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AP Psych: Thinking & Language Flashcards

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3743394081Cognitionall the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating. (pp. 298, 417)0
3743394082Concepta mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people. (p. 298)1
3743394083Prototypea mental image or best example of a category. Matching new items to a prototype provides a quick and easy method for sorting items into categories (as when comparing feathered creatures to a prototypical bird, such as a robin). (p. 299)2
3743394084algorithma methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem. Contrasts with the usually speedier—but also more error-prone—use of heuristics. (p. 300)3
3743394905heuristica simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently; usually speedier but also more error-prone than algorithms. (p. 300)4
3743395481insighta sudden and often novel realization of the solution to a problem; it contrasts with strategy-based solutions. (pp. 236, 300)5
3743396123creativitythe ability to produce novel and valuable ideas. (p. 301)6
3743396124confirmation biasa tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence. (p. 303)7
3743396125fixation(1) the inability to see a problem from a new perspective, by employing a different mental set. (2) according to Freud, a lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage, in which conflicts were unresolved. (pp. 303, 483)8
3743396126mental seta tendency to approach a problem in one particular way, often a way that has been successful in the past. (p. 303)9
3743396465functional fixednessthe tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual functions; an impediment to problem solving. (p. 303)10
3743396466representative heuristicjudging the likelihood of things in terms of how well they seem to represent, or match, particular prototypes; may lead us to ignore other relevant information. (p. 304)11
3743396467availability heuristicestimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; if instances come readily to mind (perhaps because of their vividness), we presume such events are common. (p. 305)12
3743397595overconfidencethe tendency to be more confident than correct—to overestimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgments. (p. 306)13
3743397596belief perseveranceclinging to one's initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited. (p. 307)14
3743397597intuitionan effortless, immediate, automatic feeling or thought, as contrasted with explicit, conscious reasoning. (p. 308)15
3743398039framingthe way an issue is posed; how an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and judgments. (p. 311)16
3743398040languageour spoken, written, or signed words and the ways we combine them to communicate meaning. (p. 313)17
3743398041phonemein language, the smallest distinctive sound unit. (p. 313)18
3743398534morphemein a language, the smallest unit that carries meaning; may be a word or a part of a word (such as a prefix). (p. 314)19
3743398535grammarin a language, a system of rules that enables us to communicate with and understand others. (p. 314)20
3743398536semanticsthe set of rules by which we derive meaning from morphemes, words, and sentences in a given language; also, the study of meaning. (p. 314)21
3743400161syntaxthe rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences in a given language. (p. 314)22
3743400162babbling stagebeginning at about 4 months, the stage of speech development in which the infant spontaneously utters various sounds at first unrelated to the household language. (p. 315)23
3743400163one word stagethe stage in speech development, from about age 1 to 2, during which a child speaks mostly in single words. (p. 316)24
3743400164two word stagebeginning about age 2, the stage in speech development during which a child speaks mostly two-word statements. (p. 316)25
3743400165telegraphic speechearly speech stage in which a child speaks like a telegram—"go car"—using mostly nouns and verbs. (p. 316)26
3743400632Linguistic DeterminismWhorf's hypothesis that language determines the way we think. (p. 319)27
3743401691Intelligence testa method for assessing an individual's mental aptitudes and comparing them with those of others, using numerical scores. (p. 524)28
3743401692Intelligencemental quality consisting of the ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations. (p. 524)29
3743402121general intelligence (g)a general intelligence factor that, according to Spearman and others, underlies specific mental abilities and is therefore measured by every task on an intelligence test. (p. 524)30
3743402122factor analysisa statistical procedure that identifies clusters of related items (called factors) on a test; used to identify different dimensions of performance that underlie a person's total score. (p. 524)31
3743402724savant syndromea condition in which a person otherwise limited in mental ability has an exceptional specific skill, such as in computation or drawing. (p. 525)32
3743402725emotional intelligencethe ability to perceive, understand, manage, and use emotions. (p. 528)33
3743402726mental agea measure of intelligence test performance devised by Binet; the chronological age that most typically corresponds to a given level of performance. Thus, a child who does as well as the average 8-year-old is said to have a mental age of 8. (p. 533)34
3743403379Stanford-Binetthe widely used American revision (by Terman at Stanford University) of Binet's original intelligence test. (p. 534)35
3743403380Intelligence Quotient (IQ)defined originally as the ratio of mental age (ma) to chronological age(ca) multiplied by 100 (thus, IQ = ma/ca × 100). On contemporary intelligence tests, the average performance for a given age is assigned a score of 100. (p. 534)36
3743403848achievement testtests designed to assess what a person has learned. (p. 535)37
3743403849aptitude testtests designed to predict a person's future performance; aptitude is the capacity to learn. (p. 535)38
3743404255Weschler Adult Intelligence Scalethe WAIS is the most widely used intelligence test; contains verbal and performance (nonverbal) subtests. (p. 535)39
3743404256standardizationdefining meaningful scores by comparison with the performance of a pretested group. (p. 536)40
3743405639normal curve(normal distribution) a symmetrical, bell-shaped curve that describes the distribution of many types of data; most scores fall near the mean (68 percent fall within one standard deviation of it) and fewer and fewer near the extremes. (pp. 40, 536)41
3743405640reliabilitythe extent to which a test yields consistent results, as assessed by the consistency of scores on two halves of the test, or on retesting. (p. 538)42
3743405641content validitythe extent to which a test samples the behavior that is of interest. (p. 538)43
3743406000predictive validitythe success with which a test predicts the behavior it is designed to predict; it is assessed by computing the correlation between test scores and the criterion behavior. (Also calledcriterion-related validity.) (p. 538)44
3743406001intellectual disability(formerly referred to as mental retardation) a condition of limited mental ability, indicated by an intelligence score of 70 or below and difficulty in adapting to the demands of life; varies from mild to profound. (p. 542)45
3743406689Down's Syndromea condition of intellectual disability and associated physical disorders caused by an extra copy of chromosome 21. (p. 542)46
3743406690stereotype threata self-confirming concern that one will be evaluated based on a negative stereotype. (p. 555)47

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