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| the mental activities associate with thinking, remembering, and communicating. |
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a mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people, which we organize into hierarchies.
- We form some concepts by definition. |
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| a mental image or best example of a category. Matching new items to a prototype provides a quick and easy method for sorting items into categories (as as when comparing feathered creatures to a prototypical bird, such as a robin). |
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| a methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem. Contrasts with the usually speedier - but also more error prone- use of heuristics. |
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| a simple thinking strategy that often allows to make judgments and solve problems efficiently; usually speedier but also more error prone than algorithms. |
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a sudden and often novel realization of the solution to a problem; it contrasts with strategy-based solutions.
- is preceded by frontal lobe activity involved in focusing attention and was accompanied by a burst of activity in the right temporal lobe. |
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| a tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence. |
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| the inability to see a problem from a new perspective, by employing a different mental set. |
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| a tendency to approach a problem in one particular way, often a way that has been successful in the past. |
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| Representativeness heuristics |
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| 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. We intuitively compare the likelihood of something with our mental representation of that category. |
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estimating 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 and fear them.
-i.e. we fear swimming in the ocean because we replay Jaws in our head. |
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| the tendency to be more confident than correct - to overestimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgments, but wisdom is born out of experience. |
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| clinging to one's initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited, which usually fuels social conflict. |
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| an effortless, immediate, automatic feeling, recognition, or thought, as contrasted with explicit, conscious reasoning. OUr intuitive reactions enable us to react quickly and usually adaptively. |
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| the way an issue is posed; how an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and judgments. |
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| our spoken, written, or signed words and the ways we combine them to communicate meaning. Language enables us to communicate and transmit civilization's accumulated knowledge across generations. We also use language to form categories. |
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| 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. |
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| the stage in speech development, from about age 1 to 2, during which a child speaks mostly in single words. They use sounds to communicate meaning. |
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| beginning about age 2, the stage in speech development during which a child speaks mostly two-word statements. |
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| early speech stage in which a child speaks like a telegram - "go car" - using mostly nouns and verbs. |
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| Whorf's hypothesis that language determines the way we think. But our words may not determine what we think, but they do influence our thinking. |
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| is a socially constructed concept: mental quality consisting of the ability to learn form experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations. |
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| a general intelligence factor that, according to Charles Spearman and others, underlies specific mental abilities and is therefore measured by every task on an intelligence test. |
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| a statistical procedure that identifies clusters of related items (called factors) on a test; used to identify different dimensions of performance that underlie a person's total score. |
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| a conditions in which a person otherwise limited in mental ability has an exceptional specific skill, such as in computation or drawings. |
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| the ability to perceive, understand, manage, and use emotions. |
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| a method for assessing an individual's mental aptitudes and comparing them with those of others, using numerical scores. |
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| a measure of intelligence test performance devised by Binet; the chronological age that most typically corresponds to a given level of performance. Thus, a child who does as well as the average 8-year old is said to have a mental age of 8. |
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| the widely used American revision (by Lewis Terman at Stanford University) of Binet's original intelligence test, established new age norms for schoolchildren. |
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| Intelligence quotient (IQ) |
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| derived by William Stern, which was originally defined as the ratio of mental age (ma) to chronological age (ca) multiplied by 100 (thus, IQ = ma/ca x 100). On contemporary intelligence tests, the average performance for a given age is assigned a score of 100. |
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| Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) |
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| created by David Wechsler, the WAIS is the most widely used intelligence test; contains separate scores for verbal comprehension, perceptual organization, working memory, and processing speed. |
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| defining meaningful scores by comparison with the performance of a pretested group. |
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| the symmetrical bell-shaped curve that describes the distribution of many physical and psychological attributes. Most scores fall near the average, and fewer and fewer scores lie near the extremes. |
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| the extent to which a test yields consistent results, as assessed by the consistency of scores on two halves of the test, or on retesting. |
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| the extent to which a test measures or predicts what it is supposed to. |
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| the extent to which a test samples the behavior that is of interest. |
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| the success with which a test predicts the behavior it is designed to predict; it is assessed by computing the correlation between test scores and the criterion behavior. |
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the proportion of variation among individuals that we can attribute to genes. The heritability of a trait may vary, depending on the range of populations and environments studied.
