Psychology terms in Cognitive approach

In Piaget’s theory, the process of changing an existing schema, or creating a new one, when new information does not fit what is already known.

The tendency for a numerical estimate or decision to be drawn towards an initial value that a person has considered, even an irrelevant one, so the final judgement stays too close to it.

A research technique in which participants repeat an irrelevant sound, such as “the, the, the”, to block subvocal rehearsal in the phonological loop.

In Piaget’s theory, the process of fitting new information into an existing schema without changing the schema.

The strengthening of opposing attitudes when people who disagree are exposed to the same mixed or inconclusive evidence, so that their views move further apart.

A behavioural treatment in which an unwanted behaviour or stimulus is repeatedly paired with an unpleasant stimulus, such as a nausea-producing drug, so that it comes to be avoided.

A process in which a person’s expectation about someone changes how they behave towards them, leading the other person to act in a way that appears to confirm the expectation.

An approach that explains behaviour as learned through conditioning by the environment, and that studies only observable behaviour rather than unobservable mental processes.

The tendency for a belief to persist after the evidence on which it was originally based has been discredited or shown to be false.

A form of confirmation bias in which evidence supporting an existing belief is judged as stronger and more reliable than equally good opposing evidence, and ambiguous evidence is read as support.

A form of confirmation bias in which information consistent with an existing belief is recalled more easily or accurately than information that is inconsistent with it.

A form of confirmation bias in which people look for and select information, questions or sources that are likely to support what they already believe.

An inherited tendency to learn certain associations, such as taste with illness or snakes with fear, more quickly and lastingly than others because they aided survival in evolution.

The component of the working memory model that directs attention, coordinates the other components and switches between tasks; it has limited capacity and stores no information itself.

A strategy of grouping separate items into larger meaningful units, so that more information can be held within the limited capacity of short-term memory.

A form of learning in which a neutral stimulus, repeatedly paired with a stimulus that already triggers a reflexive response, comes to trigger a similar response on its own.

A perspective in psychology that explains behaviour through internal mental processes, such as perception, attention, memory and thinking, often treating the mind as an information-processing system.

A systematic deviation from rationality or from an accepted norm in judgement, so that errors in thinking occur in a predictable direction rather than at random.

The amount of working memory resources required to carry out a task at a given time; when demands exceed the capacity available, cognitive overload impairs learning and performance.

A theory of learning which proposes that working memory has a limited capacity for new information, so instruction should avoid overloading it and direct its capacity towards building schemas in long-term memory.

The idea that people tend to minimise mental effort, relying on quick, intuitive System 1 judgements and engaging effortful System 2 thinking only when they must.

A simplified representation of a cognitive process, usually drawn as components linked by the flow of information, used to explain the process, generate testable hypotheses and make predictions.

Any mental function involved in acquiring, storing, interpreting, transforming or using information, such as attention, perception, memory, language, thinking and decision-making.

A three-item test devised by Frederick (2005) in which each question invites a fast, intuitive but wrong answer, used to measure the tendency to override intuition with reflection.

An emotional reaction, such as fear, acquired through classical conditioning, so that a previously neutral stimulus now triggers it.

The learned response triggered by a conditioned stimulus, usually similar to but weaker than the unconditioned response.

A formerly neutral stimulus that, after being paired with an unconditioned stimulus, triggers a learned response on its own.

A learned avoidance of a food or drink after its taste has been followed by illness, which can form after one pairing even when illness is delayed by hours.

The tendency to search for, interpret and recall information in ways that support existing beliefs or hypotheses, while giving less attention or weight to information that contradicts them.

A technique that replaces an unwanted conditioned response with an incompatible one by pairing the conditioned stimulus with a stimulus that produces the new response, such as relaxation.

The cognitive process of choosing between two or more options, which involves judging the likelihood and value of possible outcomes.

A pattern of results in which one factor affects process A but not process B, while a second factor affects B but not A, which is evidence that the two processes are separate.

A theory proposing that thinking and decision-making rely on two types of process: fast, automatic, intuitive System 1 processing and slow, effortful, deliberate System 2 processing that can check and override it.

A research method in which participants perform two tasks at once; if performance falls, the tasks are assumed to compete for the same limited-capacity component.

The degree to which the elements of information in a task must be processed together because they depend on one another; high element interactivity produces high intrinsic load.

The process of converting information into a form that can be stored in memory, for example as sounds (acoustic encoding) or meanings (semantic encoding).

The component added to the working memory model by Baddeley (2000): a limited-capacity store that combines information from the other components and long-term memory into integrated episodes.

The finding that instructional techniques which help novices by reducing cognitive load lose their benefit, or impair learning, for more knowledgeable learners, for whom the guidance is redundant.

The gradual weakening and disappearance of a learned response when the conditioned stimulus appears without the unconditioned stimulus, or when a behaviour is no longer reinforced.

The cognitive load imposed by the way information is presented or by the learning activity, when that design does not contribute to learning, such as searching between separate sources.

The working memory resources a learner devotes to processing the material and constructing schemas; the revised theory treats it as part of the capacity used for intrinsic load.

A mental shortcut or rule of thumb that produces a quick judgement with little effort; heuristics are usually adequate but can lead to systematic errors called cognitive biases.

Conditioning in which a neutral stimulus is paired with an established conditioned stimulus, rather than an unconditioned stimulus, and comes to trigger a conditioned response itself.

A view of cognition that treats the mind as a system that takes in, transforms, stores and retrieves information in stages, often by analogy with a computer.

An explanation of anchoring in which people start from the anchor and adjust towards a plausible value but stop too early, at the edge of the plausible range nearest the anchor.

