Cognitive Psychology Advanced Test

Mediator - ANSWERSA process or event within the individual which comes between a stimulus and a response Cognitive Map - ANSWERSTolman's Term for the mental representation of learned relationships among stimuli Insight - ANSWERSA sudden change in the way one organizes a problem situation, typically this is characterized by a sudden chnage in behavior from random responding to rule based responding Mental Set - ANSWERSIn Gestalt Psychology, the cognitive Schema an individual uses to organize their perception of a particular situation such as a problem Latent Learning - ANSWERSA term used by Tolman to describe situations in which learning is distinct from the performance of a behavior Learning - ANSWERSThe process of gathering information and organizing into mental schemas Memory - ANSWERSThe retention and use of prior learning Recall - ANSWERSActive retrieval of information Recognition - ANSWERSThe process of identification presented information as familiar Relearning - ANSWERSAn improvement in performance which occurs by reviewing despite the inability to recall or recognize the information Priming - ANSWERSA phenomenon whereby a thought or memory increases the activation of associated memories Sensory Memory - ANSWERSa modality specific transient form of memory which serves as a buffer between the senses and short term memory Attention - ANSWERSthe process of selectively focusing on particular stimuli elements, typically those deemed most important STM - ANSWERSHandles retention of material up to 15 seconds LTM - ANSWERSHandles retention of memory infinately Chunk - ANSWERSBasic measure of STM capacity Encoding - ANSWERSthe processing of stimulus information for retention in memory Storage - ANSWERSthe retention of information in memory Maintenance rehearsal - ANSWERSthe retention of materials in short term memory by means of rote repetition elaborative rehearsal - ANSWERSthe active processing of terms in short term memory in order to code the information for long term memory which may be processed in a variety of active methods procedural memory - ANSWERScomponent of long term memory which stores 'how to' information episodic memory - ANSWERSthe portion of long term memory which contains personal experiences free association - ANSWERStechnique used by Freud for studying the mind, based on asking a person to say simply whatever words come to mind when givent a stimulus. Repression - ANSWERSFreud: a defense mechanism in which impulses, memories or ideas are forcibly blocked from the conscious mind cue dependent coding - ANSWERSthe concept that all information is stored in memory as a set of relationships called the context, remembering is seen as dependent on resorting the cues which formed the original context decay - ANSWERSspontaneous memory loss from the passage of time displacement - ANSWERSforgetting in STM due to new and incoming information interference - ANSWERSaccording to associationism, competition between items can hamper learning and produce forgetting retroactive interference - ANSWERSin memory, a form of interference in recent experiences makes it difficult to recalls something learned earlier proactive interference - ANSWERSa form of interference in which prior experiences make learning and recall of subsequent experiences difficult unlearning - ANSWERSbuilt up interference can lead to the breaking of associations and therefore the destruction of memories availability - ANSWERSthe principle that remembering is determined by whether the true information exists in long term memory or not. accessibility - ANSWERSthe principle that remembering and forgetting are dependent without proper cues. information which exists in long term memory may not be accessible context dependent forgetting - ANSWERSfailure to retrieve information from long term memory due to the absence of context cues. state dependent forgetting - ANSWERSfailure to retreve information from long term memory due to the absence of state dependent cues. mood. emotion false recognition - ANSWERSa form of memory where the presence of familiar clues leads one to believe the stimulus matches a previously learned experience reconstruction - ANSWERSthe process of recreating a whole memory when only given a part of the scenario mnemonics - ANSWERSthe study and use of techniques for memory improvement problem solving - ANSWERSprocess of determining appropriate actions in order to over come obstacles incubation - ANSWERSa waiting period between problem solving in order to modify your mental set convergent problem - ANSWERSproblem that has a single solution divergent problem - ANSWERSproblem that has more than one solution persistence of set - ANSWERSa mental set developed in a previous problem is maintained even though it is no longer appropriate and tends to interfere with the current problem you are trying to solve functional fixedness - ANSWERSperceiving an object as having only one use recentering - ANSWERSdeveloping an alternative mental set for a situation such as when trying to solve a problem think aloud protocol - ANSWERStranscript of the comments made when an individual is asked to describe their thoughts and behaviors while working on a task initial state - ANSWERSthe situation at the outset of a problem goal state - ANSWERSthe results operator - ANSWERSone of the actions permitted in order to solve a problem algorithm - ANSWERSa procedure for problem solving which always yeilds a result heuristic - ANSWERSa rule of thumb in problem solving creativity - ANSWERSthe capacity to produce something which is both unique and useful learning set - ANSWERSa learned strategy which enables the individual to deal with problems of the same type language - ANSWERSa system of communication based on symbols, gestures, which can vary across individuals and allow for new forms and meanings social cognition - ANSWERSthe mental processes involved in the way people perceive and react to social situations attitude - ANSWERSpersonal belief of an avaluative nature such as good or bad cognitive dissonance - ANSWERSconflict between behavior and belief attribution theory - ANSWERStheory that states we make assumptions about our own behavior and that of others fundamental attribution error - ANSWERStheory that states we make assumptions about our own behavior and that of others self serving bias - ANSWERSwhen we attribute our successes to personal attributes and our failures to situational factors cognitive appraisal theory - ANSWERSargues that our emotional state is based on our