Cognition Test #3
affect heuristic:
A reasoning heuristic consisting of a tendency for people to overestimate the risk of events that generate a strong emotional reaction.
affirming the consequent:
An invalid conclusion from a conditional syllogism in which one concludes the antecedent is true because the consequent is true.
anchoring:
A reasoning heuristic in which people tend to focus and rely on initial pieces of information.
argument from analogy:
A kind of inductive reasoning in which the observation that two things share some set of properties and conclude that they must share a different property.
atmosphere effect:
A tendency to rate conclusions as more valid when the qualifying words in the premises match those in the conclusions.
availability heuristic:
A tendency to rely on information that quickly comes to mind when trying to make a decision.
base-rate fallacy:
An error in reasoning in which people ignore the underlying probability of an event in favor of some present evidence.
Bayesian inference:
A mathematical model for updating existing beliefs, called "a prior with new data."
belief bias:
A bias in deductive reasoning in which conclusions that are more believable are rated as being more valid.
categorical syllogism:
A kind of syllogism consisting of three statements: two premises and one conclusion.
conditional (or hypothetical) syllogism:
A kind of syllogism that states a rule that relates two propositions.
confirmation bias:
A kind if invalid reasoning from a conditional syllogism in which one concludes that the consequent is false based on the antecedent being false.
conjunction fallacy:
An error in logic in which people assume that two specific conditions are more probable than a single, encompassing condition.
cultural cognition:
A tendency for people to hold beliefs about risk that are consistent with their broader social and moral values.
decision making:
The action of choosing a specific course of behavioral actions from among multiple possibilities.
deduction:
A kind of reasoning processes where the conclusion follows directly from the initial premises.
denying the antecedent:
A kind of invalid reasoning from a conditional syllogism in which one concludes that the consequent is false based on the antecedent being false.
endowment effect:
A tendency for people to place a higher value on objects they already own over those that they don't yet own.
expected utility theory:
A theory from economics that holds that people make decision in accordance with maximizing expected value.
fallacy:
An invalid syllogism.
generalization:
Extrapolation from a limited number of observations to draw a conclusion about the broader population or category.
heuristics:
Mental shortcuts for drawing inferences based on limited information without slow deliberation.
Ikea effect:
A tendency for people to place a higher value on objects they built themselves vs. those that others built.
incidental emotions:
Emotions that are not directly related to the decision under consideration.
induction:
A kind of reasoning which relies on generalizing from a certain set of information and extending it to make an informed guess.
integral emotions:
Emotions that are directly related to a decision.
loss aversion:
A tendency of people to prefer avoiding losing something as compared with not gaining something of equal value.
mental models:
A kind of mental simulation of the world.
modus ponens (or affirming the antecedent):
A rule in relation to a conditional syllogisms in which if the antecedent is observed to be true, then the consequent may be concluded to be true.
modus tollens (or denying the consequent):
A rule in relation to conditional syllogisms when we observe that the consequent is false and conclude that the antecedent must be false as well.
neuroeconomics:
A field of research that combines economics, psychology, and neuroscience in order to understand and predict human choices.
nudge theory:
An approach to behavioral modification in which conditions of the environment are used to influence behavior and decision-making.
one-shot learning:
A kind of inductive reasoning in which a concept is learned from a single example.
premise:
An estimate about whether certain possible facts about the world, called propositions, are true.
preposition:
Any statement that can be true or false.
reasoning:
The action of drawing new conclusions from existing information.
representativeness heuristic:
A heuristic in which people rely on a person or object conforming to a specific category while neglecting other types of information or reasoning.
statistical syllogism:
A form of inductive reasoning in which observations about a group lead to an inference about an individual.
status quo bias:
A tendency for people to leave things as they currently are rather than making a change.
syllogism:
A kind of reasoning that involves drawing a conclusion from two or more propositional statements.
Ultimatum Game:
An experimental paradigm in which two people, a proposer and responder, split a pot of money.
Algorithms:
A step-by-step procedure that will always produce a correct solution
Chunk
Any combination of letters, numbers, or sounds that constitute a meaningful whole. It is the proposed unit for measuring capacity in STM.
Fixation
The tendency to focus on a specific characteristic of a problem.
Functional fixedness
The tendency to view objects only for their intended purpose because of prior experience with that object.
