Cognition -- Thinking and Language (AP) Flashcards

6636230914	cognition	the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating	0
6636230915	concept	a mental group of similar objects, events, ideas, or people	1
6636230916	prototype	a mental image or best example of a category	2
6636230917	algorithm	a methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem. Contrasts with the speedier -- but also more error prone -- use of heuristics.	3
6636230918	heuristic	a simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently; usually speedier but also more error prone than algorithms	4
6636230919	insight	a sudden and often novel realization of the solution to a problem; it contrasts with strategy-based solutions	5
6636230920	creativity	the ability to produce novel and valuable ideas	6
6636230921	confirmation bias	a tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence	7
6636230922	fixation	the inability to see a problem from a new perspective, by employing a different mental set	8
6636230923	mental set	a tendency to approach a problem in one particular way, often a way that has been successful in the past	9
6636230924	functional fixedness	the tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual functions; an impediment to problem solving	10
6636230925	representativeness heuristic	judging 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
6636230926	availability heuristic	estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; if instances come readily to mind, we presume such events are common	12
6636230927	overconfidence	the tendency to be more confident than correct -- to over-estimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgments	13
6636230928	belief perseverance	clinging to one's initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited	14
6636230929	intuition	an effortless, immediate, automatic feeling or thought, as contrasted with explicit, conscious reasoning	15
6636230930	framing	the way an issue is posed; how an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and judgments	16
6636230931	language	our spoken, written, or signed words and the ways we combine them to communicate meaning	17
6636230932	phoneme	in language, the smallest distinctive sound	18
6636230933	morpheme	in language, the smallest unit that carries meaning; may be a word or part of a word (such as a prefix)	19
6636230934	grammar	in language, a system of rules that enables us to communicate with and understand others	20
6636230935	semantics	the set of rules by which we derive meaning from morphemes, words, and sentences in a given language; the study of meaning	21
6636230936	syntax	the rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences in a given language	22
6636230937	babbling stage	beginning at about 4 months, the stage of speech development in which the infant spontaneously utters various sounds at first unrelated to the household language	23
6636230938	one-word stage	the stage in speech development, from about 1 to 2, during which a child speaks mostly in single words	24
6636230939	two-word stage	the stage in speech development, beginning around age 2, during which a child speaks mostly in two-word statements	25
6636230940	telegraphic speech	early speech stage in which a child speaks like a telegram --"go car"--using mostly nouns and verbs	26
6636230941	linguistic determinism	Whorf's hypothesis that language determines the way we think	27
6636230942	linguistic relativity hypothesis	the idea that language influences (not necessarily limits) the thought process, modern view of the relationship between thoughts and language	28
6636230943	cognitive map	a mental representation of an area or place	29
6636230944	schema	a mental framework used to organize and interpret information (perspective)	30
6636230945	critical period	an optimal period shortly after birth when an organism's exposure to certain stimuli or experiences produces proper development	31
6636230946	deductive reasoning	justifying a conclusion based on the truth of the premise; general to specific	32
6636230947	inductive reasoning	form a conclusion based on the accessibility of information; specific to general	33
6636230948	convergent thinking	thinking that is dominated by conforming to a single, correct answer	34
6636230949	divergent thinking	thinking that is linked to creativity and finding multiple solutions to a problem	35
6636230950	overgeneralization	the over-extension of grammar rules	36
6636230951	overextension	when children are too broad with a particular vocabulary word (calling a horse a "doggie")	37
6636230952	underextension	when children are too restrictive with vocabulary words	38