cognition
the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating
concept
a mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people
prototype
a mental image or best example of a category; used to sort items into categories quickly
algorithm
a methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem
heuristic
a simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgements and solve problems efficiently (usually error-prone)
insight
a sudden and often novel realization of the solution to a problem; contrast w/ strategy based solutions
confirmation bias
a tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence
fixation
the inability to see a problem from a new perspective, by employing a different mental set
mental set
a tendency to approach a problem in one particular way, often a way that has been successful in the past
functional fixedness
the tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual functions; an impediment to problem solving
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
availability heuristic
estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; if instances come to mind (perhaps b/c of their vividness) we presume such events are common
overconfidence
the tendency to be more confident than correct--to overestimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgements
belief perseverance
clinging to one's initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited
intuition
an effortless, immediate, automatic feeling or thought, as contrasted with explicit, conscious reasoning
framing
the way an issue is posed; how an issue is framed cam significantly affect decisions and judgements
language
our spoke, written, or signed words and the ways we combine them to communicate meaning
phoneme
in language, the smallest distinctive sound unit
morpheme
in language, the smallest unit that carries meaning; may be a word or part of a word (such as a prefix)
grammar
in language, a system of rues that enables us to communicate with and understand others
semantics
the set of rules by which we derive meaning from morphemes, words, and sentences in a given language; also the study of meaning
syntax
the rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences in a given language
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
one-word stage
the stage in speech development, from about age 1 to 2, during which a child speaks mostly in single words
receptive language
ability to comprehend speech
productive language
ability to produce words
two-word stage
beginning about age 2, the stage in speech development during which a child speaks mostly in two-word statements
telegraphic speech
early speech stage in which a child speaks like a telegram-"go car"-using mostly nouns and verbs
aphasia
impairment of language, usually caused by left hemisphere damage either to Broca's area (impairing speaking) or to Wernicke's area (impairing understanding)
Broca's area
controls language expression-an area of the frontal lobe, usually in the left hemisphere, that directs the muscle movements involved in speech
Wernicke's area
controls language reception-a brain area involved in language comprehension and expression; usually in the left temporal lobe
linguistic determinism
Whorf's hypothesis that language determines the way we think