Psychology terms in Learning and cognition

A short introduction given before new material, such as a title, overview or analogy, that activates relevant prior knowledge so the new material can be linked to existing schemas.

A style of thinking in which attention focuses on a central object separated from its context, objects are categorised by rules and attributes, and events are explained by the object’s properties.

A loss of the ability to form new long-term memories after brain damage, while memories from before the damage remain largely available.

A cognitive process that selects some information from the environment or from memory for further processing while other information is ignored.

The theory that natural environments allow the capacity for effortful, directed attention to recover, because they hold attention without requiring effort.

Treisman’s model of attention in which unattended input is weakened rather than blocked, so that important or expected words, such as one’s own name, can still reach awareness.

Memory for events and facts from a person’s own life, combining episodic memories with semantic knowledge about the self.

A mental shortcut in which the frequency or probability of an event is judged by how easily examples of it come to mind.

The systematic application of learning principles, especially reinforcement, to change a specific, observable behaviour, which is measured before, during and after the intervention.

The tendency to judge the logical validity of an argument by whether its conclusion is believable, accepting believable but invalid conclusions and rejecting unbelievable but valid ones.

A physical characteristic of the body, such as a brain structure, neurotransmitter, hormone, gene, sleep or age, that influences behaviour or a cognitive process.

Repeated practice on computerised tasks or games intended to improve general cognitive abilities such as working memory or attention.

The proposal that people raised among rectangular buildings learn to read angles in drawings as three-dimensional corners, which makes them more susceptible to illusions such as the Müller-Lyer illusion.

The ability to focus on one conversation in a noisy setting while still noticing personally important information, such as one’s own name, from an unattended conversation.

The limited capacity for attention, working memory and self-control available at any moment, which can be reduced by preoccupying concerns such as worry about money.

An error in a cognitive process such as memory, attention or perception, often caused by a lack of information or by the use of a heuristic.

A police interviewing technique based on memory research that helps witnesses retrieve more accurate detail by reinstating the context, reporting everything, and recalling in different orders and from different perspectives.

The use of physical actions or external tools, such as notes, reminders, devices or the internet, to reduce the cognitive demands of a task, especially on memory.

The process by which reasoners sense, often quickly and without awareness, that an intuitive answer conflicts with logical or probabilistic principles, shown for example by lower confidence in intuitive answers to conflict problems.

The error of judging that a combination of two events or characteristics is more probable than one of them alone, which is logically impossible.

A debiasing strategy in which people deliberately generate reasons why their initial judgement or an anchor might be wrong before making a final decision.

Better recall when the external environment at retrieval matches the environment in which the information was learned.

A model who at first shows difficulty, errors or doubt and then gradually overcomes them, demonstrating both a skill and how to deal with setbacks.

An aspect of culture, such as shared values, language, schooling, social practices or the environment a group lives in, that influences behaviour or a cognitive process.

A schema learned through membership of a culture, such as a script for a wedding or a meal, which members of that culture share and use to interpret events and texts.

Any strategy that reduces the effect of a cognitive bias on judgement, either by changing how the person thinks or by changing the situation in which the decision is made.

A type of long-term memory for facts and events that can be consciously recalled and put into words; it includes episodic and semantic memory.

The reproduction of an observed action after a delay, without the model being present, which shows that the action has been stored in long-term memory.

Conditions of learning, such as retrieval practice, spacing and interleaving, that make learning feel harder and slower at first but improve long-term retention and transfer.

A research technique in which a different message is played to each ear through headphones, and participants usually repeat aloud (shadow) one of them.

The subjective experience that processing information is difficult, for example when text is printed in a hard-to-read font; it was proposed as a cue that triggers deliberate System 2 thinking.

A learning strategy in which material is represented in both words and images, giving two linked memory codes and two routes for retrieval.

An encoding strategy in which new information is connected to existing knowledge, for example by explaining why a fact is true or how it relates to other ideas.

The principle, proposed by Endel Tulving, that memory is best when the cues present at retrieval match those encoded together with the information at learning.

A type of declarative long-term memory for personal events experienced at a particular time and place, such as a first day at school.

An account given by a person who saw an event, such as a crime or accident, describing what happened and who was involved, often used as evidence in court.

