Unit 2 Flashcards
Selective Attention
Book: Focusing conscious awareness on a particular stimulus.
IMOW: Focusing on one thing while ignoring other things around you.
Inattentional Blindness
Book: Failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed elsewhere.
IMOW: Not noticing something right in front of you because you’re focused on something else.
Change Blindness
Book: Failing to notice changes in the environment; a form of inattentional blindness.
IMOW: Failing to notice big changes in something when you’re distracted.
Perceptual Set
Book: A mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another.
IMOW: Expecting something to be a certain way, so you see it that way.
Gestalt
Book: An organized whole. Gestalt psychologists emphasized our tendency to integrate.
IMOW: The idea that we see things as a whole shapes or patterns, not just parts.
Figure-Ground
Book: The organization of the visual field into the objects that stand out from their surroundings.
IMOW: The ability to focus on an object and separate it from the background.
Grouping
Book: The perceptual tendency to organize stimuli into coherent groups.
IMOW: Organizing objects or information into groups based on similarity.
Depth Perception
Book: The ability to see objects in three dimensions, although the images that strike the retina are two-dimensional; allows us to judge distance.
IMOW: The ability to see how far away things are.
Visual Cliff
Book: A laboratory device for testing depth perception in infants and young animals.
IMOW: An experiment showing that babies can perceive depth and fear falling.
Binocular Cue
Book: A depth cue, such as retinal disparity, that depends on the use of two eyes.
IMOW: Clues about depth that involve both eyes working together.
Convergence
Book: A cue to nearby objects’ distance, enabled by the brain combining retinal images.
IMOW: The way our eyes turn inward to focus on objects that are close.
Retinal Disparity
Book: A binoculars cue for perceiving depth. By comparing retinal images from the two eyes, the brain computes distance - the greater the disparity (difference) between the two images, the closer the object.
IMOW: The difference in images seen by each eye that helps us judge distance.
Monocular Cue
Book: A depth cue, such as interposition or linear perspective, available to either eye alone.
IMOW: Clues about depth that can be seen with just one eye.
Stroboscopic Movement
Book: An illusion of continuous movement experienced when viewing a rapid series of slightly varying still images.
IMOW: Seeing motion when a series of still images are shown quickly.
Phi Phenomenon
Book: An illusion of movement created when two or more adjacent lights blink on and off in quick succession.
IMOW: The illusion of movement when lights blink on and off in a sequence.
Autokinetic Effect
Book: The illusory movement of a still spot of light in a dark room.
IMOW: The illusion of a stationary light moving when you stare at it for long time.
Perceptual Constancy
Book: Perceiving objects as unchanging even as illumination and retinal images change.
IMOW: Adjusting to changes in what you see, like when glasses distort vision.
Color Constancy
Book: Perceiving familiar objects as having consistent color, even if changing illumination alters the wavelengths reflected by the object.
IMOW: Recognizing that the color of an object stays the same, even in different lighting.
Perceptual Adaptation
Book: The ability to adjust to changes sensory input, including an artificially displaced or even inverted visual field.
IMOW: Adjusting to changes in what you see, like when glasses distort vision.
Cognition
Book: All the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating.
IMOW: The mental process of thinking, understanding and remembering.
Metacognition
Book: Cognition about our cognition; keeping track of and evaluating our mental processes.
IMOW: Thinking about your own thinking or being aware of how you learn.
Concept
Book: A mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people.
IMOW: A mental category or idea that helps you group things together.
Prototype
Book: A mental image or best example of a category. Matching new items to a prototype provides a quick and easy method of sorting items into categories.
IMOW: The best example or typical member of a category.
Schema
Book: A concept or framework that organizes and interprets information.
IMOW: A mental framework or structure for understanding the world.
Assimilation
Book: Interpreting our new experiences in terms of our existing schemas.
IMOW: Adding new information into an existing schema.
Accommodation
Book: Adapting our current schemas to incorporate new information.
IMOW: Changing your schema to fit new information.
Creativity
Book: The ability to produce new and valuable ideas.
IMOW: Coming up with new and original ideas or solutions.
