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Midterm flashcards-- set 9
mods 28-32
49
Psychology
11th Grade
01/21/2006

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Cards

Term
cognition
Definition
the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, and remembering.
Term
concept
Definition
a mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people
Term
prototype
Definition
a mental image or best example of a category.
Term
algorithm
Definition
a methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem.
Term
heuristic
Definition
a rule-of-thumb strategy that often allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently; usually speedier but also more error-prone than algorithms.
Term
insight
Definition
a sudden and often novel realization of the solution to a problem; it contrasts with strategy-based solutions
Term
conformation bias
Definition
a tendency to search for information that confirms one's preconceptions.
Term
fixation
Definition
the inability to see a problem from a new perspective; an impediment to problem solving.
Term
mental set
Definition
a tendency to approach a problem in a particular way, especially a way that has been successful in the past but may or may not be helpful in solving a new problem
Term
functional fixedness
Definition
the tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual functions; an impediment to problem solving
Term
representativeness heuristic
Definition
a rule of thumb for judging the likelihood of things in terms of how well they seem to represent, or match, particular prototypes; may lead one to ignore other relevant information
Term
availability heuristic
Definition
estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; if instances come readily to mind, we presume such events are common.
Term
overconfidance
Definition
the tendency to be more confident than correct-- to overestimate the accuracy of one's beliefs and judgments.
Term
framing
Definition
the way an issue is posed; how an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and judgments.
Term
belief bias
Definition
the tendency for one's preexisting beliefs to distort logical reasoning, sometimes by making invalid conclusions seem valid, and vis versa.
Term
belief perseverance
Definition
clinging to one's initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited.
Term
artificial intelligence (AI)
Definition
the science of designing and programming computer systems to do intelligent things...
Term
computer neural networks
Definition
computer circuits that mimic the brain's interconnected neural cells, performing tasks such as learniing to recognize visual patterns and smells.
Term
language
Definition
our spoken, written or gestured words and the ways we combine them to communicate meaning.
Term
phoneme
Definition
in a spoken language, the smallest distinctive sound unit
Term
morpheme
Definition
in a language, the smallest unit that carries meaning; may be a word or a part of a word
Term
grammar
Definition
a system of rules in a language that enables us to communicate with and understand others.
Term
semantics
Definition
the set of rules by which we derive meaning from morphemes, words, and sentences in a given language; also, the study of meaning.
Term
syntax
Definition
the rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences in a given language
Term
babbling stage
Definition
beginning at 3 to 4 months, the stage of speech development in which the infant spontaneously utters various sounds to first unrelated to the household language
Term
one-word stage
Definition
the stage in speech development, from about age 1 to 2, during which a child speaks mostly in single words.
Term
two-word stage
Definition
beginning about age 2, the stage in speech development during which a child speaks mostly two-word statements
Term
telegraphic speech
Definition
early speech stage in which the child speaks like a telegram--"go car"-- using mostly nouns and verbs and omitting "auxiliary" words
Term
linguistic relativity
Definition
Whorf's hypothesis that language determines the way we think
Term
intelligence test
Definition
a method for assessing an individual's mental aptitudes and comparing htem with those of otehrs, using numerical scores.
Term
intelligence
Definition
mental quality consisting of the ability to learn from experience, solve problems. and use knowledge to adapt to new situations
Term
factor analysis
Definition
a statistical procedure that identifies clusters of related items on a test; used to identify different dimensions of performance that underlie one's total score
Term
general intelligence
Definition
a general intelligence factor taht Spearman and otehrs believed underlies specific mental abilities and is therefore measured by every task on an intelligence test
Term
savant sydrome
Definition
a condition 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, express, understand, and regulate emotions
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 performance.
Term
Standford-Binet
Definition
the widely used American revision (by Terman at Stanford) of Binet's original intelligence test.
Term
intelligence quotient (IQ)
Definition
mental age/chronological age X 100 = IQ
Term
Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)
Definition
the WAIS is the most widely used intelligence test; it contains verbal and performance (nonverbal) subtests.
Term
aptitude test
Definition
a test designed to predict a person's future performance; aptitude is the capability to learn
Term
achievement test
Definition
a test designed to assess waht a person has learned
Term
standardization
Definition
defining meaningful scores by comparison with the performance of a pretested group
Term
normal curve
Definition
the symmetrical bell-shaped curve that describes the distribution of many physical and psychological attributes.
Term
reliability
Definition
the extent to which a test yields consistent results, as assessed by the consistency of scores on two halves of the text, on alternate forms of the text, 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 it is of interest
Term
criterion
Definition
the behavior that a test is desgined to predict; thus,the measure used in defining whether the test has predictive validity
Term
predictive validity
Definition
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
Term
creativity
Definition
the ability to produce novel and valuable ideas
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