chapter 8 vocab

Question 1

Algorithms

Answer 1

a methodical, logical rule/procedure that guarantees a solution to a particular problem

Question 2

Availability heuristic

Answer 2

estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory

Question 3

Babbling stage

Answer 3

at 4 months, stage of speech development, infant spontaneously utter various sounds at first

Question 4

Belief bias/perseverance

Answer 4

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

Question 5

Bilingualism

Answer 5

acquisition of 2 languages that use different speech sounds, vocabs and grammatical rules

Question 6

Cognition (thinking)

Answer 6

mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, communication

Question 7

Concept

Answer 7

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

Question 8

Conceptual hierarchy

Answer 8

a multi level classification system based on common properties among items

Question 9

Confirmation bias

Answer 9

a tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore/distort contradictory evidence

Question 10

Conjunction fallacy

Answer 10

error that occurs when people estimate that the odds of 2 uncertain events happening together are greater than the odds of either event happening alone

Question 11

Convergent thinking

Answer 11

narrowing down a list of alternatives to converge on a single correct answer

Question 12

Creativity

Answer 12

ability to produce novel and valuable ideas

Question 12

Decision making

Answer 12

process of evaluation alternatives and making choices among them

Question 13

Divergent thinking

Answer 13

trying to expand the range of alternatives by generating many possible solutions

Question 14

Expertise

Answer 14

a well-developed base of knowledge, furnishes the ideas, images and phrases we use as mental building blocks

Question 15

Fixation

Answer 15

the inability to see a problem from a new perspective, by employing a different mental set

Question 16

Framing

Answer 16

the way an issue is posed

Question 17

Functional fixedness

Answer 17

the tendency to thinking of things only in terms of their usual functions, impediment to problem solving

Question 17

Grammar

Answer 17

in a language, a system of rules that enables us to communicate with and understand others

Question 18

Heuristic

Answer 18

a simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently

Question 19

Insight

Answer 19

a sudden and often novel realization of the solution to a problem

Question 20

Intuition

Answer 20

an effortless, immediate, automatic feeling/thought, as contrast with explicit, conscious reasoning

Question 21

Language

Answer 21

our spoken, written, signed words and ways we combined them to communicate meaning

Question 22

Language acquisition device (LAD)

Answer 22

Chomsky, an innate mechanism/process that facilitates the learning of language

Question 22

Linguistic relativity hypothesis

Answer 22

language determines the way we think, Benjamin Lee Whorf

Question 23

Long-term potentiation (LTP)

Answer 23

an increase in a cell’s firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation

Question 24

Mental age

Answer 24

intelligence testing score that indicates that a child displays the mental ability typical of a child of that chronological (actual) age, the chronological age that most typically corresponds to a given level of performance

Question 24

Mental set

Answer 24

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

Question 25

Morphemes

Answer 25

in a language, the smallest unit that carries meaning

Question 26

Nonsense syllables

Answer 26

consonant-vowel-consonant arrangements that do not correspond to words

Question 27

One-word stage

Answer 27

stage in speech development, age 1-2, child speaks mostly in single words, begin to sue sounds to communicate meaning

Question 28

Overconfidence

Answer 28

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

Question 29

Phonemes

Answer 29

in language, the smallest distinctive sound unit

Question 30

problem solving

Answer 30

active efforts to discover what must be done to achieve a goal that is not readily available

Question 31

Representativeness heuristic

Answer 31

judging the likelihood of things in terms of how well they seem to represent, or match, particular prototypes

Question 31

Prototypes

Answer 31

a mental image or best example of a category

Question 32

Selective attention

Answer 32

allows one to focus on certain specific sensory information, while ignoring other sensory input

Question 33

Semantics

Answer 33

the set of rules by which we derive meaning from morphemes, words and sentences, the study of meaning

Question 33

Spacing effect

Answer 33

tendency for distributed study to result in better, longer-term retention than other methods

Question 34

Syntax

Answer 34

the rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences in a given language

Question 35

Telegraphic speech

Answer 35

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

Question 36

Theory of bounded rationality

Answer 36

idea that people tend to use simple strategies in decision making, often result in irrational decisions that are less optimal

Question 37

Trial and error

Answer 37

trying possible solutions sequentially and discarding those that are in error until one works

Question 38

Two-word stage

Answer 38

age 2, child speaks mostly 2 words statements

Question 39

Overgeneralization (overregulation)

Answer 39

application of grammatical rules without making appropriate exceptions, language rules are applied too generally