Psychology Exam 3 Study
Guide
Chapter 9 (20 questions)
Cognition: all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and
communicating information
Concepts/Category: mental groupings of similar objects, events, ideas, and people.
Ex: chair includes many things- baby’s high chair, reclining chair, dentist’s chair.
Concepts and putting things in categories help us simplify our thinking
Prototypes: from concepts develop prototypes a mental image or best example of a category ex:
bird, mammal, amphibian
Matching new items to a prototype provides a quick and easy method for sorting items
into categories
1. What is cognition, and what are the functions of concepts?
Cognition refers to all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing,
remembering, and communicating. We use concepts, mental groupings of similar
objects, events, ideas, or people, to simplify and order the world around us. We form
most concepts around prototypes, or best examples of a category.
Exemplars
Problem Solving
Algorithms: step-by-step procedures that guarantee a solution
Heuristics: a simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgements and solve
problems efficiently; usually speedier but also more error-prone than algorithms
Insight: NOT a strategy based solution but an abrupt, sudden realization of a problem’s solution
Comparisons between them
Mental Sets: our tendency to approach a problem with the mind-set of what has worked for us
previously
As a perceptual set predisposes what we perceive, a
mental set predisposes how we think
, Confirmation Bias: a tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and
to ignore or distort contradictory evidence
Intuition: automatic feelings or thoughts we often use instead of systematic reasoning
Availability Heuristic: we judge the likelihood of things based on how readily they come to mind
Overconfidence: this tendency to overestimate the accuracy of our knowledge and judgements
Framing: the way a question or statement is worded, a subtle wording differences can
dramatically alter our responses
Belief Perseverance: when a belief we have formed and explained has been discredited, belief
perseverance may cause us to cling to that belief
What do we know about thinking in other animals?
Researchers make inferences about other species' consciousness and intelligence based
on behavior. Evidence from studies of various species shows that many other animals
use concepts, numbers, and tools and that they transmit learning from one generation
to the next (cultural transmission). And, like humans, some other species show insight,
self-awareness, altruism, cooperation, and grief.
Creativity: the ability to produce novel and valuable ideas, correlates somewhat with aptitude,
but is more than school smarts. Creativity requires divergent thinking.
5 components of Creativity
1. Expertise
2. Imaginative thinking skills
3. Venturesome personality
4. Intrinsic motivation
5. Creative environment
Divergent Thinking: expanding the number of possible problem solutions; creative thinking that
diverges in different directions
Convergent thinking: narrowing the available problem solutions to determine the single best
solution
Phoneme: smallest distinctive sound units in a language. (aren’t the same as letters)
Morphemes: smallest language units that carry meaning
ex: readers, read: to comprehend words, er: one who, s: plural, more than one
Language: spoken, written, or signed words and the ways we combine them to communicate
meaning
Guide
Chapter 9 (20 questions)
Cognition: all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and
communicating information
Concepts/Category: mental groupings of similar objects, events, ideas, and people.
Ex: chair includes many things- baby’s high chair, reclining chair, dentist’s chair.
Concepts and putting things in categories help us simplify our thinking
Prototypes: from concepts develop prototypes a mental image or best example of a category ex:
bird, mammal, amphibian
Matching new items to a prototype provides a quick and easy method for sorting items
into categories
1. What is cognition, and what are the functions of concepts?
Cognition refers to all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing,
remembering, and communicating. We use concepts, mental groupings of similar
objects, events, ideas, or people, to simplify and order the world around us. We form
most concepts around prototypes, or best examples of a category.
Exemplars
Problem Solving
Algorithms: step-by-step procedures that guarantee a solution
Heuristics: a simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgements and solve
problems efficiently; usually speedier but also more error-prone than algorithms
Insight: NOT a strategy based solution but an abrupt, sudden realization of a problem’s solution
Comparisons between them
Mental Sets: our tendency to approach a problem with the mind-set of what has worked for us
previously
As a perceptual set predisposes what we perceive, a
mental set predisposes how we think
, Confirmation Bias: a tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and
to ignore or distort contradictory evidence
Intuition: automatic feelings or thoughts we often use instead of systematic reasoning
Availability Heuristic: we judge the likelihood of things based on how readily they come to mind
Overconfidence: this tendency to overestimate the accuracy of our knowledge and judgements
Framing: the way a question or statement is worded, a subtle wording differences can
dramatically alter our responses
Belief Perseverance: when a belief we have formed and explained has been discredited, belief
perseverance may cause us to cling to that belief
What do we know about thinking in other animals?
Researchers make inferences about other species' consciousness and intelligence based
on behavior. Evidence from studies of various species shows that many other animals
use concepts, numbers, and tools and that they transmit learning from one generation
to the next (cultural transmission). And, like humans, some other species show insight,
self-awareness, altruism, cooperation, and grief.
Creativity: the ability to produce novel and valuable ideas, correlates somewhat with aptitude,
but is more than school smarts. Creativity requires divergent thinking.
5 components of Creativity
1. Expertise
2. Imaginative thinking skills
3. Venturesome personality
4. Intrinsic motivation
5. Creative environment
Divergent Thinking: expanding the number of possible problem solutions; creative thinking that
diverges in different directions
Convergent thinking: narrowing the available problem solutions to determine the single best
solution
Phoneme: smallest distinctive sound units in a language. (aren’t the same as letters)
Morphemes: smallest language units that carry meaning
ex: readers, read: to comprehend words, er: one who, s: plural, more than one
Language: spoken, written, or signed words and the ways we combine them to communicate
meaning