The cognitive load imposed by the inherent complexity of the material, which depends on how many interacting elements must be processed at once relative to the learner’s existing knowledge.

Thorndike’s principle that responses followed by satisfying consequences become more likely to recur in the same situation, and those followed by unpleasant consequences less likely.

A memory store that holds information for periods from minutes to a lifetime, with a capacity that is practically unlimited.

The finding that learners learn more when a diagram is accompanied by a spoken rather than a written explanation, because visual and auditory channels together increase effective working memory capacity.

Reasoning in which the wish to reach a particular conclusion, rather than accuracy, influences how evidence is sought, evaluated and remembered.

A model of memory proposed by Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968) in which information passes through three separate stores, sensory memory, short-term memory and long-term memory, linked by attention, rehearsal and retrieval.

Strengthening a behaviour because it removes, ends or avoids an unpleasant stimulus, such as pain, anxiety or a loud noise.

A stimulus that, before conditioning, does not trigger the response being studied, apart from perhaps a brief orienting response.

A form of learning in which the likelihood of a voluntary behaviour changes as a result of its consequences: reinforced behaviour becomes more likely and punished behaviour less likely.

The decrease in intrinsic motivation for an enjoyable activity that can follow an expected external reward for doing it, as the activity comes to be seen as done for the reward.

Reinforcing a behaviour only some of the times it occurs, which slows learning but makes the behaviour much more resistant to extinction than continuous reinforcement.

The component of the working memory model that holds speech-based information, made up of a phonological store (inner ear) and an articulatory rehearsal process (inner voice).

Strengthening a behaviour by following it with a desirable stimulus, such as food, praise or money.

A way of testing a hypothesis by examining cases that the hypothesis predicts should have the property in question, rather than cases it predicts should not.

A reinforcer that satisfies a biological need and works without learning, such as food, water, warmth or relief from pain.

Any consequence that makes a behaviour less likely, either by adding an unpleasant stimulus (positive punishment) or removing a desirable one (negative punishment).

The finding that adding information which repeats what is already understandable, such as reading aloud text learners can see, impairs learning because it uses working memory without adding anything new.

The repetition of information in short-term memory, which keeps it active and, in the multi-store model, transfers it to long-term memory.

Any consequence of a behaviour that increases the likelihood that the behaviour will be repeated.

The process of bringing stored information back into conscious awareness when it is needed, for example by recall or recognition.

The rule deciding which responses are reinforced, such as after a fixed or variable number of responses (ratio) or a fixed or variable amount of time (interval).

A mental framework of organised knowledge about an object, person, event or situation, built from experience, that creates expectations and guides how new information is processed.

A cognitive theory proposing that knowledge is organised into mental frameworks, called schemas, that guide perception, attention, encoding and retrieval of new information.

A schema for a familiar sequence of events, such as eating in a restaurant, that specifies the usual actions, roles and order in which they happen.

A stimulus that has become reinforcing through association with a primary reinforcer, such as money, praise or tokens.

An explanation of anchoring in which considering an anchor activates knowledge consistent with it, making that knowledge more accessible in memory so that it dominates the final estimate.

A schema containing a person’s organised beliefs and knowledge about themselves, which guides attention to and memory for information relevant to the self.

A memory store that holds a brief, unprocessed copy of input from each sense for a fraction of a second to a few seconds, with a large capacity.

The tendency to recall items at the start of a list (primacy effect) and at the end of a list (recency effect) better than items in the middle.

A technique for producing new behaviour by reinforcing successive approximations to it, gradually raising the requirement until only the target behaviour is reinforced.

A memory store of limited capacity, about five to nine items, that holds information for up to about 18–30 seconds unless it is rehearsed.

The finding that learning is impaired when learners must divide attention between separate sources that only make sense together, such as a diagram and a separate text, and that integrating them helps.

The reappearance of an extinguished conditioned response after a rest period, when the conditioned stimulus is presented again.

A schema about a social group that attributes the same characteristics to all its members, regardless of individual differences.

Learning to respond to a conditioned stimulus but not to similar stimuli that have not been paired with the unconditioned stimulus.

The tendency for stimuli similar to a conditioned stimulus to trigger the conditioned response, with stronger responses to more similar stimuli.

The fast, automatic, effortless and largely unconscious mode of thinking in dual processing theory, which produces intuitive judgements by association and heuristics without loading working memory.

The slow, deliberate, effortful and conscious mode of thinking in dual processing theory, which uses working memory to follow rules, reason hypothetically and check or override System 1.

Processing of information that is guided by prior knowledge, expectations and schemas, as opposed to processing driven only by the features of the incoming stimulus.

The unlearned, reflexive response produced by an unconditioned stimulus, such as salivation to food or a startle to a sudden loud noise.

A stimulus that triggers a response naturally, without any learning, such as food producing salivation or a loud noise producing fear.

The component of the working memory model that holds and manipulates visual and spatial information, such as images, shapes and the layout of a space.

The finding that people recall fewer long words than short words from a list, because the phonological loop holds only as much as can be said in about two seconds.

The finding that novices learn a procedure more effectively by studying step-by-step worked examples than by solving equivalent problems, because examples avoid the heavy load of searching for a solution.

The limited-capacity memory system that temporarily holds and manipulates the information a person is currently thinking about, holding only a few new elements for a few seconds without rehearsal.

A model of short-term memory proposed by Baddeley and Hitch (1974) that divides it into a central executive controlling a phonological loop, a visuospatial sketchpad and, from 2000, an episodic buffer.