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chapter 9: Thinking, Language, and Intelligence
vocabulary and concepts covered in this chapter
51
Psychology
Undergraduate 1
10/29/2014

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Term
cognition
Definition
the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating.
Term
Concept
Definition
a mental grouping similar objects, events, ideas, and people
Term
prototype
Definition
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 when comparing feathered creatures to a prototypical bird, such as a robin).
Term
algorithm
Definition
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. 
Term
heuristic
Definition
a simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgements and solve problems efficiently; usually speedier but also more error prone than algorithms
Term
insight
Definition
a sudden realization of a problem's solution; contrasts with strategy-based solutions.
Term
confirmation bias
Definition
a tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence.
Term
mental set
Definition
a tendency to approach a problem in one particular way, often a way that has been successful in the past.
Term
intuition
Definition
an effortless, immediate, automatic feeling of thought,  as contrasted with explicit, conscious reasoning.
Term
availability heuristic
Definition
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.
Term
overconfidence
Definition
the tendency to be more confident tan correct- to overestimate the  accuracy of our beliefs and judgments.
Term
belief perserverance
Definition
clinging to one's initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited.
Term
framing
Definition
the way an issue is posed; how an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and judgments.
Term
creativity
Definition
the ability to produce novel and valuable ideas.
Term
convergent thinking
Definition
narrows the available problem solutions to determine the single best solution.
Term
divergent thinking
Definition
expands the number of possible problem solutions (creative thinking that diverges in different directions).
Term
language
Definition
our spoken, written, or signed words and the ways we combine them to comunicate meaning.
Term
phoneme
Definition
in a language, the smallest distinctive sound unit
Term
morpheme
Definition
in a language, the smallest unit that carries meaning; may be a word or part of a word ( such as a prefix).
Term
grammar
Definition
in a language, a system of rules that enables us to communicate with and understand others. In a given language, semantics in the set of rules for deriving meaning from sounds, and syntax is the set of rules for combining words into grammtically sensible sentences.
Term
babbling stage
Definition
beginning at about 4 months, the stage of speech development in which the infant spontaneously utter various sounds at first unrelated to the household language.
Term
one-word stage
Definition
the stage in speech development, from about 1 to 2, during which a child speaks mostly in single words.
Term
two-word stage
Definition
beggining about age 2, the stage in speech development during which a child speaks mostly in two-word statements.
Term
telegraphic speech
Definition
early speech stage in which a child speaks like a telegram- "go car" - using mostly nouns and verbs.
Term
aphasia
Definition
impairment of language, usually caused by left-hemisphere damage either to Broca's area (impairing speaking) or to Wernicke's area (impairing understanding).
Term
Broca's area
Definition
controls language expression- an area of the frontal love, usually in the left hemisphere, that directs the muscle movements involved in speech.
Term
Wernicke's area
Definition
controls language reception-a brain area involved in language conprehension and expression; usually in the left temporal lobe.
Term
linguistic determinism
Definition
Whorf's hypothesis that language determines the way we think.
Term
intelligence
Definition
mental quility consisting of the ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations.
Term
general intelligence (g)
Definition
a general intelligence factor that, according to Spearman and others, underlines specific mental abilities and is therefore measured by every task on an intelligence test.
Term
savant syndrome
Definition
a condtion in which a person otherwise limited in mental ability has an exceptional specific skill, such as in computation or drawing.
Term
emotional intelligence
Definition
the ability to perceive, understand, manage, and use emotions.
Term
intelligence test
Definition
a method for assessing an individual's mental aptitudes and comparing them with those of others, using numerical scores.
Term
aptitude test
Definition
a test designed to predict a person;s future performance; aptitude is the capacity to learn.
Term
mental age
Definition
a measure of intelligence test performance devised by Binet; the chronological age that most typically corresponds to a given level of perfomance. Thus, a child who does as well as an average 8-year-old is said to have a mental age of 8.
Term
Stanford-Binet
Definition
the widely used America revision of Binet's original intelligence test.
Term
Intelligence quotient (IQ)
Definition
defined originally 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 agiven age is assigned a score of 100.
Term
Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)
Definition
the WAIS is the most widely used intelligence test; contains verbal and performance (nonverbal) subtests.
Term
standardization
Definition
defining uniform testing procedures and meaningful scores by comparison with performance of a pretested group.
Term
normal curve
Definition
the 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.
Term
reliability
Definition
the extent to which a test yields consistent results, as assessed by consistency of scores on two halves of the test, or on retesting.
Term
validity
Definition
the extent to which a test measures or predicts what it is supposed to.
Term
content validity
Definition
the extent to which a test samples the behavior that is of interest.
Term
predictive validity
Definition
the success with which a test predicts the behaviour it is designed to predict; it is assessed by computing the correlation between test scores and the criterion behavior.
Term
Crystallized intelligence
Definition
our accumulated knowledge and verbal skills; tends to increase with age.
Term
fluid intelligence
Definition
our ability to reason speedily and abstractly; tends to decrease during late adulthood.
Term
intellectual disability
Definition
a condition of limited mental ability, indicated by an intelligence test score of 70 or below and difficulty in adapting to demands of life (formerly reffered to as mental retardation)
Term
Down syndrome
Definition
a condition of mild to severe intellectual disability and associated physical disorders caused by extra copy of chromosome 21.
Term
heritability
Definition
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.
Term
stereotype threat
Definition
a self-confirming concern that one will be evaluated based on a negative stereotype.
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