep processing
What is the encoding-specificity principle?
The idea that recall is better if the context during retrieval is similar to the context during encoding
What did Marian and Fausey’s study demonstrate?
The encoding-specificity principle by presenting a story in one language and asking questions about it in a different language
The encoding-specificity effect is likely to occur in what 3 kinds of events?
1) recall
2) real-life events
3) events from a long time ago
What happens in an explicit memory task?
A researcher asks you to remember some information
What happens in an implicit memory task?
The researcher gives some information than later has you do some cognitive task
What does research on implicit and explicit memory reveal about recall?
Adults often can’t remember stimuli in an explicit memory task, but may remember stimuli in an implicit memory task
When does a dissociation occur?
When a variable has large effects on test A, but little or no effects on test B
What is retrograde amnesia?
A loss of memory for events that occurred prior to brain damage
Anterograde amnesia
The loss of ability to form memories for events that have occurred after brain damage
Autobiographical memory
Memory for events and issues related to yourself
Schema
Consists of your general knowledge or expectation of someone or something based on your past experiences with them
What is source monitoring?
The process of trying to identify the origin of a particular memory
Flashbulb memory
Refers to your memory for the circumstances in which you first learned about a very surprising and emotionally arousing event
What is the consistency bias?
When we exaggerate the consistency between our past feelings and beliefs and our current viewpoint
Reality monitoring
When you try to identify whether an event actually occurred or if you just imagined it
What did research on flashbulb memory discover?
That people’s memory for an expected event is just as accurate as their memory for a surprising event
What occurs in the post-event misinformation effect?
When people view an event and are given misleading information which they later recall rather than the event they saw
How confident are eye witnesses about their correct and incorrect memories?
Almost equally confident
What are four factors that effect accurate eye witness testimony?
1) stress
2) a long delay
3) plausible misinformation
4) social pressure
Own-ethnicity bias
You are more accurate at identifying members of your own ethnic group than others
What is the Pollyanna Principle?
Pleasant items are more efficiently and accurately processed and recalled than less pleasant items
Recovered-memory perspective
Some individuals who experienced sexual abuse during childhood forget it for many years
False-memory perspective
Most recovered memories of sexual abuse in childhood are actually incorrect memories
Total-Time hypothesis
The amount of information you learn depends on the total time you’ve devoted to learning
Distributed-practice effect
You will remember more material if you spread your learning over time
Testing effect
Testing improves recall
Mnemonics
Mental strategies to improve your memory
What four mnemonic techniques use organizational memory?
Chunking
Hierarchy
First-letter technique
Narrative technique
What is the difference between prospective memory and retrospective memory?
Prospective memory focuses on future plans and actions, retrospective memory is about remembering information and ideas
Why does prospective memory involve divided attention?
Since you must focus on your ongoing activity and the task you to do in the future
What kind of memory is related to absent mindedness?
Prospective memory
Metacognition
Your knowledge and control of your cognitive processes
Metamemory
A type of metacognition that refers to peoples knowledge, monitoring, and control of their memory
What 2 factors affect metamemory accuracy for test results?
1) if you predict your accuracy on individual test items
2) when you predict your accuracy after a delay
Tip-of-the-tongue
The experience of knowing the target word your searching for but not being able to recall it
What did Brown and McNeil find about the tip-of-the-tongue experience?
Young adults have about 1 TOTT experience a week and bilingual people experience it more than monolinguals
Metacomprehension
Your thoughts about language comprehension
What was non traditional about George Millers article on the magical number seven?
It emphasized active mental processes rather than just focusing on the stimulus and response
What is the effect of the narrative technique on recall?
It makes recall six times better
What is the retrieval-practice effect?
The attempt to recall important concepts from memory which enhances learning and test performance
Mental imagery
Refers to the mental representation of stimuli that is not physically present in the environment
What is the imagery debate?
Asks whether mental images resemble perceptions or language
Analog code
When mental images closely resemble the physical object
Propositional code
A mental image resembles an abstract language like representation
Which notion does behavioral and cognitive neuroscientific data support in the imagery debate?
The analog code
When do people use an analog code vs a propositional code?
People use analog when thinking of simple figures and propositional when thinking of complex figures
What did the study by Kosslyn reveal?
There is a linear relationship between the distance to be scanned on a mental map and the time required to do so
What did Paivio’s research show?
That people are faster at making decisions about angles on a clock if the two angles are very different in size
Do mental images interfere with physical images?
Yes
Demand characteristics
The cues that might convey the experimenters hypothesis to the participant
Meta-analysis
A statistical method for combining numerous studies on a single topic
What cognitive skill do males score higher in?
Mental rotation/special ability
Pitch
A characteristic of sound that can be arranged on a scale from low to high
Timbre
Describes the sound quality of a tone
Cognitive map
A mental representation of geographic information including the environment that surrounds us
Spatial cognition refers to what 3 cognitive activities?
