Psychology-Chapter 8

heuristic

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

stereotype threat

a self-confirming concern that one will be evaluated based on a negative stereotype

intuition

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

intelligence quotient (IQ)

defined originally as the ratio of mental age to chronological age multiplied by 100. On contemporary intelligence tests, the average performance for a given age is assigned a score of 100.

standardization

defining uniform testing procedures and meaningful scores by comparison with the performance of a pretested group.

telegraphic speech

early speech stage in which a child speaks like a telegram "go car" using mostly two-word statements.

convergent thinking

narrows the available problem solutions to determine the single best solution.

reliability

the extent to which a test yields consistent results as assessed by the consistency of scores on two halves of the test, on alternative forms of the test or on retesting.

one-word stage

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

validity

the extent to which a test measures or predicts what it is supposed to.

overconfidence

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

framing

the way an issue is posed; framing can significantly affect decisions and judgements.

Savent Syndrome

a condition in which a person otherwise limited in mental ability has exceptional specific skill, such as in computation or drawing.

general intelligence

a general intelligence factor that, according to Spearman and others, underlies specific mental abilities and is therefore measured by every task on an intelligence test.

mental age

a measure of intelligence test performance devised by Binet; the chronological age that most typically corresponds to a given level of performance. Thus, a child who does as well as an average 8-year-old is said to have a mental age of 8.

concept

a mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas and people.

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 (as when comparing feathered creatures to a prototypical bird such as a robin.)

intelligence test

a method for assessing an individual's mental aptitudes and comparing them with those of others, using numerical scores.

algorithm

a methodical logical rule or procedure that guarantees you will solve a particular problem. This contrasts with the usually speedier- but also more error-prone-use of heuristics.

cross sectional study

a study in which people of different ages are compared with one another.

insight

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

Confirmation bias

a tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort evidence that contradicts them.

achievement test

a test designed to assess what a person has learned.

aptitude test

a test designed to predict a person's future performance. aptitude is the capacity to learn.

cognition

all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating

two-word stage

beginning about age 2, during which a child speaks mostly two-word statements.

babbling stage

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

Brocca's area

controls language expressions and the area of the frontal lobe, usually in the left hemisphere, that directs the muscle movements involved in speech.

Wernicke's area

controls language reception a brain area involved in language comprehension and expression usually in the left temporal lobe.

divergent thinking

expands the number of possible problem solutions. (Creative thinking that diverges in different directions.)

grammer

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

availability heuristic

judging the likelihood of an event based on its availability in memory; if an event comes readily to mind (perhaps because it was vivid) we assume it must be common.

Intelligence

mental quality consisting of the ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations.

fluid intelligence

our ability to reason speedily and abstractly; tends to decrease during late adulthood.

crystallized intelligence

our accumulated knowledge and verbal skills; tends to increase with age.

language

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

longitudinal study

research in which the same people are restudied and retested over a long period.

emotional intelligence

the ability to perceive, understand, manage and use emotions.

creativity

the ability to produce new and valuable ideas

normal curve

the bell-shaped curve that describes the distribution of many physical and psychological attributes, most scores fall near the average, and fewer and fewer scores lie near the extreme.

fixation

the inability to see a problem from a new perspective; an obstacle to problem solving.

Wechler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)

the most widely used intelligence test, which contains verbal and performance subtests.