PSYC 100 Chapter Notes - Chapter 8: Surface Roughness, Linguistic Relativity, Mental Age

• School: McGill University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 100
• Professor: Jens C Pruessner

Document Summary

Cognitive psychology: study of higher mental processes (thinking/knowing/deciding) Thinking: mental process; manipulation of info in images/concepts inferred from behaviour. Concept: mental category w/same characteristics; ex. corn+carrots=veggies. Organized in a hierarchy, general speciic. not isolated from another (taxonomy. Positive instance: objects that have certain properties of the concept. Negative instance: objects that do not have certain properties of the concept. Prototype: typical/best example of a concept, readily brought to mind; (plato"s forms. Visual imagery: seeing though object is not viewed; activates brain areas responsible for visual perception (occipital lobes) Well defined/structured: clearly specified beginning state/solution state/ tools/techniques for finding the solution (how to start/operate/finish) Ill defined/unstructured: some uncertainty abt start/operations/end product; may have numerous acceptable responses/criteria not straightforward. Algorithm: systematic procedure w/steps; involves evaluating all possible solutions. Ex: rubix cube | used by computers (time isn"t a problem) Disadvantage: time-consuming, doesn"t work for ill defined problems. Heuristics: educated guess/rules of thumb used to solve problems; less time than^