Convergent Thinking
Book: Narrowing the available problem solutions to determine the single best solution.
IMOW: Finding one correct solution to a problem.
Divergent Thinking
Book: Expanding the number of possible problem solutions; creative thinking that diverges in different directions.
IMOW: Thinking in many different ways to solve a problem.
Algorithm
Book: 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
IMOW: A step-by-step process for solving a problem that guarantees the right answer.
Heuristic
Book: A simple thinking strategy - a mental shortcut - that often allows us to make judge, ends and solve problems efficiently; usually speedier but also more error-prone than an algorithm.
IMOW: A quick strategy or rule of thumb for solving problems, but not always accurate.
Insight
Book: A sudden realization of a problems solution; contrasts with strategy-based solutions.
IMOW: A sudden and clear understanding of a problem or solution.
Confirmation Bias
Book: A tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence.
IMOW: The tendency to look for information that supports your beliefs, ignoring information that contradicts them.
Fixation
Book: In cognition, the inability to see a problem from a new perspective; an obstacle to problem solving.
IMOW: Being stuck on one way of thinking about a problem.
Mental Set
Book: A tendency to approach a problem in one particular way, often a way that has been successful in the past.
IMOW: using the same approach to solve a problem bascule it worked before.
Intuition
Book: An effortless, immediate, automatic feeling or thought, as contrasted with explicit, conscious reasoning.
IMOW: Understanding something without needing to think it through logically.
Representatives Heuristic
Book: Judging the likelihood of events in terms of how well they seem to represent, or match, particular prototypes; may lead us to ignore other relevant information.
IMOW: Judging something based on how similar it is to a prototype or stereotype.
Availability Heuristic
Book: Judging the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; id instances come readily to mind, we presume such events are common.
IMOW: Judging how likely something is based on how easily examples come to mind.
Overconfidence
Book: The tendency to be more confident than correct - to overestimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgements.
IMOW: Believing you know more Regan you actually do.
Belief Perseverance
Book: The persistence of one’s initial conceptions even after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited.
IMOW: Holding onto beliefs even when evidence shows they’re wrong.
Framing
Book: The way an issue is posed; how an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and judgements.
IMOW: The way information is presented, which can influence decisions and judgements.
Nudge
Book: Framing choices in a way that encourages people to make beneficial decisions.
IMOW: A subtle way of guiding people’s decisions without realizing it,
Memory
Book: The persistent of learning over time through the encoding, storage, and retrieval of information.
IMOW: The process of storing and recalling information.
Recall
Book: A measure of memory in which the person must receive information learned earlier, as on a fill-in-the-blank test.
IMOW: Recalling information from memory without any hints.
Recognition
Book: A measure of memory in which the person identifies items previously learned, as on a multiple-choice test.
IMOW: Identifying something you’ve seen before.
Relearning
Book: A measure of memory that assesses the amount of time saved when learning material again.
IMOW: The process of learning something again that you’ve already learned.
Encoding
Book: The process of getting information into the memory system - for example, by extracting meaning.
IMOW: The process of process of putting information into your memory.
Storage
Book: The process of retaining encoded information over time.
IMOW: Keeping information in your memory over time.
Retrieval
Book: The process of getting information out of memory storage.
IMOW: Getting information back from your memory.
Parallel Processing
Book: Processing multiple aspects of a stimulus or problem simultaneously.
IMOW: The ability to process multiple pieces of information at the same time.
Sensory Memory
Book: The immediate very brief recording of sensory information in the memory system.
IMOW: A very brief memory of sensory information, like sights or sounds.
Short-Term Memory
Book: Briefly activated memory of a few items that is later stored or forgotten.
IMOW: A memory system that holds a small amount of information for a short time.
Long-Term Memory
Book: The relatively permanent and limitless archive of the memory system. Includes knowledge, skills, and experiences.
IMOW: Memory that stores large amounts of information for a long time.
Working Memory
Book: A newer understanding of short-term memory; conscious, active processing of both incoming sensory information and information retrieved from long-term memory.
IMOW: The system that actively holds and manipulates information we need right now.