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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
6145273766cognitionall the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating.0
6145273767concepta mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people.1
6145273768prototypea mental image or best example of a category.2
6145273769algorithma 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
6145273770heuristica simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently; usually speedier but also more error-prone than algorithms.4
6145273771insighta sudden and often novel realization of the solution to a problem; it contrasts with strategy-based solutions.5
6145273772behaviorist 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
6145273773confirmation biasa tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence.7
6145273774fixationthe inability to see a problem from a new perspective, by employing a different mental set.8
6145273775mental seta tendency to approach a problem in one particular way, often a way that has been successful in the past.9
6145273776functional fixednessthe tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual functions; an impediment to problem solving.10
6145273777representativeness 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
6145273778availability 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
6145273779nativist theorythe theory of language development that states that humans have a natural, innate ability to develop language (theorized by Chomsky)13
6145273780belief perseveranceclinging to one's initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited.14
6145273781Language Acquisition Devicethis structure allows for the innate development of language (theorized by Chomsky)15
6145273782framingthe way an issue is posed; how an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and judgments.16
6145273783languageour spoken, written, or signed words and the ways we combine them to communicate meaning.17
6145273784phonemein language, the smallest distinctive sound unit.18
6145273785morphemein a language, the smallest unit that carries meaning; may be a word or a part of a word (such as a prefix).19
6145273786grammarin a language, a system of rules that enables us to communicate with and understand others.20
6145273787semanticsthe set of rules by which we derive meaning from morphemes, words, and sentences in a given language; also, the study of meaning.21
6145273788syntaxthe rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences in a given language.22
6145273789babbling stagebabies spontaneously uttering a variety of words, such as ah-goo23
6145273790one-word stagethe stage in which children speak mainly in single words24
6145273791two-word stagethey start uttering two word sentences25
6145273792telegraphic speechearly speech stage in which a child speaks like a telegram—"go car"—using mostly nouns and verbs.26
6145273793linguistic determinismWhorf's hypothesis that language determines the way we think.27

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