- Heritability never pertains to an individual, only to why people differ from one another. |
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| a self-confirming concern that one will be evaluated based on a negative stereotype. |
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| What happens when our beliefs are proven to be even slightly true? |
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| We tend to cling more tightly to them. Once beliefs form and get justified, it takes more compelling evidence to change them than it did to create them. |
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| babies' ability to produce words, which matures after their receptive language. |
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| B.F. Skinner's Operant Learning |
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Skinner believed we can explain language development with familiar learning principles.
1. Association: the sight of things with the sound of words.
2. Imitation: the words and syntax modeled by others.
3. Reinforcement: smiles and hugs when the child says something right. |
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| Noam Chomsky's Inborn Universal Grammar |
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Chomsky argued that children acquire untaught words and grammar naturally and that we come prewired with a sort of switch box (language acquisition device), which prepares children to learn language as they interact with their caregiver.
- All human languages have the same grammatical building blocks. |
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| What occurs to a child if not exposed to language during the critical period? |
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| After the window for learning language closes, a brain's language-learning capacity never fully develops. |
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| How is learning different for bilingual children? |
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| Bilingual children are better able to inhibit their attention to irrelevant information. |
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| Nondeclarative (procedural) memory |
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| A mental picture of how you do something. We often think in images and when we watch a skill being performed, the activity will activate the brain's internal simulation. |
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| an individual visualizing themselves and seeing the desired outcome come to pass. |
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| an individual visualizing themselves effectively studying or doing the procedure. |
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| Animals show what kind of skills? |
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1. Form concepts (i.e. monkeys being able to classify cats and dogs)
2. Display insight (i.e. Wolfgang Kohler's chimpanzee short stick exercise)
3. Numerical ability (i.e. Parrot being able to add and subtract)
4. Natural tool users (i.e. chimps using a variety of sticks for specific purposes) |
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| Do animals exhibit language? |
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| Animals do communicate. Vervet monkeys have a different alarm cries for different predators. |
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| Howard Gardner's Eight Intelligence |
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Gardner views intelligence as multiple abilities that come in packages.
1. Linguistic
2. Logical-mathematical
3. Musical
4. Spatial
5. Bodily-kinesthetic
6. Intrapersonal (self)
7. Interpersonal (other people)
8. Naturalist |
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| Robert Sternberg's Three Intelligences |
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Sternberg proposes a triarchic theory:
1. Analytical (academic problem-solving) intelligence is assessed by intelligence tests, which present well-defined problems having a single night.
2. Creative intelligence is demonstrated in reacting adaptively to novel situations and generating novel ideas.
3. Practical intelligence is required for every day tasks, multiple solutions are plausible. |
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1. Expertise: well-developed base of knowledge.
2. Imaginative thinking skills: provide the ability to see things in novel ways, to recognize patterns, and to make connections.
3. Venturesome personality: seeks new experience and takes risks.
4. Intrinsic motivation: is being driven more by interest, satisfaction, and challenge.
5. Creative environment: supports creative ideas. |
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| France passed a law requiring all children to attend school, the French minister of public education commissioned Binet. Binet and Theodore Simon, assumed that all children follow the same course of intellectual development, though some develop more rapidly. |
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| Genetic influences vs. Environmental Influences on intelligence |
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Genetic influences - not environmental ones - become more apparent as we accumulate life experience.
i.e. Adopted children's intelligence scores over time become more like those of their biological parents. |
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| Schooling and Intelligence |
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| Schooling boosts children's chances for success by developing their cognitive and social skill. |
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| Gender Similarities and Differences |
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1. Spelling: Females are better spellers.
2. Nonverbal memory: Females have an edge in remembering and locating objects.
3. Sensations: Females are more sensitive to touch, taste, and odor.
4. Emotion-detecting ability: Females are better emotion detectors.
5. Math and spatial aptitudes: Females display an edge in math computation, but males scored higher in math problem solving. |
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| What does Steven Pinker argue about gender differences in life priorities? |
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| That biological as well as social influences appear to affect gender differences in life priorities. Social expectations and divergent opportunities shape boys' and girls' interests and abilities. |
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| Are intelligence tests inappropriately biased? |
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| There are genetically disposed and socially influenced race differences in intelligence. There are also race differences in test scores, but the tests are inappropriate or biased. |
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| When could a test be considered biased? |
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| If it detects not only innate differences in intelligence but also performance differences caused by cultural experiences. |
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