7 PSY101 Chapter 8 Thought

categories, concept

Whereas ______ involve groupings based on common properties, a ______ is a mental representation of that grouping.

basic

Most people categorise most rapidly at the _____ level of a hierarchy.

seems to activate different cognitive processes

According to data from neuroimaging studies, categorising at different levels:

goal state

In problem solving one moves from a initial state to a:

algorithms

systematic procedures that inevitably produce a solution to a problem.

thinking

Manipulating mental representations for a purpose is called:

problem solving strategies

technique that serves as guides for solving a problem.

functional fixedness

tendency for people to ignore other possible functions of an object when they have a fixed function in mind.

confirmation bias

tendency for people to search for confirmation of what they already believe.

mental set

tendency to keep using the same problem-solving technique that have worked in the past.

expected utility (benefit)

a combined judgment of the weighted benefit and the expected probability of obtaining that outcome.

premise

a previous statement or proposition from which another is inferred or follows as a conclusion.

superordinate level (to use in categorising objects)

abstract level in which members of a category share few common features.

prototype

abstraction of many instances of a category (it represents a typical example of a category).

basic level (to use in categorising objects)

broadest most inclusive level at which objects share common attributes that are distinctive of the concept.

implicit cognition

cognition outside of awareness

heuristics

cognitive shortcuts for selecting among alternatives without carefully considering each one (irrational judgements).

mental simulation

imagining the steps of solving a problem before undertaking them.

weighted utility value (benefit)

indicates not just how well an option met a criteria, but how important that criteria is to making your decision.

analytical decision making

individuals use their conscious awareness and employ symbolically encoded rules in a systematic manner.

explicit cognition

involves conscious manipulation of representations.

deductive reasoning (dog example, if all dog have fur you can conclude that if Barkley is a dog he has fur)

is logic reasoning that draws a conclusion from a set of assumptions or premises that are based on the rules of logic.

theory of mind

is the ability to attribute mental states to oneself and to others (this ability enables neurotypical people to recognise that others have beliefs intentions, feelings and thoughts).

ventral

meaning towards the bottom of the brain.

medial

meaning towards the middle of the brain.

thinking

means manipulating mental representations for a purpose.

lateral

means towards the sides of the brain.

dorsal

means towards the top of the brain.

subgoals

minigoals on the way to achieve broader goals.

subordinate level (to use in categorising objects)

more specific attributes are shared by the members of the category.

bounded rationality

people are rational within the boundaries impound by their environment, goals and abilities (instead of making optimal judgment people make good-enough judgments).

representativeness heuristic

people categorise by matching the similarity of an object or incident to a prototype but ignore information about its probability of occurring.

availability heuristic

people infer the frequency of something on the basis of how readily it comes to mind (people essentially assume that events or occurrences they can recall easily are common and typical).

dorsolateral prefrontal cortex

plays an important role in working memory and explicit manipulation of representations (conscious thought).

decision making

process by which an individual weighs the pros and cons of different alternatives in order to make a choice.

reasoning

process by which people generate and evaluate arguments and beliefs, typically to solve problems.

inductive reasoning (HIV example)

reasoning from specific observation to more general propositions.

problem solving

refers to the process of transforming one situation into another to meet a goal.

mental models

representations that describe, explain or predict the way things work.

ventromedial prefrontal cortex

serves many functions, including helping people use their emotional reactions to guide decision making and behaviour.

connectionism or parallel distributed processing (PDP)

suggesting that most cognitive processes occur simultaneously through the action of multiple activated networks.

constraint satisfaction (limitation)

tendency to settle on a cognitive solution that satisfies as many constraint (restrictions) as possible in order to achieve the best fit to the data.

analogical reasoning

the process by which people understand a novel situation in terms of a familiar one.

posterior cortical regions

towards the back of the brain.

syllogism

two premises that lead to a logical conclusion (deductive reasoning is referred to as it)

intuitive decision making

using their 'gut' to make rapid non-conscious decisions.

mental images

visual images such as a the image of a street or a circle