Cognition and Consciousness - AP Psychology

Short-term memories are stored differently than long-term memories. Short-term memories generally include quick observations, and are only stored for 10-30 seconds. Short-term memories must be processed and stored as long-term memory in order to be accessible for any longer period of time.

Noam Chomsky's theory of language development suggests that children possess the inherent ability to acquire language. When exposed to any given language, children pick it up easily because they have a kind of "universal grammar" that allows them to understand the commonalities between all languages.

Retroactive interference is when newly learned information causes people to forget old information.

Rapid-eye movement (REM) is the stage during which most dreaming occurs. It is the last stage in the cycle of sleep and gets longer and more frequent the longer you sleep.

REM sleep (REM stands for "rapid eye movement") is the stage of sleep in which we dream. As the name suggests, our eyes move rapidly in different directions while in this stage. The other 4 stages of sleep are called "non-REM" sleep.

A circadian rhythm is any process that abides by a 24-hour rhythm. It is best known for helping to tell our bodies when they need sleep. Having a disrupted circadian rhythm is related to negative health outcomes, including various neurological and cardiological problems.

Sleep occurs in 4 stages, NREM-1, NREM-2, NREM-3, and REM.

It's during the first stage of sleep (NREM-1) that you may experience images that resemble hallucinations. These experiences occur without a sensory stimulation and can sometimes be later incorporated into one's memories.

REM (rapid eye-movement) sleep is the fifth and final stage of sleep during which the body is in it's deepest sleep. Dreaming is most frequent, most vivid, and most memorable during REM sleep; however, other dreaming can occur during the other sleep stages.

Stage 4 sleep is referred to as delta sleep, or deep sleep. It is very hard to wake someone in this stage of sleep. Unlike REM sleep, there are no eye or muscle movements. This is the time during which young children may wet their beds and/or experience night terrors.

A representativeness heuristic is the idea that a small sample of known individuals can provide defining characteristics for a larger population. All of the birds that Kevin correctly identified are small and can fly; because the ostrich is large and cannot fly, it does not display the characteristics that Kevin believed all birds must have.

Intelligence quotient (IQ) is a score derived from a cognitive battery that reflects a person's intelligence. IQ scores are standardized, with 100 being the average score and 15 as the standard deviation. IQ scores fall on a normal curve, such that extremes can be easily classified. 68.26% of the population will fall within one standard deviation of the mean (IQ between 85 and 115). IQ scores below 70 and above 130 (two standard deviations from the mean) can help identify mental retardation and exceptional giftedness, respectively.

Belief perseverance is the distinct phenomenom in which we tend not to let go of our previous beliefs despite compelling or truthful evidence that contradicts them. For instance, we may believe that our spouse is faithful, but then find compelling evidence that contradict this. In spite of the evidence, we may continue to believe our spouse is faithful out of our inability to let go of our beliefs. Instead of confronting the problem, due to belief preserverance, we keep believing what makes us comfortable.

Developed by Freud, free association is a technique used in psychoanalysis as a path to the unconscious mind. When prompted, individuals are instructed to say whatever comes to their mind first. By blurting out uncensored words and phrases, Freud hoped to logically discover an individual's unconscious thoughts, fears, and conflicts.

The four stages of creative thinking, in the appropriate order, are: preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification.

This kind of thinking can be applied to almost any problem or project, whether it's figuring out a scientific mystery or writing a great work of literature. First, the preparation is done. What are the different pieces you want to pull together? What are some relevant pieces of information or ideas? Incubation is when you leave the idea alone and your unconscious problem-solving mechanism kicks in. Illumination is when you've realized your vision or solved your problem: you got it, you know what it was you were searching for. Verification is perhaps the most difficult part, which is executing the solution (putting words on paper, drawing the painting, explaining and expanding on the idea).

Our unconscious mind is used for many different tasks and is much more powerful than we often suspect. Incubation, for instance, is a stage of creativity during which we allow our unconscious mind work on the task for us while we ignore it. Later on, the problem or inspiration will come to us from our subconscious, creating the classic "Aha!" moment.

Precognition is a term that depicts the correct prediction of future events. For example, if a child predicts that a certain team will win her soccer league and that prediction occurs, then the child has exhibited precognition of this event.

A fill-in-the-blank test is the only type of test listed that purely relies on a student's ability to retrieve learned information with no context clues (e.g. multiple choices or use of notes).

The correct answer is: Retrograde Amnesia, which describes a memory-loss associated with a specific traumatic event. The memory lost precedes the accident. Anne cannot recall certain events that occurred before her accident.

Anterograde Amnesia refers to the inability to form new memories after a traumatic event.

The other answer choices are irrelevant.

Availability heuristic is the tendency to assume that events remembered more easily (shark deaths on the news) actually occur more frequently.

"Someone is more afraid of bees than sharks because they know bees cause more deaths annually" is the opposite of availability heuristic since the person is relying on actual probability rather than perceived probability based on vividness of memory. "Someone decides whether to be more afraid of bees or sharks by creating an algorithim" is also incorrect because an algorithim (a rule based on a formula) is the opposite of a heuristic (an unscientific rule of thumb). "Someone who already fears sharks a lot looks for evidence that confirms that fear" is an example of confirmation bias and "someone goes to a therapist who encourages them to look at pictures and watch videos of sharks to get over their phobia of sharks" is an example of exposure therapy.

When learning about the cognitive errors associated with heuristics (unscientific rules of thumb), it is easy to start to assume that heuristics are always wrong or are useless in some way. However, small life decisions, such as which route to take to work when there is a little extra traffic, would take way too long if algorithims (rules based on formulas) were used for everything. Therefore, heuristics tend to be faster and algorithims more accurate, but the situation determines which is going to be best to use.