Modules 34-36 Vocabulary

Question 1

• all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating.

Answer 1

Cognition

Question 2

• a mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas or people.

Answer 2

Concept

Question 3

• a mental image or best example of a category. Matching new items to a prototype provides a quick and easy method for sorting items into categories (as when comparing feathered creatures to a prototypical bird, such as a robin).

Answer 3

Prototype

Question 4

• the ability to produce novel and valuable ideas.

Answer 4

Creativity

Question 5

• narrows the available problem solutions to determine the single best solution.

Answer 5

Convergent thinking

Question 6

• expands the number of possible problem solutions (creative thinking that diverges in different directions).

Answer 6

Divergent thinking

Question 7

• a methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem. Contrasts with the usually speedier- but also more error-prone- use of heuristics.

Answer 7

Algorithm

Question 8

• a simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently; usually speedier but also more error-prone than algorithms.

Answer 8

Heuristic

Question 9

• a sudden realization of a problem’s solution; contrasts with strategy-based solutions

Answer 9

Insight

Question 10

• a tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence.

Answer 10

Confirmation bias

Question 11

• a tendency to approach a problem in one particular way, often a way that has been successful in the past.

Answer 11

Mental set

Question 12

• an effortless, immediate, automatic feeling or thought, as contrasted with explicit, conscious reasoning.

Answer 12

Intuition

Question 13

• judging the likelihood of things in terms of how well they seem to represent, or match, particular prototypes; may lead us to ignore other relevant information.

Answer 13

Representative heuristic

Question 14

• estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; if instances come readily to mind (perhaps because of their vividness) we presume such events are common.

Answer 14

Availability heuristic

Question 15

• the tendency to be more confident than correct- to overestimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgements

Answer 15

Overconfidence

Question 16

• clinging to one’s initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited.

Answer 16

Belief perseverance

Question 17

• the way an issue is posed; how an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and judgments.

Answer 17

Framing

Question 18

• our spoken, written, or signed words and the ways we combine them to communicate meaning.

Answer 18

Language

Question 19

• in a language, the smallest distinctive sound unit.

Answer 19

Phoneme

Question 20

• in a language, the smallest unit that carries meaning; may be a word or a part of a word (such as a prefix).

Answer 20

Morpheme

Question 21

• a system of rules that enables us to communicate with and understand others.

Answer 21

Grammar

Question 22

• in a language, semantics is the set of rules for deriving meaning from sounds.

Answer 22

Semantics

Question 23

• in a language, syntax is the set of rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences

Answer 23

Syntax

Question 24

• beginning at about 4 months, the stage of speech development in which the infant spontaneously utters various sounds at first unrelated to the household language.

Answer 24

Babbling stage

Question 25

• the stage in speech development, from about age 1 to 2, during which a child speaks mostly in single words.

Answer 25

One-word stage

Question 26

• beginning about age 2, the stage in speech development during which a child speaks mostly in two-word statements.

Answer 26

Two-word stage

Question 27

• early speech stage in which a child speaks like a telegram- “go car”- using mostly nouns and verbs.

Answer 27

Telegraphic speech

Question 28

• impairment of language, usually caused by left-hemisphere damage either to Broca’s area (impairing speaking) or to Wernicke’s area (impairing understanding).

Answer 28

Aphasia

Question 29

• controls language expression- an area of the frontal lobe, usually in the left hemisphere, that directs the muscle movements involved in speech.

Answer 29

Broca’s area

Question 30

• controls language reception- a brain area involved in language comprehension and expression; usually in the left temporal lobe.

Answer 30

Wenicke’s area

Question 31

• Whorf’s hypothesis that language determines the way we think.

Answer 31

Linguistic determinism