Thinking
Cognition
Metacognition
-Mental processes involved in gaining/knowledge/comprehension; types of cognitive processes: attention, language, learning, memory, perception, thought; things that affect cognitive age: age, cognitive biases, genetics, memory limitations
-Awareness and understanding of your own thought process; it is valuable to be able to understand and assess the way that you think through problems so that you can find errors in your own logic or critique the way in which you approached a problem
Anchoring bias
Availability bias
-Our tendency to rely too much on the 1st piece of information
-Believing something is more likely because it is easier to remember (such as the news) (experiencing something will make that experience more true to us)
Functional fixedness
A tendency to see objects as working in a particular way (makes problem-solving more difficult, not changing perspectives); not always a bad thing- can act as a mental shortcut to allow you to efficiently determine practical use for an object
Phoneme
Morpheme
-Basic sounds we use to create our words (45 phonemes in the English language, but at least 870 spanning 500 other languages)
-The sounds that carry meaning such as suffixes and prefixes (most morphemes are combos of 2 or more phonemes)
Babbling stage
Beginning at about 4 months, the stage of speech development in which the infant spontaneously utters various sounds at first unrelated to the household language
Concepts
Prototypes
Exemplars
-Fundamental building blocks of thinking. Concepts never exist on their own, they are always connected to other concepts. So the concept of a "dog" is connected to other concepts like leash, bone, etc. These connected mental concepts are called schemas.
-Mental images that our mind creates that provide the best example of the of the conceptual category. For example, we use our "prototype chair" to compare against all other types of seats to determine if they share enough of the characteristics to be called a chair.
-The greatest example of a concept that your brain has a memory of from experience. For instance, if your prototype concept for "dog" is a golden retriever, then your exemplar would be a golden retriever you met before.
Endowment bias
Overconfidence bias
-Our tendency to overvalue something because we own it
-Tendency to be more confident in our abilities than is objectively justified
Peak-end rule
When people judge an experience based on how they felt at its peak and its end rather than the overall/average of the experience
Semantics
Syntax
Grammar
-The rules that allow us to differentiate meanings from sounds, words, and sentences
-A set of rules that determine how a language structures its sentences; often refers to the order of words in a sentence
-System of rules that enables one to communicate with and understand others
One-word stage
The stage in speech development, from about age 1 to 2- during which a child speaks mostly in single words (learned that sound carries meaning)
System 1 (heuristic)
System 2 (algorithmic)
-Time most important factor; allows us to solve problems faster, not checking, long-term memory, automatic
-Accuracy most important factor; conscious, calculating problems carefully, working memory, step-by-step, methodical, when something is confusing- it will make this system work harder
Pricing bias
Representative heuristics
Deciding whether an example belongs to a certain class or group on the basis of how similar it is to other items in that class or group
Language acquisition device
Proposed by Noam Chomsky, believes that children are born with an innateness to learn language as they acquire language skills too rapidly and say things that their parents do not teach them (nature)
Two-word stage
Beginning about age 2, the stage in speech development during which a child speaks mostly 2 word statements
Divergent thinking
Convergent thinking
-When thinking diverges and the result is multiple solutions to a single problem
-When all thinking needs to converge to one answer
Implicit bias
Unconscious bias that affects judgments, decisions, and behaviors towards people or groups without conscious knowledge
Belief perseverance
When we hold onto a belief despite having access to evidence that contradicts our beliefs
B.F Skinner
Believes that language is acquired through conditioning (associations made between sounds and meanings, imitation takes place, reinforcement of correct language is rewarded) (nurture)
Telegraphic speech
The early speech stage in which a children speak like a telegram, “go car”- using mostly nouns and verbs
Insight problem solving
Creativity
-Skips over heuristics and algorithms and manifests as a spontaneous answer; not a strategy-based solution but happens more at the unconscious level of awareness; sudden realization of the solution of any problem without repeated trials or continuous practice) (activity in the right temporal lobe)
-Looking at a problem with different perspective; to foster creativity you need to have imagination, be willing to take risks, in a creative environment, and intrinsically motivated
Confirmation bias
Tendency to only look at information that confirms your beliefs
Framing
Mental set
-Presenting information in a very specific way to make it look more or less attractive to your target audience
-Refers to the brain's tendency to stick with the most familiar solution (one solution) to a problem and overlook alternatives
Linguistic determinism
Proposed by Benjamin Whorf, it is the belief that the structure of the language we speak determines how we perceive and conceptualize the world
Schemas
Assimilate
Accommodate
-Mental structures filled with preconceived ideas help us to organize and perceive the world; based on past experiences; provide a framework for future understanding; 5 types of schemas: self schemas, cultural, conceptual, social/gender, situational
-Ex. Compare the previous schema for phones to the new phone in front of me
-Ex. If the new phone has features I can't compare to, I learn or make changes to old schemas to fit new info