Cognition and Memory Concepts

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Questions and Answers

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

Cognition

What is thinking about thinking?

Metacognition

What are the cognitive abilities and processes that allow humans to plan or inhibit their actions?

Executive Functioning

What is a mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people?

Concept Signup and view all the answers

What is a mental image or best example of a category?

Prototype Signup and view all the answers

What are concepts or mental frameworks that organize and interpret information?

Schemas Signup and view all the answers

What image or picture of the way space is organized as determined by an individual's perception, impression, and knowledge of that space?

Mental Maps Signup and view all the answers

What is a step-by-step procedure for solving a problem?

Algorithm Signup and view all the answers

What is a rule-of-thumb problem-solving strategy?

Heuristic Signup and view all the answers

What is estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; if instances come readily to mind (perhaps because of their vividness), we presume such events are common?

Availability Heuristic Signup and view all the answers

What is 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?

Representativeness Heuristic Signup and view all the answers

What is the belief that the chances of something happening with a fixed probability become higher or lower as the process is repeated?

Gambler's Fallacy Signup and view all the answers

What is a tendency to search for information that confirms one's preconceptions?

Confirmation Bias Signup and view all the answers

What is clinging to one's initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited?

Belief Perseverance Signup and view all the answers

What is the bias in which people's subjective confidence in their decision making is greater than their objective accuracy?

Overconfidence Bias Signup and view all the answers

What is a framing effect in which people make decisions about a current situation based on what they have previously invested in the situation?

Sunk-cost Fallacy Signup and view all the answers

What is a tendency to approach a problem in one particular way, often a way that has been successful in the past?

Mental Set Signup and view all the answers

What is the tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual functions; an impediment to problem solving?

Functional Fixedness Signup and view all the answers

What expands the number of possible problem solutions (creative thinking that diverges in different directions)?

Divergent Thinking Signup and view all the answers

What is a type of critical thinking in which one evaluates existing possible solutions to a problem to choose the best one?

Convergent Thinking Signup and view all the answers

What are Sternberg's 5 components of creative thinkers?

Expertise, imaginative thinking skills, venturesome personality, intrinsic motivation, and creative environment. Signup and view all the answers

What is a base of knowledge?

Expertise Signup and view all the answers

What is seeing things in new ways?

Imaginative Thinking Skills Signup and view all the answers

What is focusing awareness on a narrowed range of stimuli or events?

Attention Signup and view all the answers

What is the ability to focus on only one stimulus from among all sensory input?

Selective Attention Signup and view all the answers

What is surrounding self with other creative people?

Creative Environment Signup and view all the answers

What is driven by interest and passion rather than money or deadlines?

Intrinsic Motivation Signup and view all the answers

What is the ability to concentrate on one voice amongst a crowd?

Cocktail Party Effect Signup and view all the answers

What is the tendency to read the words instead of saying the color of ink?

Stroop Effect Signup and view all the answers

When do we encode its sound?

Phonemic Processing Signup and view all the answers

What is thinking about the physical appearance of words to be learnt?

Structural Processing Signup and view all the answers

What is thinking about the meaning of words to be learnt?

Semantic Processing Signup and view all the answers

What is encoding that requires attention and conscious effort?

Effortful Processing/Encoding Signup and view all the answers

What is the decision-making bias that results from the way a decision, question, or problem is worded?

Framing effect Signup and view all the answers

What is turning sensory information into a form the brain can use?

Encoding Signup and view all the answers

What is holding onto information for some period of time (making a memory)?

Storage Signup and view all the answers

What is getting information out storage?

Retrieval Signup and view all the answers

What is a brief recording of sensory information before it is passed to short-term memory?

Sensory Memory Signup and view all the answers

What is visual sensory memory?

Iconic Memory Signup and view all the answers

What is auditory sensory memory?

Echoic Memory Signup and view all the answers

What is a limited-capacity store that can maintain unrehearsed information for about 20 to 30 seconds. Can retain about 7 objects?

Short-Term Memory (STM) Signup and view all the answers

What is the part of working memory that holds and processes verbal and auditory information?

Phonological Loop Signup and view all the answers

What is the part of working memory that directs attention and processing?

Central Executive Signup and view all the answers

What deals with/processes visual information?

