Mod 27 Flashcards
Cognition refers to … and … associated with thinking, knowing, remembering,a nd communicating information
mental activities; processes
cognition can include .., …, and assembling new info into …
reasoning; judgment; knowledge
cognition also supports these other psychological processes: …, …, …, …, …, …, …, …, and …
attention; emotion; consciousness; perception; learning; memory; language; mental health; social interaction
A concept is a mental grouping of similar …, …, …, …, and/or …, etc
objects; events; states; ideas; people
a concept can be represented and communicated by an …, or by a … such as “chair,” “party,” or “democracy”
image; word
we think we form concepts by definitions. but, we often form concepts by developing …, that is, mental images of the best … of a concept
definitions; prototypes; example
we tend to mold our memories and perceptions to fit …
pre-existing categories/concepts
prototypes fail us when examples stretch our ..,. as in considering whether a stool is a chair
definitions
prototypes fail us when the … between concepts is fuzzy, as in judging blue-green colors or computer-blended faces
boundary
prototypes fail us when examples … our prototypes, such as considering whether a whale is a mammal, or a penguin is a bird
contradict
problem solving refers to the thinking we do in order to answer a … or to figure out how to resolve an …
complex question; unfavorable situation
strategies for arriving at solutions include: …and … … … …
trial; error; algorithms; heuristics; insight
trial and error involves trying various … and if that fails, trying others
possible solutions
an algorithm is a step by step … for solving a problem, methodically leading to a specific solution
strategy
a heuristic is a short-cut, step-saving … or … which generates a solution quickly (but possibly in error)
thinking strategy; principle
insight refers to a sudden …, a leap forward in …, that leads to a solution
realization; thinking
Saltin was a monkey who saw a banana out of his reach, had an … moment when he saw the stick in the room and used it to get the banana. the monkey had never previously …
ah ha; used a tool
insight refers to a …, a leap forward in thinking, that leads to a solution
we say “aha” and feel a sense of satisfaction when an answer seems to pop into our minds
joke punchlines rely on ..
sudden realization; sudden insight
there are certain tendencies in human cognition which make it more difficult to find correct solutions to problems:
…, …, and …
confirmation bias; fixation/mental set; heuristics
confirmation bias refers to our tendency to search for information which .., disregarding ..
confirms our current theory; contradictory evidence
Peter Wason’s selection test: ‘
he gave the sequence of number “2,4,6” he asked students to guess his .., and ask him whether other certain numbers fit the rule –> study of …
rule; confirmation bias
the ultimate test of our mastery of confirmation bias in psychology might be our ability to avoid confirmation bias in …
research
mental set: the tendency to approach problems using a … (procedures and methods) that has … previously
mindset; worked
fixation: the tendency to get stuck in one way of …; an inability to see a problem from a …
thinking; new perspective
the human cognitive style of making judgments and decisions is more … than …
efficient; logical
the quick-acting, automatic source of ideas we use instead of … is known as …
careful reasoning; intuition
as with problem-solving, there are mental habits which make intuition-style judgments simpler and quicker, but may lead to errors:
the availability …
…
…
…
all of these habits enable us to quickly make hundreds of small gut decisions each day without bothering with systematic reasoning
heuristic; overconfidence; belief perseverance; framing
we use the availability heuristic when we estimate the … of an event based on how much it … in our mind, that is, how much it’s available as a mental reference
likelihood; stands out
overconfidence in judgments refers to our tendency to be more … than … we overestimate the accuracy of our estimates, predictions, and knowledge
confident; correct
overconfidence may have had survival value:
it allows …
feeling certainty reduces … and …
it may allow people to gain …
quick decisions; stress; anxiety; social power
belief perseverance is the tendency to hold onto our … when facing …
beliefs; contrary evidence
belief perseverance error: we interpret information in a way that fits our … we might claim that the new information is wrong, biased, or just “doesn’t make sense”
… are maintained by this error; people often disregard examples contradicting stereotypes by treating the new info as merely an exception, and not a challenge to the rule
beliefs; stereotypes
confirmation bias is … to seek out information that contradicts your ideas whereas belief perseverance is holding on to your ideas over time, and … information that contradicts your ideas
not bothering; actively rejecting
benefits and downsides of confirmation bias: enables … solutions, but misses finding out when first guesses are …
quick; wrong
benefits and downsides of belief perseverance: less internal …, but more …
mental conflict; social conflict
framing is the …, …, or … that affects our judgments and decisions
focus; emphasis; perspective
intuition: we have seen that in complex situations, it helps to use … to avoid mistakes made by intuitive judgment.s however, research supports the idea that sometimes we need to let our unconscious mind do some work
careful reasoning
…refers to the power of taking a break from careful thinking, even to “sleep on it’ to allow leaps in cognition
incubation
intuition may have been adaptive by helping us judge quickly what to … and what might …
eat; kill us
intuition is effective when it is a product of … built up from trail and error; this hones one’s judgment ot the point of being more accurate than logical analysis. the mind’s ability to judge a situation from experience is more .. than any step-by-step analysis
expertise; efficient
