PSYC 100A Chapter Notes - Chapter 9: Availability Heuristic, Belief Perseverance, Representativeness Heuristic

• School: University of Victoria
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 100A
• Professor: Martin Smith

Document Summary

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. Contrasts with the usually speedier, but also more error- prone use of heuristics. Heuristic: a simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgements and solve problems e ciently; usually speedier but also more error-prone than algorithms. Ex. to nd guava juice, you could go down every grocery store isle (algorithm) or check the bottled beverage, natural foods, and produce sections (heuristic). Insight: a sudden realization of a problem"s solution; contrasts with strategy- based solutions. Burst of right temporal lobe activity is associated with insight.