Goal state
In problem solving, it is the desired final state or ending situation
Heuristic
Rules-of-thumb that can be used to help solve problems, based on simple properties of the available information.
Ideational fluency
A measure where the number of ideas a person can generate about a particular topic or item is used to assess a their creativity.
ill-defined problem
A problem that does not have clear goal states, solution paths, or expected solutions.
Initial state
In problem solving, it is the initial situation or starting point of a problem
Insight
The phenomenon where the solution to a problem suddenly comes to consciousness.
Insight problem
A problem in which the solution occurs suddenly onto your consciousness
Law of effect
A response that produces a satisfying effect will become more likely to occur again in that situation, and a response that produce a discomforting effect will become less likely to occur again in that situation.
Means-end analysis
A heuristic in problem solving in which you create sub-goals as you move closer to the final goal state.
Mental state
In problem solving, it is the tendency to use solutions that have worked in the past, or the tendency to respond to something in a given, or set, way
Non-insight problem
A problem distinguished by the process of consciously working through each step of a problem to arrive at a solution.
Operators
Actions that transform the current problem state into another problem state
Problem solving
A cognitive process that involves recognizing there is a problem, analyzing and solving it, and then verifying the effectiveness of the solution.
Problem
Occurs when there is an obstacle between an initial state and a goal state when you do not know the solution right away.
Productive process
The process of problem solving that occurs when thinking is characterized by the restructuring of information in such a way as to provide a solution. Additionally, the productive process produces insight.
Reproductive process
The process of problem solving that uses knowledge from past experiences and uses a trial and error strategy to work out solutions.
Restructuring
Process of actively manipulating information to change its representation in your mind
Trial and error
An approach to problem solving that involves trying a number of different solutions and ruling out those that do not work.
Well-defined problem
A problem that has a specific goal state, clearly defined solutions and clearly expected solutions.
Working backwards
A heuristic in which you begin solving a problem by focusing on the end result.
According to the levels of processing theory, the important factor in determining what information is remembered in long-term memory is how well some later memory cue matches the way it was encoded. how deeply it was processed initially. how much time was spent rehearsing the information. if the information has had to be recalled several times. Joseph likes to sit in the same seat every day in class. When it comes to exam days, he makes sure to arrive early so he can sit in the same seat. He heard that this will improve his retrieval of information. This is known as: context-specific memory. state-dependent memory. the spacing effect. the testing effect. Your teacher tells you that you have an exam in one month and that you should begin studying now so you can spread out your studying over multiple sessions. Your teacher must know about which effect? Levels of processing Encoding specificity Testing Spacing A defining characteristic of implicit memory is that it includes a first-person type of experience. it is always used strategically. you are not consciously aware you are retrieving it. it is retrieved with the sensory memories that were present at the time of encoding. Explicit memory is subdivided into two broad categories: Episodic and procedural Episodic and semantic Procedural and semantic Declarative and non-declarative Bob is a famous baseball player. His knowledge of the game, for example, there are three strikes before you are out, is __________ memory, whereas his ability to throw fastballs and curveballs is an example of __________ memory. Semantic
declarative Implicit
explicit Semantic
procedural Procedural
semantic George remembers the first time his mother took him out to learn how to dive because he dove into the shallow part and chipped his tooth on the bottom of the pool. This would be described as a __________ memory. Procedural Episodic Semantic Implicit This area of the brain is considered important to consolidating episodic memories. Hippocampus Amygdala Hypothalamus Frontal lobe Patient S.M. has an unusual genetic disorder which resulted in bilateral amygdala damage. Her major dysfunction is that she: has an impaired long-term memory. does not experience fear. does not experience conditioning. has an impaired episodic memory. Autobiographical memory: includes episodic memories of events we’ve experienced as well as semantic memories of basic facts about ourselves. includes semantic memories of events we’ve experienced as well as semantic memories of basic facts about ourselves only includes episodic memories of events we’ve experienced. only includes semantic memories of basic facts about ourselves. Infantile/childhood amnesia is defined as the inability to access ____________ memories. Traumatic Semantic Autobiographical Event-specific
