Cognition Joey Watson

VII. Cognition Memory Language Thinking Problem Solving and Creativity

Memory: 3 storage units: Sensory Short Long perception to memory; iconic (visual) tenths of second or echoic (auditory) few seconds Short Few seconds to a minute 7 items +- 2 Maintenance rehearsal- keep something in short term memory long enough to be used Elaborative rehearsal- organizing and understanding info to remember it Long Permanent retention Episodic memory- events experienced Semantic memory- facts figures and general knowledge Procedural memory- skills and habits

Language: Sound to communicate ideas Phonemes- smallest units of speech sounds distinct from one another Morphemes- smallest semantically meaningful parts of language Syntax- rules used for arrangement of morphemes into meaningful sentences Prosody- tone and inflection; added meaning without changing words

Language Stages: Cooing-> Babbling-> holophrases (one word for broad category of things)-> telegraphic speech (two or three word sentences)-> speech Noam Chomsky – transformational grammar- differentiates between surface structure of language and deep structure of language

Thinking Many different types, sometimes overlap Autistic thinking- applies to daydreaming and fantasizing Directed thinking- drawing inferences, problem solving Reasoning- drawing conclusions from evidence Deductive reasoning- drawing logical conclusions from general statements Inductive Reasoning- drawing general inferences from specific observations

Problem Solving and Creativity: Divergent thinking- brainstorming Convergent thinking- narrowing to 1 choice Heuristics- intuitive rules of thumb Algorithms- systematic mechanical approaches to guarantee eventual answer to problem Insight- sudden understanding of potential strategy to solve problem

Problem Solving and Creativity: Wolfgang Kohler- had a chimp in cage with 2 sticks, outside cage were bananas, both too short to reach bananas so combined sticks into 1 to reach bananas –insight Mental set- framed set of mind to approach problem; functional fixedness- tendency to assume item is only useful for task it is designed for Confirmation bias- search for info that supports particular view Creativity – process of producing something novel yet worthwhile; elusive nature