Module 26 Flashcards
cognition
all of the mental activities associated with thinking, remembering, and communicating knowledge
concepts
mental group of similar objects, events, ideas, or people; defined by a definition or prototype
definition
concept defined by technical rules
prototype
image or best example of a concept/category; when something matces it, more readily associate it w the concept; when it doesn’t, don’t realize its part of the concept
isomorphic problems
same underlying problems with different words
analogical transfer
taking the structure of 1 problem’s solution and applying it to another (isomorphic) problem; many fail to do so even with priming
trial and error
what we do when we don’t possess a Piagetian schema for a problem
algorithms
methodical rule/procedure that guarantees a solution; requires much time and effort
heuristics
simple thinking strategy; allows us to make judgments quickly and easily; rule of thumb; error-prone more so than algorithms
representativeness heuristic
estimating the likelihood of events based on how well they match prototypes; can lead to ignore relevant info and make incorrect estimates; can lead to social consequences
base rate fallacy
when making judgements, tend to ignore known/prior probabilities and focus on expected similarities; representativeness heuristic
availability heuristic
estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; increased by vividness, recency, distinctiveness, etc.; can cause us to fear the wrong things
what do we fear
things we can’t control, what is immediate, what our ancestral history has prepared us to, and what is most available in memory (availability heuristic)
insight
aha moment; associated with bursts of brain activity in frontal lobes before and in temporal lobes during; sudden; causes satisfaction; downfall is that it may not happen
confirmation bias
tendency to search for info that supports our preconceptions and to ignore/distort contradictory evidence; want “confirming evidence”
mental set
tendency to approach a problem with the mindset of what has worked for us previously; can help or hurt
overconfidence
tendency to be more confident than correct; can feed extreme political views; if we know less, we are more definite about it; close minded ideas often lead to this; lead to being happy, competent, and making decisions easier; can decrease by being given prompt and clear feedback
planning falacy
overestimating future leisure time and income
fixation
inability to see a problem from a new perspective; can be bad but also focuses thinking; mental set, confirmation bias, belief perseverance
intuition
automatic immediate feeling/thought; often what we follow; implicit analysis frozen in habit; contradicts conscious/explicit reasoning; based on experience; huge; adaptive; can lead to overthinking/overfeeling
belief perseverance
tendency to cling to one’s beliefs in the face of contrary evidence; close-minded to new evidence
motivated reasoning
using conclusions to assess evidence instead of using evidence to assess conclusions; to alleviate, consider the opp
framing
the way an issue is posed; worded to provoke a desired response; can sig affect decisions and judgement
scientific thinking
look for disconfirming evidence; opp of confirmation bias