1) thoughts about cognitive maps
2) how we remember the world around us
3) how we keep track of objects in a spatial array
Heuristic
A general problem solving strategy that usually produces a correct solution but not always
Border bias
People estimate that the distance between two locations is larger if they are on different sides of a geographic border
Landmark effect
Tendency to provide shorter estimates when traveling to a landmark
What is something that affects the estimated distance between two cities on a map?
The number of intervening cities
90-degree-angle heuristic
When people represent angles in a mental map as being closer to 90 degrees than they really are
Rotation heuristic
A figure that is slightly tilted will be remembered as being either more vertical or more horizontal than it really is
Alignment heuristic
A series of separate geographic structures will be remembered as more aligned than they really are
Franklin and Tversky proposed what model? Explain it
Spatial framework model. The above-below spatial dimension is important for thinking, the front-back dimension is less important, and the left-right dimension is the least important
What is the situated cognition approach? 3 things
We make use of helpful information in the immediate environment or situation so that our knowledge depends on the context that surrounds us. Consistent with ecological validity. Our ability to solve a problem is tied to specific physical and social context which we learned to solve the problem.
Category
A set of objects that belong together
Concept
Your mental representations of a category
What kind of memory are concepts and categories related to?
Semantic memory
Prototype
The ideal representative or example of a category
What occurs in the prototype approach?
You decide whether a particular item belongs to a category by comparing it with a prototype
Prototypicality
The degree to which something is representative of its category
How is a graded structure formed?
By the most prototypical members to the least prototypical members
Typicality effect
When people judge prototypes as belonging to a category faster than items that are non-prototypical
Semantic priming effect
People respond faster to an item if it’s preceded by an item with similar meaning
Family resemblance
Means that no single attribute is shared by all examples of a concept, but each example has at least one attribute in common with some other example of the concept
What are the 3 different levels of categorization according to Rosch’s theory?
Superordinate, basic, and subordinate
Which level of categorization is special and why?
Basic-level categories are more likely to produce the semantic priming effect
Exemplar approach
That we first learn information about some specific examples of a concept and then classify each new stimulus by deciding how closely it resembles all the specific examples
What did Heit and Barsalou find?
Information about exemplar frequency and exemplar typicality accurately predicts typical categories for superordinate categories
When should you use the examples approach vs the prototype approach?
Use examples approach when a category has few members, use the prototype approach when a category has numerous members
Declarative knowledge
Knowledge about facts and things
ACT-R. What is?
Andersons declarative model. Adaptive control of thought rational. A propositional network model of semantic memory.
Spontaneous generalization
Using individual cases to draw inferences about general information
Default assignment
Drawing a conclusion about a specific member of a category
Graceful degradation
Brains ability to provide partial memory
Script
A simple well-structured sequence of events
Boundary extension
The tendency to remember seeing a greater portion of a scene than was actually shown
How are boundary extensions related to schemas?
We tend to remember idealized schema consistent images rather than partial figures
Abstraction
A memory process that stores the meaning of a message rather than the exact words
Verbatim memory
Word-for-word recall
Constructive model of memory
People integrate information from individual sentences in order to construct larger ideas
Pragmatic view of memory
People pay attention to the part of a message that is most relevant to their current goals, specific wording or verbatim memory is used in processing an insult
Memory integration
Our background knowledge encourages us to take in new information in a schema consistent fashion
What did Bartlett discover about memory integration?
Our top-down processes often shape our memory for complex material
What is John Andersons theory of semantic memory?
ACT-R. A declarative model that says every concept in a proposition can be represented by a network of connections
Phoneme
A basic unit of spoken language
Morpheme
Basic unit of meaning
Grammar
Involves both morphology and syntax to govern the entire system of rules for language
Semantics
Involves the meanings of words and sentences
Pragmatics
Our knowledge of the social rules that underlie language use that take in the listeners perspective
What did Chomsky argue?
That knowledge of grammar can exist independently of semantic knowledge
Surface structure
The words that are actually spoken or written
Deep structure
The underlying abstract meaning of a sentence
What are transformational rules used for?
To convert deep structure into a surface structure that can be spoken or written
What does the cognitive-functional approach argue about language?
That the function of human language in everyday life is to communicate meaning to other people, and that our cognitive processes are intertwined with our language processes
Good-enough approach
Argues we frequently only process part of a sentence
Lexical ambiguity
Refers to the fact that a single words can have multiple meanings
Syntactic ambiguity
When a sentence structure is ambiguous, especially when it contains no punctuation
Neurolinguistics
The discipline that studies the underlying neurological structures and systems that support language
Aphasia
When a person has difficulty communicating due to brain damage
Broca’s aphasia. 3 things Broca’s area is involved in.
