| A | B |
|---|
| cognition | all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating |
| concept | a mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas or 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. |
| algorithm | a methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem |
| 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 |
| confirmation bias | a tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence |
| fixation | the inability to see a problem from a new prespective, by employing a different mental set |
| mental set | a tendency to approach a problem in one particular way, often a way that has been successful in the past |
| functional fixedness | tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual functions; an impediment to problem solving |
| representativeness heuristic | the tendency to judge the likelihood of things in term of how well they match particular prototypes |
| availability heuristic | estimating the probability of certain events in terms of how readily they come to mind |
| overconfidence | refers to the tendency to overestimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgments |
| belief perseverance | tendency for people to cling to a particular belief even after the information that led to the formation of the belief is discredited |
| intuition | an immediate, automatic, and effortless feeling or thought |
| framing | refers to the way an issue or question is posed and can affect people's perception of the issue or answer to the question |
| language | refers to spoken, written, or signed words and how we combine them to communicate meaning |
| phonemes | the smallest units of sound in a language that are distinctive for speakers of the language |
| morphemes | smallest units of language that carry meaning |
| grammar | system of rules that enables us to communicate with and understand others |
| semantics | set of rules used to derive meaning from morphemes, words, and sentences in a given language |
| syntax | rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences in a given language |
| babbling stage | begins around 4 months, is characterized by the spontaneous utterance of speech sounds. During the babbling stage, children the world over sound alike |
| one-word stage | between 1 and 2 years of age, children speak mostly in single words; linguistic development |
| two-word stage | beginning around age 2, children speak mostly in two-word sentences |
| telegraphic speech | economical, telegram-like speech of children in the two-word stage. Utterances consist mostly of nouns and verbs; however, words occur in the correct order, showing that the child has learned some language's syntactic rules |
| aphasia | an impairment of language as a result of damage to any of several cortical areas, including Broca's area and Wernicke's area |
| Broca's area | located in the left frontal lobe, is involved in controlling the motor ability to produce speech |
| Wernicke's area | located in the left temporal lobe, is involved in language comprehension and expression |
| linguistic determinism | Benjamin Whorf's hypthesis that language determines the way we think |
