1. 8%-10% UNIT 7: COGNITION THINKING, MEMORY, & LANGUAGE

2.  Information Processing Model  Encode – Store - Retrieve (computer)  Atkinson – Schiffrin Model  Sensory – STM - LTM  Levels of Processing Model  shallow (visual/acoustic) vs. deep (semantic/elaborative) MODELS

3.  Visual  What the word looks like  Acoustic  What the word sounds like  Semantic  The meaning of the word  Mnemonic Devices aid encoding  Elaborative Rehearsal: think of meaning of word  Maintenance Rehearsal: just long enough to hold on to (not sufficient to pass into LTM) ENCODING Method of Loci Peg Word

4.  Chunking  Group in meaningful units  Helps fit more in STM  Schemas /Script  preexisting mental frameworks (get more complex)  Hippocampus: Explicit memory  Cerebellum: Implicit Memory  Amygdala: stress / adrenal (flashbulb)  Long-Term Potentiation (LTP)  Strengthening of synapses as you continue to think of something, therefore easier to remember. Increase in activity. Easier to fire.  Memories stored at neural level ENCODING Memory stored all over the brain Flashbulb Memory

5.  Sensory (1-3 seconds/fleeting)  Iconic (visual)  Echoic (hearing)  Longer  STM  Capacity: 7 =/-2 (George Miller’s Magical Number)  30 seconds  Working memory (more complex modern view of STM)  Phonological loop / visuospatial loop  LTM  Capacity: relatively permanent  Duration: unlimited STORAGE Sperling

6. Hippocampus Cerebellum Prospective Memory: Memory to do something in the future

7.  Encoding Specificity Principle:  The condition present at encoding effects how something is recalled  Context-dependent memory  External environment (same classroom)  State-dependent memory  State of consciousness  Mood Congruent  Emotional state STORAGE

8.  Recall: more difficult  Recognition: easier  Priming: activating specific associations. Retrieval cues prime our memories.  Serial Position Effect  Remembering first (primacy) and the last (recency) words in a list  Semantic distinctiveness: when a word is remembered because it stands-out  Distributed Practice: a little each night  Massed: Cramming RETRIEVAL

9.  Framing  The way an interview question is asked  Constructive Memory  Filling in the gaps for partial memories  EX: You visited a college classroom and then you say you “remember” seeing books)  Misinformation Effect  Incorporate misleading information into question  Source Amnesia/Misattribution Error EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY confabulation Imagination Inflation: Imagining an event that didn’t happen can increase confidence that it occurred

10.  memories of meaningless information are lost shortly after learning  initial plunge: levels off-slowly declines until completely forgotten FORGETTING

11.  Retroactive Interference: Can’t remember the old because the new interferes  Proactive Interference: Can’t remember the new.  Retrograde Amnesia: Can’t remember the old  Anterograde Amnesia: Not able to put new memory into explicit memory.

12. THOUGHT & LANGUAGE

13.  Concepts: mental representations of related things  Prototypes: most typical examples of the concept  Divergent: thinking outside the box (creativity)  Convergent: one correct answer  Superordinate: very general explanation (umbrella terms)  Basic: more specific than superordinate  Subordinate: most specific PROBLEM SOLVING & DECISION MAKING transportation automobile Honda

14.  HEURISTICS  Mental short cuts  Save time  Might not get right answer  Algorithms  Try every possible solution  Might take long  Guaranteed to get answer  Incubation: arrive at a solution after some time away from problem  Metacognition: thinking about how you think  Insight: aha moment  Trial & Error: guessing at random w/o much thought PROBLEM SOLVING Inductive Reasoning: from specific to general (forming concepts about all members of the boys lacrosse team from one member) Deductive Reasoning: from general to specific (forming concepts about all members of the boys lacrosse team from one member)

15.  Fixation: inability to look at a problem from a fresh perspective  Mental set: approach problem the same way all the time  Functional Fixedness: failure to use an object in an unusual way  Confirmation Bias: search for info that support previously held belief / ignore info that refutes  Belief Perseverance: hold on to your belief after discredited  Belief Bias: tendency for our beliefs to distort logical reasoning WHAT HINDERS OUR ABILITY TO SOLVE PROBLEMS?

16.  Availability Heuristic:  Estimating the probability of certain events in terms of how readily it comes to mind  Vivid, emotional example pops into mind  Car vs. Plane  Representative Heuristic  New situation is judged by how well it matches a stereotypical model or prototype HEURISTICS

17.  Phoneme Phoneme  smallest distinctive sound  bat = b a t  Morpheme Morpheme  the smallest unit of language that carries meaning  prefixes, suffixes LANGUAGE

18.  Grammar Grammar  language rules 1. Semantics  set of rules that help us derive meaning  ed = past  Surface structure (words & phrases)  Deep structure (underlying meaning) 2. Syntax  rules for sentence order  Yellow big ballon LANGUAGE

19. cooing babbling Holophrase (go) “eat cookie” Overgeneralization / Overregularization: “I goed to the store.” Apply grammar rules w/o the exceptions

20.  Nativists: born with biological predisposition for language  Behaviorists: we learn language through imitating sounds  Nativists NOAM CHOMSKY:  Brains are prewired for universal grammar of nouns, verbs, etc…  Language Acquisition Device in which grammar switches are turned on as children are exposed to their language.  Critical Period ACQUIRING LANGUAGE

21.  Benjamin Whorf  Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis:  language determines our thinking  different languages cause people to view the world differently  The structure of language affects the speakers’ world view.  ACQUIRING LANGUAGE