PS102 Chapter Notes - Chapter 9: Confirmation Bias, Affect Heuristic, Availability Heuristic
Document Summary
Some cognitive psychologists see the mind as an information processor the brain does not passively record info, but actively alters and organizes it. When we take action, we physically manipulate the environment; when we think, we mentally manipulate internal representations of objects, activities and situations. Concept: a mental category that groups objects, relations, activities, abstractions or qualities having common properties. Concepts simplify and summarize info about the world so that it is manageable and we can make decisions quickly & efficiently. Basic concepts: concepts that have a moderate number of instances and that are easier to acquire than those having few or many instances (e. g. apple vs. fruit more basic vs. more abstract) Prototype: an especially representative example of a concept when we need to decide whether something belongs to a concept, we are likely to compare it to a prototype.