Perception
You're driving in heavy traffic while listening to a podcast. This skill helps you focus on the road despite the chatter in your ears.
What is selective attention
When you stop to think about whether your study strategy is working, you're engaging in this process of "thinking about thinking."
What is metacognition
When solving a jigsaw puzzle, you mentally rotate and visualize where pieces might fit. This mental workspace in your working memory is called what?
What is a visuospatial sketchpad
To remember the colors of the rainbow, you use the acronym "ROYGBIV." This type of memory aid is called what?
What is a mnemonic
After a head injury, a man can remember his childhood but struggles to form new memories about daily events. This condition is called what?
What is anterograde amnesia
A basketball player passes the ball to a teammate while a mascot walks across the court, but you don’t notice the mascot because your focus is on the game. This failure of awareness is called what?
What is inattentional blindness
After seeing a coin land on heads five times in a row, you assume tails is "due" on the next flip, even though the odds are still 50-50. This mistaken belief is an example of what?
What is gambler's fallacy
When you briefly see a flash of a lightning bolt, the visual impression lingers for a split second before fading. This type of fleeting memory is called what?
What is sensory memory
To memorize a grocery list, you imagine placing each item along a familiar route, like your walk through your house. This visualization technique is known as what?
What is method of loci
After learning Spanish in high school, you find it difficult to recall most of it years later due to this natural fading of memory over time.
What is storage decay
In a famous optical illusion, you may see either a vase or two faces depending on what you interpret as the background. This principle that helps distinguish objects from their surroundings is called what?
What is figure-ground
You continue to watch a boring movie because you already paid for the ticket, even though you'd rather be doing something else. This decision illustrates
What is sunk-cost fallacy?
While memorizing a friend’s phone number, you break it into chunks like "555-123-4567" because this rule states the average person can hold about 7 pieces of information in short-term memory.
A student studies for an exam by reviewing material for 30 minutes each day over a week instead of cramming the night before. This effective learning strategy is called what?
What is distributed or spaced practice
When trying to remember your new email password, you keep accidentally typing your old one. This type of memory interference is called what?
What is proactive interference
After hearing a weather report predicting rain, you mistakenly think you see dark clouds forming, even though the sky is mostly clear. This readiness to perceive something in line with expectations is an example of what?
What is perceptual set
After meeting a quiet person who loves books, you assume they are a librarian instead of a salesperson, ignoring the fact that there are far more salespeople. This mental shortcut is called what?
What is the representativeness heuristic
When you recall that Paris is the capital of France, you’re using this type of memory, which stores facts and general knowledge.
After reading a chapter, you take a self-quiz to reinforce the material. This phenomenon, where testing yourself improves retention more than re-reading, is called what?
What is the testing effect
After witnessing a car accident, you incorrectly recall seeing broken glass because someone suggested the cars "smashed" into each other. This distortion in memory is known as what?
What is the misinformation effect
In a photograph of a meadow, the blades of grass near the bottom of the image appear sharp and detailed, while those farther away blend into a smoother texture. This monocular cue for depth perception is called what?
What is texture gradient
A politician proposes a plan, emphasizing it will create jobs for 90% of workers, while ignoring that it leaves 10% unemployed. This persuasive strategy uses what cognitive bias?
What is framing
After practicing a skill repeatedly, the connections between neurons involved in that skill become stronger, improving your ability to perform it. This neural basis of learning is called what?
What is long-term potentiation
You’re more likely to remember the word "apple" if you think about how it tastes and smells rather than simply how it’s spelled. This principle, stating deeper analysis leads to better memory, is known as what?
What is the level of processing theory
You tell a friend an interesting fact, not realizing you originally learned it from them. This memory error, where you forget where information came from, is called what?
What is source amnesia