General Flashcards
What is phonological awareness?
Hearing sounds properly
Decoding sounds properly to constituents
Understanding relationships between sounds
What are lexical hermits?
Words with no close neighbours. Unique spelling/sound rules e.g. Ghost
What is a pseudohomophone?
Non-words which sound like real words e.g. Burd
What is a homophone?
Same sound, different spelling (e.g. Night/Knight)
What is a homograph?
Same spelling but different meaning (e.g. Row)
Why is spelling and reading hard?
We have complex grapheme to phoneme relationships
What is a phoneme?
A unit of spoken language (think of phone as being to do with sounds)
What is a grapheme?
Smallest unit of written language (think of graph as being visual)
What is a quale? (Pl = qualms)
Qualia are what ‘being’ is like from the inside
Which famous psychologist embraced reductionism to the fullest?
B.F. Skinner
What is reductionism?
Everything can be observed and measured (mind is a cognitive machine)
What is materialism?
There is only one thing in the universe and that is physical matter
What does functional mean? (Consciousness)
Consciousness has a purpose. It is contributing to everything else in the mind and body
What are emergent properties?
Interactions between simple units resulting in a more complex entity. The simple units don’t possess that property themselves.
What does epiphenomenal mean?
Consciousness happens as a result of physical things happening - but it isn’t meaningfully related to those physical things
What does it mean to say that consciousness is inessential?
Consciousness doesn’t have a real job to do
What is negative transfer?
What someone learns in one situation hinders their performance in another
What is positive transfer?
What someone learns in one situation has a positive effect in their performance in another situation
What is analogical reasoning?
A specific type of problem solving
Allows us to approach unfamiliar problems and solve them by bringing to bear what we already know
What is mapping?
Forming a relationship between something you already know and a novel item on the basis of apparent similarity
What does encoding mean?
Putting information in
Building an internal representation of an external event/factor/concept
Getting information into your mind
Why is psychology a science?
We employ the scientific method
We base our ideas on empirical evidence
We test our ideas in experiments
What is Cartesian dualism?
The idea that things are composed of two fundamentally different components e.g. Body and mind
What does metaphysical mean?
Non physical matter
Speculation on questions that are unanswerable to scientific observation, analysis or experiment
What is the mind body problem?
Body is physical and obeys physical laws. The mind is non physical and does not obey physical laws
What is the famous Descartes phrase?
Cogito Ergo Sum
What does cf mean?
Confer (Latin) - compare with/bring together
René Descartes (1596-1650) quote?
“If you would be a real seeker after truth it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.”
Karl Popper (1902-1994) quote?
“Good tests kill flawed theories: we remain alive to guess again”
What is falsification?
The idea that you get nearer the truth by trying to prove things wrong
What is induction?
The idea that you find things out by proving them right
What does empirical mean?
Verifiable with reference to evidence (based upon experience)
What does verifiable mean?
Testable
