Cognitive: Thinking Flashcards
You will be able to evaluate how people solve problems, make decisions, and form mental representations, highlighting processes like reasoning, intelligence, and metacognition.
What type of thinking is used to figure out the solution to a math problem?
convergent thinking
Convergent thinking is used when there is one solution to a particular problem.
What type of thinking is used when figuring out alternate sources of energy?
divergent thinking
Divergent thinking is used if there are multiple solutions to a problem or if there is a dissenter to a particular way of thinking.
What is a term used for the understanding of how things generally go?
scripts
For a birthday party, a script might include decorations, attendees, cake, etc.
Fill in the blank.
________ are the way we represent the connectedness of two or more items or ideas.
Concepts
ex: a coat is an item of clothing with long sleeves that opens in the front and keeps us warm
Why would psychologists be interested in algorithms?
Algorithms are one way of solving problems, which is a way to study how the brain works.
Algorithms are an exhaustive problem solving search that go through every possible answer in order to find the correct one. The harder the problem, the more impractical it is for our brains to use algorithms.
What is a heuristic? What are its benefits and drawbacks?
A heuristic is a way of solving a problem that uses common sense, rules of thumb, or educated guesses. It is not always accurate, but it is faster than an algorithm.
What is an availability heuristic?
When you use an availability heuristic, you judge the first things that come to mind as the most important because they are more salient.
For example, people may think air travel is more dangerous than car travel because they see more news stories about plane crashes than car accidents, so plane crashes come to mind first.
How can a representativeness heuristic lead to stereotyping?
Representativeness heuristics take information we have already conceptualized with prototypes and apply them to all situations to make a judgment.
If your prototype of a specific group is negative because of one person in that group, it could lead to incorrectly stereotyping the whole group.
How might the idea of functional fixedness hinder innovation?
Functional fixedness is our tendency to see objects or concepts as they were learned. This cements them in place in our minds so we may be unable to find alternative, innovative uses for these objects or concepts.
Describe the James-Lange theory of emotion.
This theory asserts that changes in physiological states occur before and result in emotion.
Which theory of emotion, as a response to the James-Lange theory, asserts that the physiological response to emotion and the experience of emotion occur simultaneously in response to emotion-provoking stimuli?
Cannon-Bard theory of emotion
(Emergency theory)
What are the two factors of Schachter and Singer’s two factor theory of emotion?
- Physiological arousal
- How we cognitively label the experience of arousal.
What is top-down processing?
This uses information, particularly larger concepts, we already have in our brains to fill in gaps in the things we sense. It can frequently overrule the more primitive areas of our brains.
What is it called when we build a perception of an object by mentally compiling all of its features?
bottom-up processing or feature analysis
This is slower than top-down processing, but is more thorough and less prone to mistakes, and is data driven.
Why does it take longer to name the color of these words than if the colors and the words were congruent?
The stroop effect causes a semantic interference between the color we see and the word we read, slowing response time.
What is “thinking about thinking” known as?
metacognition
John was the only one in the room when the lamp got broken. Therefore, John must have broken the lamp.
What kind of thought does this exemplify?
This is an example of deductive reasoning. There is a specific conclusion to be gleaned from the information available.
How does deductive reasoning differ from inductive reasoning?
With deductive reasoning, information leads to a single conclusion. With inductive reasoning, the specificity of information leads to larger, more general rules.
What are some logical reasoning errors?
- confirmation bias
- semantic effect
- atmosphere effect
If your mother accuses you of something and then uses every aspect of your arguments and body language to prove that you did it, what logical reasoning error is she using?
She is employing confirmation bias, which looks for any piece of evidence (even if it’s wrong) to confirm a belief or solution to a problem.
How might the atmosphere effect prevent you from proper reasoning?
The atmosphere effect is a logical reasoning error in which the phrasing of information affects how a conclusion is made.
Ex. “how fast was the car going when it bumped into the pole?” vs. “how fast was the car going when it slammed into the pole?”
In psychological terms, what is the “eureka!” moment called, when a new perspective comes from the information available?
insight
How is cognitive processing often measured?
It is measured by reaction time, which is also called latency.
Who suggested that people can say two similar items or concepts are related more quickly than they can say two dissimilar items or concepts are unrelated?
Elizabeth Loftus and Allan Collins
They suggest that semantically similar items or concepts are grouped together in memory.
