Psychology 1000 Chapter Notes - Chapter 9 Part 2: Belief Bias, University Of Western Ontario, Problem Solving

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 1000
• Professor: Mike Atkinson

Document Summary

Thought exists as patterns of neural activity. Propositional thought- thought takes the form of verbal sentences in our mind. Motoric thought- thought can be mental representations of motor movements. Imaginal thought- thought consists of images we see in our mind. Much thought is propositions- statements that express ideas. The makeup of propositions is concepts- the basic units of semantic memory, such as the categories we place things (liberal, conservative) Many concepts are define by prototypes- the most typical and memorable members of a category (an eagle is a prototype bird) Reasoning: deductive reasoning- the process of drawing specific conclusions from general rules, this is a top down process, inductive reasoning- the process of drawing general conclusions from specific findings, this is a bottom up process. To remember the difference, think of an upside-down triangle for (1) and a right side up triangle for (2). Knowledge acquisition is process of building schemas- mental framework/organized pattern of thought.