Visuo-Spatial Scratchpad Signup and view all the answers

What is the tendency for distributed study or practice to yield better long-term retention than is achieved through massed study or practice?

Spacing Effect Signup and view all the answers

What is the relatively permanent storage of information?

Long-Term Memory Signup and view all the answers

What is knowledge HOW TO do something. (Procedural)

Implicit Memory (nondeclarative) Signup and view all the answers

What is writing that tells how to do something?

Procedural Signup and view all the answers

What is memory of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and 'declare'?

Explicit Memory Signup and view all the answers

What is knowing something is TRUE?

Explicit (Declarative Memory) Signup and view all the answers

What is a network of associated facts and concepts that make up our general knowledge of the world?

Semantic Signup and view all the answers

What is the collection of past personal experiences that occurred at a particular time and place?

Episodic Signup and view all the answers

What is remembering to do things in the future?

Prospective Memory Signup and view all the answers

What is the memory for events and facts related to one's personal life story?

Autobiographical Memory Signup and view all the answers

What is seeking new experiences, tolerates the uncertain.

Venturesome Personality Signup and view all the answers

What is Can yield short term results, but things are learned quickly are also forgetting quickly?

Mass Practice (Cramming) Signup and view all the answers

What is Better to practice retrieval (test yourself) than just simply reading notes over and over.

Testing Effect Signup and view all the answers

Study Notes

Cognition, Memory, and Thinking

Cognition encompasses all mental activities related to thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating.
Metacognition is thinking about thinking, a higher-order cognitive process.
Executive functions involve planning and inhibiting actions.
Concepts are mental groupings of similar objects, events, ideas, or people. Prototypes represent ideal examples of these categories. Schemas are mental frameworks for organizing information. Mental maps illustrate individuals' spatial understanding.
Algorithms are step-by-step problem-solving procedures; heuristics are rules-of-thumb strategies. The availability heuristic estimates likelihood based on readily available memory examples; representativeness heuristic judges likelihood based on prototypes.
The gambler's fallacy incorrectly assumes that probabilities change based on past events. Confirmation bias focuses on information confirming existing beliefs, while belief perseverance maintains beliefs despite contradictory evidence. The overconfidence bias leads to overestimating the accuracy of one's judgments, and the sunk-cost fallacy involves decisions based on past investments.
Mental sets are tendencies to approach problems with past successful strategies, while functional fixedness limits problem-solving by focusing on objects' typical uses. Divergent thinking explores multiple solutions; convergent thinking evaluates options to find the best.
Sternberg's five components of creative thinkers include expertise, imaginative thinking skills, a venturesome personality, intrinsic motivation, and a creative environment.

Memory Processes

Sensory memory briefly holds sensory information before passing it to short-term memory, including iconic (visual) and echoic (auditory) memory.
Short-term memory (STM) holds ≈ 7 items for about 20-30 seconds. Components include the phonological loop for verbal/auditory information and the central executive for directing attention and processing, along with the visuo-spatial scratchpad.
Long-term memory (LTM) stores information permanently. Implicit (nondeclarative) memory concerns knowing how to do something (e.g., procedural). Explicit (declarative) memory includes knowing that something is true (semantic) or remembering personal experiences (episodic). Prospective memory involves remembering to do things in the future. Autobiographical memory encompasses personal experiences.
Spacing effect shows that distributed study is better than massed study; the testing effect demonstrates the benefits of retrieval practice over simply rereading.
Encoding turns sensory information into a usable format, storage is retaining this information, and retrieval is getting it back out.

Thinking and Problem-Solving Bias

The framing effect is how a question's wording influences decisions.
Mass practice (cramming) provides short-term results but is quickly forgotten. The cocktail party effect illustrates our ability to focus on one important stimulus among many. The Stroop effect highlights the difficulty ignoring automatic processes (like reading words).
Phonemic processing focuses on the sound of words.
Structural processing emphasizes the physical characteristics of words.
Semantic processing centers on understanding word meanings.
Effortful processing/encoding requires attention and conscious effort.

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Description

Explore essential concepts in cognition, memory, and thinking. This quiz covers metacognition, executive functions, heuristics, and biases that affect our decision-making process. Test your understanding of how mental frameworks shape our interpretations and problem-solving strategies.