Textbook for PSY 108 Final

Prototype Theory to Semantic Memory

• Organize categories based on a prototype, the best and most typical example of a category
• Prototype has characteristics that differ from non-prototypes
• Typicality effect: judge typical items (prototypes) faster than non-typical items (non-prototypes)
• Semantic priming effect: respond faster to an item if preceded by an item with similar meaning

Levels of Categorization

• Superordinate-level categories: higher-level or more general categories (e.g. "Furniture", "animal", "tool")
• Basic-level categories: moderately specific categories (e.g. "chair", "dog", "screwdriver")
• Subordinate-level categories: lower-level or more specific categories (e.g. "Desk chair", "collie", "Phillips screwdriver")

Exemplar Theory to Semantic Memory

• Argues that we first learn information about specific examples of a concept
• Classify each new stimulus by comparing it to multiple known exemplars in a category
• Differs from prototype theory in that it compares to multiple exemplars, not a single prototype

Network Models of Semantic Memory

• Propose that semantic memory consists of a netlike organization of concepts in memory
• Interconnections among related items are emphasized
• Nodes: representations of each concept
• Spreading activation: process by which nodes excite nearby or related nodes

Schemas and Scripts

• Schemas: generalized, well-integrated knowledge about a situation, event, or person
• Scripts: simple, well-structured sequences of events in a specified order
• Schemas influence understanding of a situation and predict what will happen
• Related to general knowledge and memory selection

Constructivist and Pragmatic Approaches to Memory

• Constructivist model: people integrate information from individual sentences to construct larger ideas
• Pragmatic view: people pay attention to the aspect of a message that is most relevant to their current goals
• Memory integration: using background knowledge to incorporate new information into memory in a schema-consistent manner

Psycholinguistics

• Definition: an interdisciplinary field that examines how people use language to communicate ideas
• Key terms: phoneme, morpheme, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics
• Differentiate between early theories: Chomsky's approach, cognitive-functional approach
• Methodologies: negation and passive voice, incremental interpretation, self-paced reading task, lexical ambiguity, syntactic ambiguity, eye-tracker

Neurolinguistics

• Definition: the discipline that examines how the brain processes language
• Language disorders: Broca's aphasia, Wernicke's aphasia
• Hemispheric specialization/lateralization: each hemisphere of the brain has somewhat different functions
• Mirror system: a network involving the brain's motor cortex, suggests a link between understanding language and motor processes

Written and Spoken Language

• Differences: visual nature, control over input rate, ability to rescan, standardized input, clear word boundaries, lack of nonverbal cues, requiring more elaborate teaching for children's mastery
• Similarities: both involve understanding words and sentences, strong correlation between reading and oral comprehension in adults

Problem Solving and Creativity

• Definition: the processes used to reach a specified goal for which the solution is not immediately obvious
• Components: initial state, goal state, obstacles
• Relationship between attention and problem solving: scanning strategically, deciding which information is most important
• Methods of problem representation: symbols, matrices, diagrams, visual images

Situated and Embodied Cognition

• Situated cognition approach: using information in the immediate environment or situation
• Embodied cognition approach: using the body and motor actions to express abstract thoughts and knowledge
• Examples: using landmarks and street signs to navigate, using gestures to remember a word

Problem Solving Strategies

• Algorithm vs heuristic: algorithm always produces a solution, while heuristic usually produces a correct solution
• Exhaustive search: an example of an algorithm
• Analogy approach: using a solution to a similar problem to help solve a new problem
• Means-ends heuristic: dividing the problem into subproblems and reducing the difference between the initial state and the goal state
• Hill-climbing heuristic: consistently choosing the alternative that seems to lead most directly toward the goal

Factors that Influence Problem Solving

• Expertise: impressive memory abilities or consistently exceptional performance in a particular area
• Knowledge base: specialized and extensive domain-specific knowledge and schemas
• Memory: highly specific and detailed memory retrieval abilities of experts### Problem-Solving Strategies
• Experts use systematic and efficient approaches to address novel challenges, including means-end heuristics, systematic analysis, and leveraging of analogies.
• Speed and accuracy in problem-solving are achieved through automaticity, parallel processing, and efficient utilization of domain-specific knowledge and strategies.

Metacognitive Skills

• Experts monitor, evaluate, and regulate problem-solving processes, including accurate judgment of task difficulty, efficient time allocation, and adaptive response to errors.
• Metacognitive skills contribute to overall problem-solving effectiveness and expertise development.

Mental Set and Fixed Mindset

• Mental set refers to applying the same solution used in previous problems, even when there is a different, easier way to solve the problem.
• Fixed mindset is the belief that a person's intelligence and skills are fixed and cannot be improved with effort.

Growth Mindset and Functional Fixedness

• Growth mindset is the belief that people can cultivate intelligence and skills by challenging themselves to perform better.
• Functional fixedness is the tendency to assign stable functions to an object, limiting thinking about its features that might be useful in solving a problem.

Insight and Non-Insight Problems

• Insight problems involve sudden realization of a solution after initially seeming impossible to solve.
• Non-insight problems are solved gradually through memory, reasoning, and routine strategies.

Metacognition in Problem-Solving

• Research shows that metacognitive patterns differ between insight and non-insight problems, with confidence building gradually for non-insight problems and experiencing a sudden leap for insight problems.

Creativity and Motivation

• Creativity involves generating solutions that are both novel and useful.
• Intrinsic motivation enhances creativity, whereas extrinsic motivation generally decreases creativity.

Decision Making and Deductive Reasoning

• Decision making involves assessing information and choosing among alternatives, often with ambiguity.
• Deductive reasoning begins with specific premises and judges whether they allow a particular conclusion to be drawn based on logical principles.

Decision-Making Heuristics

• Representativeness heuristic: judgments based on similarity between a sample and the population.
• Small-sample fallacy: assuming a small sample is representative of the population.
• Base-rate fallacy: paying too little attention to important information about how often an item occurs in the population.
• Conjunction fallacy: judging the probability of a conjunction of events to be greater than the probability of either constituent event.
• Availability heuristic: estimating frequency or probability based on how easy it is to think of relevant examples.
• Recency bias: estimating frequency or probability based on the most recent information.
• Familiarity bias: estimating frequency or probability based on how familiar one is with something.
• Recognition heuristic: choosing the option one recognizes over the one one doesn't.
• Anchoring and adjustment heuristic: beginning with a first approximation and making adjustments based on additional information.

Ecological Rationality

• Ecological rationality: creating a wide variety of heuristics to make adaptive choices in the real world, emphasizing context-specific adaptation.
• Ecological rationality differs from the heuristic approach, which focuses on identifying general cognitive shortcuts.

Framing Effect

• Framing effect: when decisions are influenced by the background context or wording of a question.
• Factors influencing the framing effect include the way information is presented.

Overconfidence in Decision-Making

• Overconfidence: when confidence judgments are higher than they should be based on actual performance.
• Uncertain assumptions, confirmation bias, and difficulty in recalling alternative hypotheses contribute to overconfidence.

Hindsight Bias

• Hindsight bias: believing, after an event has occurred, that it was inevitable and was predicted all along.
• Example: claiming to have known a team would win a championship after the event has occurred.

Maximizers and Satisficers

• Maximizers: people who examine as many options as possible rather than settling for something satisfactory.
• Satisficers: people who settle for something satisfactory rather than examining numerous options.