Psych Ch. 9 Flashcards
Define Cognition
This is all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating
What is conceptual knowledge?
a mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, and people that is used for a variety of
cognitive functions (e.g., memory, reasoning etc.)
Kind of like a schema
What is categorization?
the process by which things are placed into groups called categories (like putting a WRX STI and an RX-7 together into the category ‘car’)
why are categories useful?
-Categories help us understand individual cases not previously encountered
-the offer a general wealth of knowledge
What is a prototype?
the average representation of the category. For example, a sparrow may see more ‘birdy’ than a peacock. Contains the most typical features.
Define typicality ratings.
Category members rated as most typical are also those that share features with many other members of the category
Increase in typicality Rating =
increase number of common
features
What is a normative account of judgment?
Certain rules must be followed for drawing conclusions based on known facts. (math, stats, scientific method)
What is a descriptive account of judgement?
Describe the way that people actually draw conclusions based on what they know
True or false, what we present first impacts poeples subsequent decisions.
true.
Mentioning high numbers can impact peoples perception. True or False
true
What is anchoring?
When provided with a potential answer to a
question, people use that answer as a reference point in selecting their answer.
This happens even if the participant knows the high number has no impact on the answer.
Define hueristic
-fast, simple rules people use that often lead to accurate conclusions
-But they can also lead to Erroneous
Conclusions
What are the three outcomes of the availability heuristic?
-helps us to estimate how often the event occurs
-important for making inferences about cause and effect
-and for making predictions
What is the availability heuristic?
Tendency to make judgments about the frequency or likelihood of an event based on the ease with which evidence or examples come to mind
What does accuracy of estimates depend on?
whether the ease of coming up with examples is related to actual frequency
What do we use the availability hueristic for?
-Judging how likely an event is to
occur
-Judging how frequent an event
occurs
What are some pitfalls on relying on the availability Heuristic
-often inaccurate
-memory cues make attention grabbing topics easier to recall
-event presence in the media
What causes the break down of the Availability Heuristic?
-We ignore biases in available samples
-When we ignore biases in accessible cognitions
How do we ignore biases in available samples
- Salience
What is salience?
How salient info is in our minds often determines how much attention we pay to it, and thus how available it is to bring to mind
What is the availability cascade?
A self-perpetuating process where News coverage of a danger creates public fear, inspiring further coverage and more
fear
What is the representativeness hueristic?
related to the idea that people often make judgments based on how much one event resembles another event
If category membership is unknown, it can be inferred based on two types of information:
*Diagnostic Information: Attributes that often distinguish members of a category from members of another category
*Base Rates: Actual frequency of category members
people will only use _________________ if it is the only thing available, but prefer to use ____________________ information
base rates; descriptive
When base rates are available, people often completely ignore diagnostic information as a source of information. True or false
false. When diagnostic information is available, people often completely ignore base rates as a source of information
Define cognitive illusion
even when people know the correct answer, they may be drawn to an incorrect conclusion based on the structure of the problem
What is the dilution effect?
Including Non-Diagnostic Information along with Diagnostic Information, leads people to rely less on diagnostic information in making judgements
With only diagnostic information people treat Frank in a stereotypical way, leading to more extreme estimates. True or false
With only diagnostic information
people treat Frank in a stereotypical
way, leading to more extreme
estimates
What is the conjunction rule?
probability of two events cannot be higher than the
probability of the single constituents
What is a conjunction fallacy?
The probability of a co-occurrence of two outcomes
cannot be greater than the probability of each outcome alone
_______________ is used in making judgments about
the attributes of members of a category
The Representativeness Heuristic
What is covariation detection?
Perceiving relations between variables
what does it called if two variables rise and fall together?
covarience
What are the problems with covariation detection?
People tend to only look at one cell of the evidence.
1. The cell that supports their
hypothesis:
*2. The cell that refutes their
hypothesis:
What is positive test strategy also known as?
Confirmation bias
Define positive test strategy/confirmation bias.
Testing a hypothesis by seeking cases that match it
What is the problem with the positive test strategy?
If only look for things that confirm hypothesis, there will be an overrepresentation of confirmations
What are the “hows” of positive test strategy?
-Biased memory search
-Biased evidence seeking (can lead to self-fulfilling prophecy)
The positive test strategy tends to lead to
biased conclusions when stimuli are complex such that cases exist that fit the hypothesis, regardless of whether the hypothesis is actually true
Single-chute survey questions do not produce misleading results . True or False?
false. It leads you to misstate and mistake your position
What is the first tenant of prospect theory?
Losses loom larger than
equivalent gains
Define loss aversion.
the tendency to avoid losses over achieving equivalent gains.
what is the framing effect?
