Cognitive Psych

Question 1

reacting time

Answer 1

elapsed time between stimulus presentation and subject’s response to it

Question 2

eye movements

Answer 2

an “on-line” measure of information processing

Question 3

brain imaging

Answer 3

used to associate various cognitive processes with various parts of the brain

Question 4

forgetting curve

Answer 4

without practice, we forget rapidly, then at a certain point, forgetting occurs at a much lesser rate

(this is if you don’t practice)

Question 5

encoding

Answer 5

putting information into memory

Question 6

storage

Answer 6

retaining information in memory

Question 7

retrieval

Answer 7

recovering the information in memory

Question 8

recall

Answer 8

method of retrieval; independently reproducing information that you have been previously exposed to

Question 9

recognition

Answer 9

method of retrieval; realizing that a certain stimulus event is one you’ve seen or heard before

Question 10

generation-recognition

Answer 10

why you can usually recognize more than you can recall: model suggests that recall involves the same mental process involved in recognition plus another process not required for recognition

Question 11

recency effect

Answer 11

words presented at end of list are remembered best

Question 12

primacy effect

Answer 12

words presented at beginning of list are remembered second best

Question 13

clustering

Answer 13

when asked to recall list of words, people tend to recall words belonging to same category

Question 14

stage theory of memory

Answer 14

there are several different memory systems, and each system has a different function

Question 15

3 memory systems

Answer 15

1. sensory memory
2. short-term memory
3. long-term memory

Question 16

sensory memory

Answer 16

contains fleeting impressions of sensory stimuli

Question 17

whole-report procedure

Answer 17

showed subjects grid of 9, told them to say what they remembered, could only remember about 4

Question 18

partial-report procedure

Answer 18

used grid of 9, told them which row to repeat, they said basically perfectly

sensory memory capacity: 9

Question 19

short-term memory

Answer 19

link between our rapidly changing sensory memory & more lasting long-term memory

Question 20

maintenance rehearsal

Answer 20

repeating information in STM to keep it there longer than 20 seconds

Question 21

long-term memory

Answer 21

permanent storehouse of your experiences, knowledge, & skills

Question 22

elaborative rehearsal

Answer 22

involves organizing material & associating it w/ info you already have in your long-term memory to put it in your LTM

Question 23

procedural memory

Answer 23

remembering how to do things

Question 24

declarative memory

Answer 24

remembering explicit information

Question 25

semantic memory

Answer 25

remembering general knowledge

Question 26

episodic memory

Answer 26

remembering particular events you have personally experienced

Question 27

in STM, encoding of verbal material likely to be based on

Answer 27

phonology

Question 28

in LTM, encoding of verbal material likely to be based on

Answer 28

meaning

Question 29

semantic verification task

Answer 29

method used to investigate organization of semantic memory

Question 30

spreading activation model

Answer 30

semantic memory organized into map of interconnected concepts; key is the distance between concepts

Question 31

semantic feature-comparison model

Answer 31

semantic memory contains feature lists of concepts; key is the amount of overlap in the feature lists of the concepts

Question 32

levels-of-processing theory

Answer 32

what determines how long you will remember material is not what memory system it gets into, but the way in which you process the material

Question 33

3 ways of processing information according to levels-of-processing theory

Answer 33

1. physical (visual) 2. acoustical 3. semantic

Question 34

Paivio's dual-code hypothesis

Answer 34

information can be encoded visually or verbally

Question 35

schema

Answer 35

conceptual frameworks we use to organize our knowledge

Question 36

decay theory

Answer 36

if information in LTM isn't used or rehearsed, it will be forgotten

Question 37

inhibition theory

Answer 37

suggests that forgetting is due to activities that have taken place between original learning & later attempted recall

Question 38

proactive inhibition

Answer 38

what you learned earlier interferes with what you learn later

Question 39

retroactive inhibition

Answer 39

happens when you forget what you learned earlier as you learn something new

Question 40

encoding specificity

Answer 40

assumption that recall will be best if the context at recall approximates the context during original encoding

