AP Psychology terminology for language and cognition
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| 6121520832 | Cognition | process whereby we acquire and use knowledge; key elements: reviewing the past, contemplating the future, thinking about possibility; thinking | 0 | |
| 6121520833 | language | a flexible system of communication using sounds, rules, gestures, or symbols to convey information; is semantic (meaningful)-gives detailed information; displacement-allows communication over time; productive-create new words to communicate | 1 | |
| 6121520834 | phonemes | basic sound units; indicates change in meaning; universal; 45 phonemes in English, up to 85 in other languages; string together to create morphemes; examples:/s/, /z/, /ch/, /th/, /k/, etc. | 2 | |
| 6121520835 | morphemes | smallest meaningful units of speech; simple words, suffixes, prefixes; examples: red, hot, calm, -ed, pre- | 3 | |
| 6121520838 | grammar | language rules; determines how sounds and words can be combined; used to communicate meaning within a language; has two components: syntax and semantics; meaning is often determined by word order; Noam Chomsky; allows people to make transformation from surface to deep structure in sentences | 4 | |
| 6121520839 | semantics | criteria for assigning meaning to the morphemes in a language; influenced by Noam Chomsky; content of language; evidence by surface and deep structure | 5 | |
| 6121520840 | syntax | Noam Chomsky; system of rules that governs how words are combined/arranged to form meaningful phrases and sentences; determined by word order | 6 | |
| 6121520841 | image | nonverbal; visual, auditory, olfactory; mental representations; Einstein felt that scale in visualizing abstract concepts lead to insights; can be manipulated mentally (Shepard and Metzler) geometric patterns | 7 | |
| 6121520842 | concept | mental categories; classifying objects, people, or experiences; can be modified to better manage experience; example-dogs, books, cars<-- objects in world; fast, strong, interesting<-- things, people, events | 8 | |
| 6121520844 | prototype | Rosch; mental model; model that contains the most typical features of concept; example: cat-pale, whiskers, meow, clause, for, ears | 9 | |
| 6121520847 | trial and error | problem-solving strategy; best if there are limited choices; takes time to try all approaches; try one approach, fail; and another until you succeed; guarantees a solution | 10 | |
| 6121520848 | algorithm | problem-solving strategy; step by step method that guarantees a solution; must be appropriate for the problem to be use; math is a good example | 11 | |
| 6121520849 | heuristic | problem-solving strategy; rule of Tom; does not guarantee a solution; simplifies a problem so a solution may be found; four types: hillclimbing, subgoals, means-end analysis, and working backward | 12 | |
| 6121520851 | subgoals | a heuristic; break problem into smaller, more manageable pieces; example: Hobbits and Orcs problem | 13 | |
| 6121520852 | means-end analysis | a heuristic; probably most use; combines hillclimbing and subgoals; analyze a difference between the current situation and the desired outcome, then do something to reduce the difference; does not preprint detours from final goal; example: pitcher's strategy with best batter-ultimate goal-to win game and keep batters off the base, a walk the best batter to eliminate more runs | 14 | |
| 6121520853 | working backward | a heuristic; used when means end analysis strays from goal; begin with goal and work backwards towards the "givens"; used when goal has more information than the givens and when the operations involved work two ways; example: $100 to spend, buy one item and subtract $100 to determine how much is left | 15 | |
| 6121520854 | set | mental set; tendency to perceive and approach problems in certain ways; determines what information we retrieved from memory to help us find a solution (includes heuristics and algorithms); flexibility comes from multiple sites to choose from (switch or abandon sets); pandered by function fixedness | 16 | |
| 6121520855 | functional fixedness | a hindrance to problem-solving; "assigning" an object in one function (which is how we form concepts); seeing a limited number of uses for an object; example: what can use a pencil for? A brick? | 17 | |
| 6121520858 | divergent thinking | thinking outside the box; generating as many unique answers as possible | 18 | |
| 6121520859 | convergent thinking | only one answer; answers are narrow in focus; example: math problems | 19 | |
| 6121520862 | representativeness | heuristic; decision making model; new situation judged on its resemblance to a stereotypical model; example: you buy an expensive clothes and they fall apart, he judged anything inexpensive to be cheap therefore it is representative of the quality | 20 | |
| 6121520863 | availability | decision-making heuristic; judgment or decision is based on information that is most easily retrieved; type of: Subway Effect-law of nature that you are situation seldom occurs and we adjust accordingly (the other line his faster, until you give in it) | 21 | |
| 6121520864 | confirmation bias | decision-making heuristic; tendency to look for evidence in support of a believe and to ignore evidence to disprove the believe; seeing patterns of cause and effect when there is any pattern; example: AIDS, chocolate and acne | 22 | |
| 6121520865 | linguistic-relativity hypothesis | Benjamin Whorf; thinking patterns based on specific languages; evidence by linguistic determinism | 23 | |
| 6121520866 | figurative language | expressive language; smiles and metaphors | 24 | |
| 6121520868 | Framing | perspective or phrasing of information used to make a decision; studies on survival and mortality framing | 25 | |
| 6121520869 | hindsight bias | tendency to view outcomes as inevitable and predictable after we know the outcome, and believe that we could have predicted what happened; "I knew it all along" | 26 | |
| 6121520870 | linguistic determinism | idea of the patterns of thinking are determined by the specific language one speaks; Benjamin more; example: Hopi language as to nouns for "flies"-one for birds and one for everything else; Dani limited color terminology-light/dark | 27 | |
| 6121520871 | counterfactual thinking | thinking about alternative realities and things that never happened; what ifs | 28 |
