Psychology Ch. 9-10
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Created by:
ChrisFullerton on May 18, 2010
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46 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 What do cognitive psychologists study? | study these mental activities: - concept formation - problem solving - decision making - judgment formation |
| Define CONCEPT | mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people |
| Define PROTOTYPE | mental image or best example of a category (matching new items to the prototype provides a quick and easy method for including items in a category (feathered creatures relate to a prototypical bird) |
| Define ALGORITHM | methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem (i.e. a recipe) |
| Define HEURISTIC | ["eureka!" - "I have it"] simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently (usually speedier but more error-prone) |
| Define INSIGHT | sudden and often novel realization of the solution to a problem (contrasts with strategy-based solutions) |
| Define CONFIRMATION BIAS | tendency to search for information that confirms one's preconceptions |
| Define FIXATION | inability to see a problem from a new perspective (impediment to problem solving) -- "think outside the box!" |
| Define FUNCTIONAL FIXEDNESS | [think: NOT MacGyver] tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual functions (what else can an ice cube tray be used for?) impediment to problem solving |
| Define Representativeness Heuristic | judging the likelihood of things in terms of how well they seem to represent, or match, particular prototypes (can lead to ignorance of other pertinent info) |
| Define Availability Heuristic | estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory... if instances come readily to mind (vividness or news), we presume such events are common |
| Overconfidence | tendency to be more confident than correct tendency to overestimate the accuracy of one's beliefs and judgments "experts" - overvalued in our society "I don't know" - undervalued |
| Framing | the way an issue is posed; how an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and judgments... Sale : ground beef- 25% fat or 75% lean Water: Natural flavor |
| Belief Perseverance | clinging to one's initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited |
| Define LANGUAGE | our spoken, written, or gestured works and the way we combine them to communicate meaning (most nonverbal) -- we are all born to recognize speech sounds from all the world's languages |
| Five stages of language development | Babbling, One-Word, Two-Word, Telegraphic speech |
| Babbling Stage | beginning at 3 to 4 months the stage of speech development in which the infant spontaneously utters various sounds at first unrelated to the household language |
| One-Word Stage | from about age 1 to 2 the stage in speech development during which a child speaks mostly in single words |
| Two-Word Stage | beginning about age 2 the stage in speech development during which a child speaks in mostly two-word statements |
| Telegraphic Speech | early speech stage in which the child speaks like a telegram--"go car"--using mostly nouns and verbs and omitting "auxiliary" words; after this stage, language develops rapidly into complete sentences. |
| Define LINGUISTIC DETERMINISM | Whorf's hypothesis that language determines the way we think (interplay of thought and language) |
| Intelligence | ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations |
| Stanford-Binet | the widely used American revision of Binet's original intelligence (IQ) test revised by Terman at Stanford University (created originally to see which kids needed more attention; now mis-used as entrance exams) |
| Mental Age | a measure of intelligence test performance devised by Binet: chronological age that most typically corresponds to a given level of performance (child who does as well as the average 8-year-old is said to have a mental age of 8) |
| Define "IQ" | Intelligence Quotient: defined ORIGINALLY as the ratio of mental age (ma) to chronological age (ca) multiplied by 100 [IQ = ma/ca x 100] On contemporary tests, the average performance for a given age is assigned a score of 100 |
| Factor Analysis | statistical procedure that identifies CLUSTERS of related items (called factors) on a test used to identify different dimensions of performance that underlie one's total score |
| General Intelligence (g) | factor that Spearman and others believed underlies specific mental abilities measured by every task on an intelligence test |
| Savant Syndrome | condition in which a person otherwise limited in mental ability has an exceptional specific skill (i.e. computation, drawing) |
| Social Intelligence | the know-how involved in comprehending social situations and managing oneself successfully (are cocktail parties terrifying or no big deal?) |
| Emotional Intelligence | ability to perceive, express, understand, and regulate emotions (your own and others) |
| Creativity | the ability to produce novel and valuable ideas - expertise - imaginative thinking skills - venturesome personality - intrinsic motivation - creative environment |
| WAIS | Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale is the most widely used intelligence test; subtests include verbal and performance (nonverbal). Mean is 100; 96% of people score between 70 & 130; 68% score between 85 and 115; very small % score below 55 or above 145. |
| Aptitude Test | a test designed to predict a person's future performance aptitude is "the capacity to learn" |
| Achievement Test | a test designed to assess what a person has learned |
| Standardization | defining meaningful scores by comparison with the performance of a pretested "standardization group" |
| Normal Curve | the symmetrical bell-shaped curve that describes the distribution of many physical and psychological attributes most scores fall near the average, and fewer and fewer scores lie near the extremes |
| Reliability | the extent to which a test yields consistent results assessed by consistency of scores on: - two halves of the test - alternate forms of the test - retesting |
| Validity | the extent to which a test measures or predicts what it is supposed to (i.e. racism or social contact or an understanding of human rights) |
| Content Validity | the extent to which a test samples the behavior that is of interest (driving test that samples driving tasks) |
| Criterion | behavior (such as college grades) that a test (such as the SAT) is designed to predict the measure used in defining whether the test has predictive validity |
| Predictive Validity (aka criterion-related validity) | success with which a test predicts the behavior it is designed to predict (assessed by computing the correlation between test scores and the criterion behavior) |
| Mental Retardation | a condition of limited mental ability, indicated by an intelligence score below 70 - produces difficulty in adapting to the demands of life - varies from mild to profound - DOES NOT MEAN NOT INTELLIGENT - can be emotionally perceptive |
| Down Syndrome | retardation and associated physical disorders caused by an extra chromosome in one's genetic makeup (historical change: people used to be institutionalized and sterilized) |
| Four degrees of mental retardation | Mild, Moderate, Severe, Profound (for profound, institutionalization may be the only option) - see table in textbook. |
| Heritability | the proportion of variation among individuals that we can attribute to genes (variability depends on the range of populations and environments studied) |
| Stereotype Threat | A self-confirming concern that one will be evaluated based on a negative stereotype |
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