Cognition Unit 2.2A

all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating.

• Intuition
• Memory
• Cognition
• Perception

cognition about our cognition; keeping track of and evaluating our mental processes.

• Self-awareness
• Emotional intelligence
• Metacognition
• Cognitive bias

a mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people.

• Concept
• Type
• Theme
• Category

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 (as when comparing feathered creatures to a prototypical bird, such as a crow).

• Stereotype
• Prototype
• Archetype
• Exemplar

a concept or framework that organizes and interprets information.

• hypothesis
• postulate
• principle
• schemas

interpreting our new experiences in terms of our existing schemas.

• Accommodation
• Modification
• Integration
• Assimilation

in developmental psychology, adapting our current schemas (understandings) to incorporate new information.

• Assimilation
• Integration
• Modification
• Accommodation

the ability to produce new and valuable ideas.

• inspiration
• innovation
• imagination
• creativity

narrowing the available problem solutions to determine the single best solution.

• Inefficient solution evaluation
• Random solution selection
• convergent thinking

• divergent thinking

expanding the number of possible problem solutions; creative thinking that diverges in different directions.

• Convergent thinking
• Analytical reasoning
• Critical evaluation
• Divergent thinking