Expressive language deficit. Broca’s area also involved in music, gestures, and some imagery
Wernickes area
Difficulties understanding language
Lateralization
Each hemisphere of the brain has different functions
Left vs right hemisphere in language processing
Left performs most of the language processing. Right pays attention to emotional tone of a message and humor
What is the mirror system and when is it activated? When is it useful?
A network involving the brains motor cortex, active when watching someone perform an action and when performing the action yourself. Useful for when talking in a crowded room
Reading is spread out across ___ and speech is spread out across ____
Space. Time.
Direct-access route
When you recognize a word directly through vision without sounding it out
Indirect-access route
Reading a word by sounding it out
Dual-route approach
Readers who use both direct and indirect access routes
Whole-word approach
Connecting the written words with the meaning that it represents
Phonics approach
Recognizing words by trying to pronounce the individual letters in the word
Discourse
Interrelated units of language that are larger than a single sentence
Inferences
Conclusions that go beyond an isolated phrase or sentence
Constructionist view of inferences
Readers usually draw inferences about the causes and relationships between events
What are three reasons people draw inferences more?
If they have a large working memory capacity
If they have good metacomprehension skills
If they have expertise about the topic
What are the three stages of sentence production?
Message planning
Grammatical encoding
Phonological encoding
What are two way gestures are helpful?
They can help you remember words
They facilitate learning
Embodied cognition
People use their bodies to express their knowledge
Frame
Describes our mental structures that simplify reality
What is one weakness for bilingualism?
They may process language more slowly
Age of acquisition
The age at which you learned a second language
What are the 3 phases of writing?
Planning
Sentence génération
Revising
What is the current view on Broca’s area?
A debate whether the area is responsible for language or language related processes
What are the 3 features of a problem?
The initial state, the goal state, and the obstacles
Define understanding as it relates to problem solving
A well organized mental representation of the problem based on provided information and previous experience
Issue with using symbols for problem solving
Mistakes in translating words into symbols usually due to oversimplification
Issue with using matrices for problem solving
If information changes over time
Algorithm
A problem solving method that will always produce a correct solution to the problem
What are the two components of the means-end heuristic?
1) Divide the problem into subproblems
2) Reduce the difference between the initial state and goal state for each subproblem
GPS
General problem solver computer program that uses means-ends analysis to emulate human problem solving
Hill-climbing heuristic
Consistently choosing the alternative that seems to lead most directly toward your goal
Mental set
When you keep trying to use the same solution for a problem
Functional fixedness
We tend to assign fixed functions to an object
How are functional fixedness and mental set related?
They both represent overactive top-down processing
What brain process allows for solving insight problems quickly?
Large working memory capacity
Define creativity in problem solving
Novel and useful solutions
A conditional reasoning task describes
The relationship between different conditions
A syllogism consists of
Two statements that we assume to be true plus a conclusion, using quantities
Propositional calculus
A system for categorizing the four kinds of reasoning used in analyzing propositions or statements
Antecedent
First proposition or statement
Conseuqent
Refers to the second proposition or statement
Affirming the antecedent
Leads to a valid conclusion
Affirming the consequent
Leads to an invalid conclusion
Denying the antecedent
Leads to an invalid conclusion
Denying the consequent
Leads to a valid conclusion
The belief-bias effect occurs in reasoning when
People make judgments based on prior beliefs and general knowledge rather than the rules of logic
Confirmation bias
People would rather confirm a hypothesis than try to disprove it
Representativeness heuristic
When we judge that a sample is likely if it is similar to the population from which it was selected
According to the representativeness heuristic we believe that
Random-looking outcomes are more likely than orderly outcomes
Why is sample size important?
A large sample is statistically more likely to reflect the true proportions of a population
How is the small sample fallacy related to the representativeness heuristic?
Representativeness is such a compelling heuristic that we often fail to pay attention to sample size
Base rate
How often an item occurs in a population
Conjunction rule
The probability of the conjunction of two events cannot be larger than the probability of either of its constituent events
Availability heuristic
When you estimate the frequency or probability of something in terms of how easy it is to come up with relevant examples
The availability heuristic is accurate so long as
Availability is correlated with true objective frequency
What are two potential distortions of availability?
Recency and familiarity
Illusory correlation
When people believe that two variables are statistically related despite having no evidence for the relationship. Relying too strongly on one cell of a matrix
Anchoring and adjustment heuristic
We start with an approximation which serves as an anchor and then make adjustments based on additional information
What is the problem with the anchoring and adjustment heuristic?
