Unit 4 Cognition and Memory Flashcards
cognition
Thinking: the mental activities of acquiring, storing, retrieving, and using knowledge.
meta cognition
Awareness and understanding of one’s own thought process
Divergent thinking
Using creativity to consider many options
Convergent thinking
Narrowing the available problem solutions to determine the single best answer
concepts
Helps us order our world into categories and communicate with fewer words
how concepts form
through experiences over time
Schemas
Framework that helps us organize concepts/prototypes
Prototypes
Mental image that is the best example of a concept
ie. dog: huskey
Algorithm
Step by step method that guarantees a solution
Logical and procedural but time consuming and labor intensive
I.e following a recipe
Heuristics
Mental shortcuts that allow us to make judgements and solve problems quickly
Quicker but prone to error
How do we form judgments?
perceiving objects, people, or events and coming to a conclusion about whether they are good or bad or likely to occur based on prior experience and knowledge
Representative heuristics
Make a decision based upon how much smth represents the characteristics or prototypes from your schema
Availability heuristics:
Make decisions based on how available the information is
The faster you remember an instance of some event, the more you expect it to occur
Mental set:
A tendency to only see solutions that have worked in the past
Priming
When a stimulus impacts how you will respond to different stimuli by making associations
I.e red, yellow, blue, gre____
Bias
Distorment of judgment
Confirmation bias:
While you make a decision, you actively look for info that confirms your ideas
functional fixedness
Tendency to see objects as working in only one way
Ie. a brick is only used for building
explicit memory
information you have to make an effort to remember
semantic memories
general knowledge
episodic memories
personal memories of specific evetns
implicit memories
unitenntional memories we may not realize we have
proceduarl memories
meories of skills/actions and how to perform them
working memory
the small amount of information that can be held in mind and used in the execution of cognitive tasks
related to short-term memory, but it lasts slightly longer and is involved in the manipulation of information
Ex. Keeping a person’s address in mind while being given directions.
long term memory
Relatively permanent and limitless storage of information
short term memory
recall of material immediately after it is presented or during uninterrupted rehearsal of the material; it is thought to be limited in its capacity and, in the absence of rehearsal, undergoes rapid decay, probably lasting less than 30 s.
sensory memory
recollection of perceptual types of how a stimulus looks, feels, sounds, etc
iconic memory
the incredibly brief storage of a visual stimulus, after the stimulus has been removed
Ie when you see a car passing by on the highway, and for a brief moment you can picture the car after it is gone
echoic memory
the brief sensory memory of audible sounds
I.e The ringing in the ears after exposure to a loud bang
Automatic processing
Processing of information that occurs involuntary and without conscious initiation
Produces implicit memories
effortful processing
Processing information through conscious attention and effort
Creates explicit memories
Mnemonic devices
Memory tool for the repacking of information, making associations
Chunking
Dividing information into smaller parts
I.e 4808282182 -> 480-828-2182
serial position effect:
Tendency to recall the 1st and last items on a list
Amnesia
A partial or total loss of memory
retrograde amnesia
a form of memory loss that causes an inability to remember events from the past
Recognition
Ability to identify previously information
I.e mcq tests
Anterograde amnesia
A type of memory loss that occurs when you can’t form new memories
I.e not being able to remember the last meal you ate
Recall
The ability to retrieve information
I.e fill in the blank test
Relearning:
Relearning previously learned information to commit to memory retrieval
Ie. learning something in high school that needs to be relearned in college.
tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon:
a state in which one cannot quite recall a familiar word but can recall words of similar form and meaning
Retroactive interference:
an individual is unable to recall old information because new information prevents its retrieval
I.e a musician might learn a new piece, only to find that the new song makes it more difficult to recall an older, previously learned piece
Proactive interference:
old information or knowledge interferes with the learning of new information
I.e a difficulty in remembering a friend’s new phone number after having previously learned the old number.
Misinformation Effect:
the tendency for the information you learned after an event to interfere with your original memory of what happened
I.e if the participants hear that there was a broken headlight, they will incorporate that in their memory rather than being asked if they saw a broken headlight
Source Amnesia:
the inability to remember where, when or how previously learned information has been acquired, while retaining the factual knowledge
E. Mandela effect:
a group of people collectively misremember facts, events, or other details in a consistent manner
magic number of 7
the number of objects an average human can hold in short-term memory is 7 ± 2
flashbulb memory
a vivid, enduring memory for how one learned about a surprising, shocking event
Ex. knowing where you were during 9/11
encoding failure
breakdown in the process of getting information into the cognitive system.
retrieval failure
a type of forgetting that occurs when encoded information can not be accessed when needed
storage decay
a theory that states that memory fades due to the passage of time.
rosy retrospection
tendency to recall past events more fondly than the present.
prospective memory
Form of memory that involves remembering to perform a planned action or recall a planned intention at some future point in time.
imagination inflation
People are more likely to falsely remember that an item has been seen or an action has been performed when it has only been imagined
event schema
let us know what to do in certain situations
es: fire drill
insight
a sudden realization of a problem’s solution
fixation
inability ti see a problem from a fresh perspective
framing
people decide b/w opetions based on whehther the options are presented with positive or negative connotaiton
overconfidence
one’s confidence in tehir judgements is reliably greater than the accuracty of their judgements
belief perserverance
maintiang a belief despite new information to contradict it
Gamblers fallacy
Believing that a random event is more or less likely to happen based on thr outcome of a previous event or series kf events
Memory
Persistence of learning over time via storage ans retrieval
Encoding
Peocess of putting information into the memory system
Storage
Retain the encoded info over tjme
Retrieval
Process of getting info out kf memory
Interference
When memories interfere with other memories