Decision-making can be influenced by the way alternatives are worded
What is mental accounting:
helps to explain the way we post a problem (framing) and whether it is phrased in terms of gains or losses influences our decision
What is intuition?
An effortless, immediate, automatic feeling or thought, as contrasted with explicit, conscious reasoning
True or false: consciousness has a low processing capacity
true
Define language:
involves our spoken, written, or signed words and the ways we combine them to communicate meaning
How is language symbolic?
people use spoken sounds and written words to represent objects, actions, events, and ideas
How is language semantic?
meaningful
How is language generative?
a limited number of symbols can be combined in an infinite number of ways to
generate novel messages
how is language structured?
there are rules that govern arrangement of
words into phrases and sentences
Define Phonemes
the smallest units of speech that can be distinguished perceptually
How many Phonemes are there in the English language?
40-44
Define Morphemes.
the smallest units of meaning in a language,
consisting of root words, prefixes, and suffixes
What is Grammer?
The system of rules that enables humans to communicate with one another
Define Semantics.
Deriving meaning from sounds
What is Syntax.
Ordering words into sentences
How do Newborns Show Early Preferences for Speech Sounds?
*Naturally attend to speech
*Prefer to hear human speech vs.
other sounds
*Prefer native language vs. other
languages
*Prefer stories and sounds heard
prenatally
Babies can recognize when mouth sounds match or are wrong?
yeppers
What is receptive language?
What babies can understand
What is productive language?
What babies can produce themselves
What is Prelinguistic Communication?
Newborns communicate their thoughts and needs with body posture (being relaxed or still), gestures, cries, and facial expressions
What is intentional vocalization?
Infants begin to vocalize and repeat vocalizations within the first couple of months of life
when does cooing first begin to occur?
2-3 months of age
When does babbling begin to occur?
around 4 months
When do first words occur?
Around 1 year old.
Holophrases:
One-word expressions to express a complete thought (“yes” or “no”)
What is fast mapping?
A process of quickly acquiring and retaining a word after hearing it applied a few times
(Improves with age)
naming explosion (vocabulary spurt):
A period of rapid vocabulary learning that occurs between 16 and 24 months of age
What is underextention:
Applying a word more narrowly than it is usually applied so that the word’s use is
restricted to a single object
Overextention:
Applying a word too broadly
Two-Word Utterances:
Begins around 24 months of age
Telegraphic speech:
Speaking like a telegram, only including a few
essential words. “give baby ball”
Between _____ months
children begin to follow the rules of forming
grammatically correct sentences (syntax).
20-30
What did BF Skinner propose about language development.
proposed that language is learned through
operant conditioning: reinforcement and punishment
-Children imitate speech they hear
-Correct speech is rewarded
What did Noam Chomsky argue?
Argued children do not only learn
language through imitation and
reinforcement
-biologically determined
-in the genes
-basis of language is similar
The use of language develops in
the absence of formal instruction
universality of language
Over-Generalization Errors:
Children say things that are incorrect and have not been rewarded for
Nativist theory and language acquisition:
*The human brain has an innate
capacity to learn language
Language acquisition device
(LAD)
–an innate facilitator of language and storehouse of rules that apply to all human languages (universal grammar)
-is a neurological construct that makes infants
ready for language
Social Pragmatics Theory
Social impulses foster infant language because humans are social beings, and we must communicate because we are dependent on each other for survival (need to communicate)
Broca’s area
–controls the ability to use language for expression (speaking words)
Wernicke’s area
–responsible for language comprehension (hearing words)
Contextual contributions to language development
*Infant-directed speech (motherese)
*Canonical babbling (A type of babbling with well-formed syllables that sounds)
like language
*Parent responsiveness (predicts vocab, timing, and diversity of communication.)
*Expansions and recasting
What are expansions?
Expansions –Parents enrich versions of the child’s statement
*Child: “Bottle Fall”
*Parent: “Yes, the bottle fell off the
table”
What is a recast?
Recast –Children’s sentences are
restated into new grammatical
forms
*Child: “Kitty go”
*Parent: “Where is the kitty going?”
Define metacognition.
Cognition about cognition
What is an algorithm
Methodical rule and procedure that garuntees a solution
What is insight
that sudden Aha moment
What is fixation
Only seeing a problem from one viewpoint
What is intuition
Fast, automatic, feelings and thoughts
What is belief perserverance?
clinging to ones initial conceptions after the bias on which they were formed has been discredited
What is convergant thinking?
Narrowing available problem solutions to determine the single best solution
What is divergent theory?
expanding # of possible solutions
up to the age of _ months, babies are very good at seperating words
7 months
When does rapid speech development occur?
24 months
by the age of __ children can lose ability to learn any language
7
What is aphasia?
impairment of language, usually caused by left hemisphere damage (speaking) or wernicks area (understanding)
