a mechanical, repetitive procedure for solving a problem
attention
the tendency to respodn to some stimuli more than others or to remember some more than other
attentional blink
a brief period after perceiving a stimulus, during which it is difficult to attend to another stimulus
attentive process
a procedure that extracts informations from one part of the visual field at a time
availability heuristic
the strategy of assuming that how easily one can remember examples of some kind of event indicates how common the event actually is
base-rate information
data about the frequency or probability of a given item
bilingual
able to use two language about equally well
Broca's aphasia
a condition characterized by inarticulate speech and by difficulties with both using and understanding grammatical devices-prepositions, conjunctions, word endings, complex sentence structures, and so forth
change blindness
the tendency to fail to detect changes in any part of a scene to which we are not focusing our attention
cognition
the processes of thinking, gaining knowledge, and dealing with knowledge
confirmation bias
the tendency to accept one hypothesis and then look for evidence to support it, instead of considering other possibilities
critical thinking
the careful evaluation of evidence for and against any conclusion
fixation
a period when teh eyes are steady
framing effect
the tendency to answer a question differently when it is framed (phrased) differently
functional fixedness
the tendency to adhere to a single approach to a problem or a single way of using an item
heuristics
strategies for simplifying a problem or for guiding an investigation
language acquisition device
a built-in mechanism for acquiring language
morpheme
a unit of meaning
overconfidence
the belief that one's opinions or predicitons are highly correct when in fact they are not
phoneme
a unit of sound
preattentive process
a procedure for extracting information automatically and simultaneously across a large portion of the visual field
productivity
the ability to express new ideas
prototype
a familiar or typical example of a category
representativeness heuristic
the tendency to assume that, if an item is similar to members of a particular category, it is probably a member of that category itself
saccade
a quick jump in the focus of the eyes from one point to another
spreading activation
the process by which the activation of one concept also activates or primes other concepts that are linked to it
Stroop effect
the tendency to read a word, especially if it is a color name, in spite of instructions to disregard the word and state the color of the ink in which it is printed
sunk cost effect
the willingness to do something we wouldn't choose to do otherwise because of money or effort already spent
transformational grammar
a system for converting a deep structure of a language into a surface structure
Wernicke's aphasia
a condition marked by difficulty recalling the names of objects and impaired comprehension of language
Williams syndrome
a genetic condition characterized by metnal retardation in most regards but skillful use of language
word-superiority effect
identifying a letter with greater ease when it is part of a whole word than when it is presented by itself
