Unit 5 - Cognition, Language, and Intelligence Flashcards
Cognition
Mental activity associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating information.
Concept
Metal groupings of similar objects, events, people; forms the basis of thought.
Prototype
Mental image of the best example of a specific category or concept.
Schemas
Mental concepts or frameworks that organize and interpret information.
Assimilation
Interpreting a new experience in terms of an existing schema.
Accomodation
Changing an existing schema to incorporate new information that cannot be assimilated.
Creativity
Ability to produce novel and valuable ideas within any discipline.
Metacognition
Active control and awareness of your thinking; complex process during which we examine how we are thinking, the cognitive steps we take, the biases we may have, and our approach to learning a task.
Trial and error
Process by which we try out different solutions until we find one that works.
Algorithm
Methodical, logical procedure that guarantees success because it explores every possibility; it is sometimes time consuming.
Heuristic
“Rule of thumb” or simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgements and solve problems efficiently; more efficient but does not guarantee success and sometimes impedes problem solving.
Representative heuristic
Tendency to judge the likelihood of things in terms of their usual functions or how it matches a prototype.
Availability heuristic
A cognitive bias where people rely on readily available information when making decisions, even if it’s not the best or most accurate information.
Insight
Sudden and often novel realization of the solution of a problem; contrasts with trial and error and may often follow unsuccessful episode of trial and error.
Intuition
What we know without knowing how we know it.
Mindset
Mental approach to problems and issues, often connected to the psychological construct of intelligence.
Growth mindset
Mental approach that believes we can improve.
Fixed mindset
Mental approach that believes there will never be a change.
Confirmation bias
Obstacle to problem solving in which people tend to search for information that validates their preconceptions.
Gambler’s fallacy
Cognitive bias that occurs when people believe the outcomes of random events are influenced by previous outcomes; hinders people from making a good decision; people mistakenly think a certain event will occur in the future because it has occurred twice recently.
Sunk-cost fallacy
Cognitive bias that occurs when people continue investing time, money, or effort into a project/endeavor because they’ve already invested significant resources; hinders people from making a good decision.
Mental set
Tendency to apply a problem-solving strategy that has been suc
