AP Psychology Unit 3: Cognition

Explicit Memory

Memory of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and "declare." (Also known as declarative memory)

Retrieval

The process of getting information out of memory storage.

Spacing Effect

The tendency for distributed study or practice to yield better long-term retention that is achieved through massed study or practice.

Overconfidence

The tendency to be more confident than correct-to overestimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgments.

Sensory Memory

The immediate, very brief recording of sensory information in the memory system.

Fixation

The inability to see a problem from a new perspective, by employing a different mental set.

Storage

The retention of encoded information over time.

Recall

A measure of memory in which the person must retrieve information learned earlier, as on a fill-in-the-blank test.

Concept

A mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas or people.

Long-Term Potentiation (LTP)

An increase in a synapse's firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation. Believed to be a neural basis for learning and memory.

Effortful Processing

Encoding that requires attention and conscious effort. Often produces durable and accessible memories.

Morpheme

In a language, the smallest unit that carries meaning; may be a word or a part of a word. (Ex: prefixes or suffixes)

Recognition

A measure of memory in which the person need only identify items previously learned, as on a multiple-choice test.

Belief Preservance

Clinging to one's initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited.

Availability Heuristic

Estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; if instances come readily to mind, we presume such events are common.

Phoneme

In language, the smallest distinctive sound unit.

Repression

In psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense mechanism that banishes from consciousness anxiety arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories.

Imagery

Mental pictures; a powerful aid to effortful processing, especially when combined with semantic encoding.

Chunking

Organizing items into familiar, manageable units; often occurs automatically.

Language

Our spoken, written, or signed words and the ways we combine them to communicate meaning.

Amnesia

The loss of memory.

Cognition

The mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering and communicating.

Memory

The persistence of learning over time through the storage and retrieval of information.

Syntax

The rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences in a given language.

Mood Congruent Memory

The tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one's current good or bad mood.

Functional Fixedness

The tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual functions; an impediment to problem solving.

Framing

The way an issue is posed; how an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and judgments.

Retrograde Amnesia

When someone is unable to recall events that occurred in the past.

Linguistic Determinism

Whorf's hypothesis that language determines the way we think.

Acoustic Encoding

The encoding of sound, especially the sound of words.

Algorithm

A methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem. Contrasts with the usually speedier-but also more error prone-use of heuristics.

Flashbulb Memory

A clear memory of an emotionally significant moment or event.

Relearning

A measure of memory that assesses the amount of time saved when learning material for a second time.

Prototype

A mental image or best example of a category. Matching new items to a prototype provides a quick and easy method for sorting items into categories.

Echoic Memory

A momentary sensory memory of auditory stimuli; if attention is elsewhere, sounds and words can still be recalled within 3 or 4 seconds.

Iconic Memory

A momentary sensory memory of visual stimuli; a photographic or picture-image memory lasting no more than a few tenths of a second.

Hippocampus

A neural center that is located in the limbic system; helps process explicit memories for storage.

Working Memory

A newer understanding of short term memory that focuses on conscious, active processing of incoming auditory and visual-spatial information, and of information retrieved from long-term memory.

Heuristic

A simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently; usually speedier but also more error-prone than algorithms.

Insight

A sudden and often novel realization of the solution to a problem; it contrasts with strategy-based solutions.

Mental Set

A tendency to approach a problem in one particular way, often a way that has been successful in the past.

Confirmation Bias

A tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence.

Short-Term Memory

Activated memory that holds a few items briefly, such as the seven digits of a phone number while dialing before the information is stored or forgotten.

Intuition

An effortless, immediate, automatic feeling or thought, as contrasted with explicit, conscious reasoning.

Source Amnesia

Attributing to the wrong source an event we have experienced, heard about, read about or imagined. Is at the heart of many false memories.

Two-Word Stage

Beginning about age 2, the stage in speech development during which a child speaks mostly two-word statements.

Babbling Stage

Beginning at about 4 months, the stage of speech development in which the infants spontaneously utters various sounds at first unrelated to the household language.

Telegraphic Speech

Early speech stage in which a child speaks like a telegram, using mostly nouns and verbs. Ex: "Go car"

Mnemonics

Memory aids, especially those techniques that use vivid imagery and organizational devices.

Grammar

In a language, a system of rules that enables us to communicate with and understand others.

Misinformation Effect

Incorporating misleading information into one's memory of an event.

Anterograde Amnesia

Is a loss of the ability to create new memories, leading to a partial or complete inability to recall the recent past, while long-term memories from before the event remain intact.

Representativeness Heuristic

Judging the likelihood of things in terms of how well they seem to represent, or match, particular prototypes; may lead us to ignore other relevant information.

Serial Position Effect

Our tendency to recall best the last and first items in a list.

Implicit Memory

Retention independent of conscious recollection. Also called/known as nondeclarative or procedural memory.

Priming

The activation, often unconsciously, of particular associations in memory. "The wakening of associations."

Déjà vu

That eerie sense that "I've experienced this before." Cues from the current situation may subconsciously trigger retrieval of an earlier experience.

Creativity

The ability to produce novel and valuable ideas.

Rehearsal

The conscious repetition of information, either to maintain it in consciousness or to encode it for storage.

Retroactive Interference

The disruptive effect of new learning on the recall of old information.

Proactive Interference

The disruptive effect of prior learning on the recall of new information.

Semantic Encoding

The encoding of meaning, including the meaning of words.

Visual Encoding

The encoding of picture images.

Encoding

The processing of information into the memory system- for example, by extracting meaning.

Parallel Processing

The processing of many aspects of a problem simultaneously; the brain's natural mode of information processing for many functions.

Long-Term Memory

The relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system. Includes knowledge, skills and experiences.

Semantics

The set of rules by which we derive meaning from morphemes, words, and sentences in a given language; also, the study of meaning.

One-Word Stage

The stage in speech development, from about age 1 to 2, during which a child speaks mostly in single words.

Automatic Processing

Unconscious encoding of incidental information, such as space, time, and frequency, and of well-learned information, such as word meanings.