cognition
the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating
concept
a mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, and people
prototype
a mental image or best example or a category. Matching new items to a prototype provides a quick and easy method for sorting items into categories (as when comparing feathered creatures to a prototypical bird, such as a robin)
algorithm
a methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem. Contrasts with the usually speedier-but also error-prone - use of heuristics
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
insight
a sudden and often novel realization of the solution to a problem; it contrasts with strategy-based solutions
creativity
the ability to produce novel and valuable ideas
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 form 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 readily to mind (perhaps because of vividness), we presume such events are common
overconfidence
the tendency to be more confident than correct- to overestimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgments
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 can significantly affect decisions and judgments
language
our spoken, written, or signed words and the ways we combine them to communicate meaning
phoneme
in language, the smallest distinctive sound unit
morpheme
in a language, the smallest unit that carries meaning; may be a word or a part of a word (such as a prefix)
grammer
in a language, a system of rules 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 meanings
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
two-word stage
beginning about age 2, the stage in speech development during which a child speaks mostly two-word statements
telegraphic speech
early speech stage in which a child speaks like a telegram - "go car" - using mostly nouns or verbs
linguistic determinism
Whorf's hypothesis that language determines the way we think