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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
8276523630cognitionall the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating.0
8276523631concepta mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people.1
8276523632prototypea mental image or best example of a category.2
8276523633algorithma 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
8276523634heuristica simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently; usually speedier but also more error-prone than algorithms.4
8276523635insighta sudden and often novel realization of the solution to a problem; it contrasts with strategy-based solutions.5
8276523636behaviorist 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
8276523637confirmation biasa tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence.7
8276523638fixationthe inability to see a problem from a new perspective, by employing a different mental set.8
8276523639mental seta tendency to approach a problem in one particular way, often a way that has been successful in the past.9
8276523640functional fixednessthe tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual functions; an impediment to problem solving.10
8276523641representativeness 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
8276523642availability 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
8276523643nativist theorythe theory of language development that states that humans have a natural, innate ability to develop language (theorized by Chomsky)13
8276523644belief perseveranceclinging to one's initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited.14
8276523645Language Acquisition Devicethis structure allows for the innate development of language (theorized by Chomsky)15
8276523646framingthe way an issue is posed; how an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and judgments.16
8276523647languageour spoken, written, or signed words and the ways we combine them to communicate meaning.17
8276523648phonemein language, the smallest distinctive sound unit.18
8276523649morphemein a language, the smallest unit that carries meaning; may be a word or a part of a word (such as a prefix).19
8276523650grammarin a language, a system of rules that enables us to communicate with and understand others.20
8276523651semanticsthe set of rules by which we derive meaning from morphemes, words, and sentences in a given language; also, the study of meaning.21
8276523652syntaxthe rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences in a given language.22
8276523653babbling stagebabies spontaneously uttering a variety of words, such as ah-goo23
8276523654one-word stagethe stage in which children speak mainly in single words24
8276523655two-word stagethey start uttering two word sentences25
8276523656telegraphic speechearly speech stage in which a child speaks like a telegram—"go car"—using mostly nouns and verbs.26
8276523657linguistic determinismWhorf's hypothesis that language determines the way we think.27

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