AP Psych Cognition & Language

Question 0

cognitive psychology

Answer 0

study of cognitive activities (the logical/illogical ways in which we create concepts, solve problems, make decisions and judgments, etc.)

Question 1

cognition

Answer 1

thinking & all mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating

Question 2

concepts

Answer 2

mental groupings of similar objects, events, ideas, and people, organized into hierarchies and categories

Question 3

prototype

Answer 3

mental image of best example of a category

Question 4

REI (Rational Experiential Inventory)

Answer 4

two-part questionnaire on thinking styles (rational, effortful, analytical vs. experiential, intuitive, implicit)

Question 5

algorithm

Answer 5

step-by-step, methodical, and logical approach that guarantees a solution every time
accurate but laborious & slow

Question 6

heuristics

Answer 6

simple thinking and problem-solving strategy of shortcuts that is time-efficient but more error-prone

Question 7

insight (aka aha! moment)

Answer 7

sudden and often novel realization of solution to a problem

Question 8

creativity

Answer 8

ability to produce novel and valuable ideas
+ convergent thinking: 1-answer
+ divergent thinking: 2-answer

Question 9

confirmation bias

Answer 9

tendency to seek only evidence that support your idea and ignore contradictory evidence

Question 10

fixation

Answer 10

inability to see a problem from a fresh perspective
+ mental set: tendency to approach a problem in one particular way that is often successful in the past
+ functional fixedness: tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual functions

Question 11

representative heuristic

Answer 11

judging the likelihood of things in terms of how well they match existing prototypes

Question 12

availability heuristic

Answer 12

estimating likelihood of events based on their availability in memory (i.e. people more cautious of shark attacks right after Jaws came out)

Question 13

overconfidence

Answer 13

tendency to overestimate the accuracy of one’s own knowledge and judgments

Question 14

belief perseverance

Answer 14

clinging onto a belief even after it has been discredited

Question 15

intuition

Answer 15

effortless, immediate, and automatic feeling or thought

Question 16

framing

Answer 16

the way an issue is posed; the way one presents an issue

Question 17

language

Answer 17

spoken, written, and signed words and the ways we combine them to communicate meaning

Question 18

phoneme

Answer 18

smallest distinctive sound unit (i.e. b - a - t)

Question 19

morpheme

Answer 19

smallest unit of language that carries meaning, usually a word or part of a word, includes pre- and suffixes

Question 20

grammar

Answer 20

system of rules that enables us to communicate
+ semantics: rules to derive meaning
+ syntax: rules to order words into sentences

Question 21

receptive language

Answer 21

ability to comprehend speech

Question 22

productive language

Answer 22

ability to produce words

Question 23

babbling stage

Answer 23

start around 4 months, infant spontaneously utter various sounds

Question 24

one-word stage

Answer 24

somewhere between the 1st and 2nd year, child speaks mostly in single words

Question 25

two-word stage

Answer 25

around 2nd year, child speaks in simple 2-word sentences (telegraphic speech - "go car")

Question 26

Skinner: language -> operant learning

Answer 26

+ association (sight + sound) + imitation + reinforcement (praise)

Question 27

Chomskyy: learning -> universal grammar

Answer 27

language occurs naturally with nurture, language ability is inborn + L.A.D (Language Acquisition Device) prewired, innate switchbox in the human brain used to language + critical/sensitive period: optimal time during childhood to master language

Question 28

linguistic determinism

Answer 28

Whorf's hypothesis that language determines/influences the way we think

Question 29

bilingual advantage

Answer 29

bilingual people are better at controlling their focus and inhibit irrelevant information