People typically rely too heavily on the anchor so that their adjustments are too small
Confidence interval
The range which we expect a number to fall a certain percentage of the time
What does the framing effect demonstrate? 2 points
The outcome of your decision can be influenced by the background context of the question, and the way the question is framed
Tversky and Kahneman used the term prospect theory to refer to
The tendency for people to avoid risks when dealing with gains, and to seek risk when dealing with loss
Give two examples of over confidence in decision making
Illusory correlation
Anchoring and adjustment heuristic
Crystal-ball technique
Asks decision makers to imagine that a completely accurate crystal ball has said that their hypothesis is incorrect so that alternative explanations are provided
Hindsight bias
Occurs when an event has happened and we say the event was inevitable
Maximizers
People who have a maximizing decision making style where they examine as many options as possible
What encourages the use of analogies in problem solving?
When someone has tried several problem isomorphes
Isolated-feature/combined-feature effect
People can typically locate an isolated feature faster than a combined feature
Long term memory involves what 3 kinds of memory?
Semantic memory
Episodic memory
Procedural memory
What are the two current approaches to semantic memory?
Prototype approach
Exemplar approach
Syntax
A subdivision of grammar which governs the way words are arranged to form sentences
What is the weakness of classical information-processing models?
They cannot account for the kinds of cognitive tasks that humans do very quickly without conscious thought
Cognitive neuroscience
Combines the research techniques of cognitive psychology with various methods for assessing the structure and function of the brain
What is measured in the self-paced reading task?
The amount of time that the participant looks at each word, reaction times
What do on-line language processing measures do?
Gauge the amount of difficulty as the linguistic signal unfolds unit-by-unit over time
What did the language-localizer task reveal?
Regions of the frontal lobe that responds only to language
Iconic gestures
Gestures that represent the concept the speaker is talking about
Deictic gestures
Involve pointing to some object or location while speaking using words like “this” or “that”
Beat gestures
Gestures that occur in a rhythm that matches the speech rate and prosodic content
Prosody, what is it and when is it useful?
The melody of speech, which can clarify an ambiguous message
Pre writing
Beginning a formal writing project by generating a list of ideas
Implicit Association Test demonstrated what principle?
People can mentally pair related words together more easily than unrelated words
What part of language is influenced by age of acquisition?
Phonology
Phonology refers to
The sounds of a persons speech
Is grammar ability always related to age of acquisition?
Not once you control for years of education
What is a strong determinant of the amount of processing difficulty an individual will experience during language processing?
Syntactic complexity
What did Michael Tanenhaus find?
Contextual information reduces syntactic ambiguity
Why is there difficulty in specifying the neural underpinnings of language?
Because of the distributed nature of language in the brain
How are mirror neurons relevant to language?
Communication goes beyond auditory stimuli or the words you read, since mirror neurons play a role in language comprehension
6 differences between reading and speech
1) Reading is spread across space, speech across time
2) readers control rate of input
3) readers can rescan
4) readers have error free input
5) readers have boundaries between words
6) readers can learn new words more quickly but languages slower
Why do readers create causal inferences?
To integrate discourse and construct a well-organized story
Slips-of-the-tongue
Errors in which sounds or entire words are rearranged between two or more words
Sound errors
Occur when sounds in nearby words are exchanged
Morpheme errors
When morphemes are exchanged in nearby words
Word errors
When words are exchanged
Narrative
A category of discourse where someone describes a series of actual or fictional events
Common ground
When conversationalists share the similar background knowledge, schemas, and perspectives necessary for mutual understanding
What parts of working memory are used and not used during writing?
The phonological loop is required, visual aspect are used when trying to define a concrete word, spatial aspect is not used
Psycholinguistics
An interdisciplinary field that examines how people use language to communicate ideas
Matrix
A grid consisting of rows and columns that shows all possible combinations of items
What are five ways experts differ from novices in problem solving?
Experts differ in their knowledge base and schemas
Experts differ in terms of memory
Experts differ in using the means-ends heuristic effectively
Experts are faster
Experts have better meta cognitive skills
Divergent production
Creativity measured as the number of different responses to a single test item
Convergent production
A measure of creativity based on the quality of a single response
What are the three conclusions about creativity?
Creativity uses convergent and divergent thinking
Creativity is associated with the left and right hemisphere
Creativity occurs when using focused and defocused attention
Dual-processing theory
Type 1 processing that is fast and automatic
Type 2 processing that is slow and controlled
What did the Wason selection task show about people?
When given a choice they would rather know what something is rather than what it is not
How does deductive reasoning and decision making differ?
Decision making is more ambiguous
What is the difference between the representativeness heuristic and the availability heuristic?
The representativeness heuristic is when we take a specific example and judge if it is similar to the general category. The availability heuristic we take a general category and recall specific examples
Recognition heuristic
When you conclude that the recognized category has higher frequency
Social cognition approach
The view that stereotypes and other components of social psychology can be traced to normal cognitive processes
Ecological rationality
Describes how people create a variety of heuristics to make decisions