Which of the following is the best description of flashbulb memories? The memory of a high-emotion event in which people have vivid details branded into memory that comes to their mind in flashes The memory of a mundane event in which people have vivid details branded into memory and are not exactly sure why The memory of a high-emotion event in which people have vivid details branded into memory that people eventually have a hard time describing and remembering. The memory of a high-emotion event in which people have vivid details branded into memory that they feel does not decay over time. Neisser and Harsch (1992) interviewed people the day after the Challenger disaster had occurred and recorded them recounting their experience that day. They went back to the same people years after the events had taken place and again recorded their memories. They found: people often remembered very different and conflicting pieces of information and were highly confident in their memories. people often remembered precisely the same information and were highly confident in their memories. people often remembered very different and conflicting pieces of information and were not confident in their memories. people often remembered precisely the same information and were not confident in their memories. The Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm exposes participants to a list of word that all pertain to a categorical theme such as school. However, the word school does not appear on the list. Participants will: sometimes report seeing the word school. always report seeing the word school. never report seeing the word school. be confused on which words they should report. People’s memories can be altered through the introduction—without the person's awareness—of incorrect information that ends up being falsely remembered. This phenomenon is called: Source monitoring The misinformation effect The reconsolidation effect The Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm Loftus and Palmer (1974) showed subjects video clips of car accidents. Immediately after viewing each clip, subjects were asked questions regarding the speed of the cars. Subjects were randomly assigned to groups that received different verbs to describe the collision. The overall finding was that: guesses on speed did not change, but some people did report seeing broken glass. guesses on speed changed only for people who had recently been in car accidents. guesses on speed did not change no matter what verbs were used. guesses on speed changed depending on the verb that described the accident. Research on false memories suggests that: people are usually not as confident in false memories. people know when they are having false memories. people are as confident in false memories as they are in actual memories. false memories can only be induced by psychotherapists Reconsolidation is: when information already stored in memory is accessed and then stored again. when misleading information leads to false memories. a process that people with hippocampal damage utilize to remember new information. thought to be the cause of flashbulb memories. The difference between categories and concepts is that categories are groupings of real objects and concepts are mental representations concepts are groupings of real objects and categories are mental representations categories are concrete and concepts are abstract concepts are concrete and categories are abstract Imagine you are asked to name all the colors you can think of. Why are you likely to name "green" before "turquoise"? Because "green" is a shorter word Because there are more green things in the world than turquoise things Because green is a more typical color than turquoise Because more people like the color green than turquoise What is a prototype? A mental abstraction that contains all of the characteristic features of a category A typical member of a category The most typical exemplar of a category you have encountered A mental representation of all category members Superordinate categories are Informative and distinctive Informative but not distinctive Distinctive but not informative Neither informative nor distinctive The prototype approach to categorization states that a standard representation of a category is based on the definition of the category. a universal set of category members. a set of characteristic features. category members that have been encountered in the past. What is a schema? An organized knowledge base about a topic A mental image of a situation or event All our past knowledge and experience An expectation about future situations or events According to Collins and Quillians' hierarchical semantic network model, why does it take longer for participants to respond "yes" to the "Is a salmon an animal?" than to "Is a salmon a fish"? Salmon is semantically related to "fish" but not "animal" Because activation has farther to travel between "salmon" and "animal" than between "salmon" and "fish" Because animal is a superordinate category Because "salmon" is a typical fish Collins and Loftus' spreading activation model of semantic knowledge organization replaced earlier ideas of a hierarchy with: property inheritance spreading activation distributed patterns of activity semantic relatedness
According to the cognitive approach, what happens between the input and output is computation. Computation is also referred to as ______. an algorithm computing function processing information processing Communication within the neuron (from dendrite to axon terminal) can be described as ______. excitatory inhibitory electrical chemical Choose the statement that best describes the fovea. It is the point where the optic nerve exits in order to reach the brain. It processes fine detail of the location you are looking directly at. It is densely packed with rods and cones. It is more useful in dim light than bright light. What refers to the marked difficulty in recognizing everyday objects? prosopagnosia semantic agnosia LOC disorder occipital aphasia Gauthier and Tarr have proposed that the ______ is not concerned with faces per se, but rather with the ability to discriminate between visually similar stimuli. brain LOC FFA occipital lobe The LOC is to ( ) recognition as the FFA is to ( ) recognition Object, face
In a Skinner box experiment, a rat was administered an electric shock in return for a lever push. This is considered ______.
positive punishment
Occlusion, motion parallax, and binocular disparity are all ______ depth cues.
Broadbent's model is called an early selection model because ______.
The Stroop effect demonstrates that ______.