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AP Psychology - Language and Cognition Flashcards

Advanced Placement Psychology
Enterprise High School, Redding, CA
All terms from Myers Psychology for AP (BFW Worth, 2011)

Terms : Hide Images
5382611405cognitionall the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating.0
5382611406concepta mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people.1
5382611407prototypea mental image or best example of a category.2
5382611408algorithma methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem. Contrasts with the usually speedier—but also more error-prone—use of heuristics.3
5382611409heuristica simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently; usually speedier but also more error-prone than algorithms.4
5382611410insighta sudden and often novel realization of the solution to a problem; it contrasts with strategy-based solutions.5
5382611411behaviorist theorythe theory of language development that argues humans learn language through trial/error and gradually learn more effective ways to speak to get what they want6
5382611412confirmation biasa tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence.7
5382611413fixationthe inability to see a problem from a new perspective, by employing a different mental set.8
5382611414mental seta tendency to approach a problem in one particular way, often a way that has been successful in the past.9
5382611415functional fixednessthe tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual functions; an impediment to problem solving.10
5382611416representativeness 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.11
5382611417availability 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.12
5382611418nativist theorythe theory of language development that states that humans have a natural, innate ability to develop language (theorized by Chomsky)13
5382611419belief perseveranceclinging to one's initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited.14
5382611420Language Acquisition Devicethis structure allows for the innate development of language (theorized by Chomsky)15
5382611421framingthe way an issue is posed; how an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and judgments.16
5382611422languageour spoken, written, or signed words and the ways we combine them to communicate meaning.17
5382611423phonemein language, the smallest distinctive sound unit.18
5382611424morphemein a language, the smallest unit that carries meaning; may be a word or a part of a word (such as a prefix).19
5382611425grammarin a language, a system of rules that enables us to communicate with and understand others.20
5382611426semanticsthe set of rules by which we derive meaning from morphemes, words, and sentences in a given language; also, the study of meaning.21
5382611427syntaxthe rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences in a given language.22
5382611428babbling stagebabies spontaneously uttering a variety of words, such as ah-goo23
5382611429one-word stagethe stage in which children speak mainly in single words24
5382611430two-word stagethey start uttering two word sentences25
5382611431telegraphic speechearly speech stage in which a child speaks like a telegram—"go car"—using mostly nouns and verbs.26
5382611432linguistic determinismWhorf's hypothesis that language determines the way we think.27

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