Question 41

state-dependent learning

Answer 41

type of encoding specificity - if the test is in a classroom, you should study in a classroom

Question 42

mnemonic devices

Answer 42

techniques we use to improve likelihood that we will remember something

Question 43

method of loci

Answer 43

system of associating information with some sequence of places with which you're familiar - mansion memorizing

Question 44

Bartlett

Answer 44

prior knowledge & expectations influence recall

Question 45

Elizabeth Loftus

Answer 45

eyewitness are wrong a lot

Question 46

Zeigarnik effect

Answer 46

tendency to remember incomplete tasks better than completes tasks

Question 47

mental set

Answer 47

tendency to keep repeating solutions that worked in other situations - water-jug problem

Question 48

functional fixedness

Answer 48

inability to use a familiar object in an unfamiliar way - tacking candle to wall / matchbox

Question 49

creativity

Answer 49

cognitive ability that results in new ways of viewing problems or situations

Question 50

divergent thinking

Answer 50

thinking that involves producing as many creative answers to a question as possible

Question 51

heuristics

Answer 51

short-cuts or rules of thumb; people use this to make decisions

Question 52

availability heuristic

Answer 52

making decisions about frequencies based upon how easy it is to imagine the items involved

Question 53

representativeness heuristic

Answer 53

categorizing things on the basis of whether they fit the prototypical image of the category

Question 54

base-rate fallacy

Answer 54

ignoring numerical information about items being referred to when categorizing them - using stereotypes rather than facts

Question 55

phonemes

Answer 55

smallest sound units of language field = f + e + l + d

Question 56

morphemes

Answer 56

smallest units of meaning in language walked = walk + ed

Question 57

semantics

Answer 57

meanings of words and sentences

Question 58

syntax

Answer 58

grammatical arrangement of words in sentences

Question 59

learning theory

Answer 59

language acquired through classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and/or modeling

Question 60

cognitive developmental theory

Answer 60

language continues to develop according to child's cognitive level - has to do with child's capacity for symbolic thought

Question 61

who was a proponent of learning theory of language?

Answer 61

Skinner

Question 62

who was a proponent of cognitive developmental theory of language?

Answer 62

Piaget

Question 63

nativist theory

Answer 63

some sort of innate, biologically based mechanism for language acquisition

Question 64

language acquisition device (LAD)

Answer 64

built-in advanced knowledge of rule structures in language

Question 65

surface structure of sentence

Answer 65

actual word order of words in sentence

Question 66

deep / abstract structure of sentence

Answer 66

underlying form that specifies meaning of the sentence

Question 67

transformational rules

Answer 67

tell us how we can change from one sentence form to another (ex: from sentence in active voice to passive voice)

Question 68

Whorfian hypothesis

Answer 68

language determines how reality is perceived

Question 69

gender differences in language

Answer 69

better verbal abilities in girls

Question 70

fluid intelligence

Answer 70

Catell ability to grasp relationships in novel situations & make correct deductions from them increases throughout childhood & adolescence, levels off in young adulthood, begins a steady decline w/ advanced age

Question 71

crystallized intelligence

Answer 71

Catell ability to understand relationships or solve problems that depend on knowledge acquired as a result of schooling or other life experiences - increases throughout lifespan

Question 72

primary mental abilities

Answer 72

Thurstone - verbal comprehension, number ability, etc.

Question 73

triarchic theory

Answer 73

3 aspects to intelligence: 1. componential 2. experiential 3. contextual

Question 74

theory of multiple intelligences

Answer 74

Gardner 7 defined: musical ability, spatial, mathematical, linguistic, logical, etc.

Question 75

parallel distributed processing

Answer 75

McClelland & Rumelhart information processing distributed across brain is done in parallel fashion

Question 76

metacognition / metamemory

Answer 76

person's ability to think about & monitor cognition & memory