A memory of an event, or a detail of an event, that did not happen or happened differently, which the person nonetheless experiences as genuine.

Improvement in an ability or setting different from the one trained, such as better reasoning after working memory training; near transfer is improvement on closely similar tasks.

The tendency for perception of an object to be influenced by its surrounding context, measured for example by the rod and frame test.

Broadbent’s (1958) model of attention in which a filter selects one input on the basis of physical features, such as the ear or voice, and blocks the others before their meaning is processed.

A vivid, detailed and confidently held memory of the circumstances in which a person learned of a surprising, emotional and important event.

The tendency for choices between options with identical outcomes to change depending on how the options are described, for example as gains or as losses.

The use of game design elements such as points, badges, levels, leaderboards and streaks in non-game settings, such as learning, to motivate behaviour.

A classroom management method in which teams win privileges if members break class rules fewer than a set number of times, so each pupil’s behaviour affects the whole team.

The tendency to remember less of information that one expects to be able to find again online, while remembering better where it can be found.

The tendency, after an outcome is known, to overestimate how predictable it was and how well one would have predicted it beforehand.

A style of thinking in which attention is spread over the whole field, objects are understood through their relationships and context, and events are explained by the situation.

Learning that happens without an intention to learn, studied by giving participants a task with material and then an unexpected memory test.

A practice strategy in which different types of problem, skill or topic are mixed within a session rather than practised in separate blocks.

A question whose wording suggests a particular answer, which can bias the reply and, in eyewitness research, alter what is later remembered.

A model of memory proposed by Craik and Lockhart (1972) in which how long information is retained depends on the depth of processing at encoding, from shallow (structural) to deep (semantic).

The hypothesis that the structure and vocabulary of the language a person speaks influence how they perceive, remember and think about the world.

The tendency for losses to have a greater psychological impact than gains of the same size, so that people take risks to avoid a loss that they would not take to secure an equal gain.

A model who performs a task correctly and confidently from the start, demonstrating the finished skill without errors or doubt.

A cognitive process by which information is encoded, stored and later retrieved, allowing past experience to affect present behaviour and thought.

The process by which a newly encoded, fragile memory trace is stabilised into a lasting long-term memory, first at synapses within hours and then across brain systems over months or years.

The proposal that stress hormones such as adrenaline, acting through the amygdala, strengthen the consolidation of memories formed during emotional arousal rather than creating them.

Knowledge about one’s own thinking and the ability to monitor and control it, such as judging how well something has been learned and choosing a strategy to learn it.

The distortion of a memory by misleading information received after the event, so that a person reports details that were not part of the original experience.

A technique, such as an acronym, a rhyme or the method of loci, that organises information into a memorable structure to aid encoding and retrieval.

A visual illusion in which two lines of equal length appear to differ in length because of the direction of arrow-like fins at their ends.

The tendency to believe that one is more likely than other people to experience good events and less likely to experience bad ones.

The tendency for people’s confidence in their judgements, knowledge or abilities to be greater than the accuracy of those judgements justifies.

The tendency of human children to copy all of an adult’s demonstrated actions, including steps that are clearly unnecessary for reaching the goal.

A teaching arrangement in which learners of similar age or ability teach one another, so that the tutor acts as a similar model and both tutor and tutee can benefit.

A cognitive process that organises and interprets information from the senses, so that sensations are experienced as meaningful objects and events.

The principle that a more frequent, preferred activity can reinforce a less frequent one when access to the preferred activity depends on doing the other first.

The knowledge a learner already holds in long-term memory before meeting new material, organised in schemas to which the new material can be linked.

A type of long-term memory for skills and how to do things, such as riding a bicycle, which is expressed in performance rather than consciously recalled.

The view that remembering is an active process of rebuilding a past event from stored fragments, schemas and later information, rather than replaying an exact copy.

A mental shortcut in which the probability that something belongs to a category is judged by how closely it resembles a typical member of that category, neglecting base rates.

A learning strategy in which information is actively recalled from memory, for example through self-testing, which strengthens long-term retention more than restudying the same material.

A loss of memories formed before brain damage, usually worst for the period just before the damage and less severe for older memories.

The process of focusing on one source of information while ignoring others, such as following one conversation in a noisy room.

A type of declarative long-term memory for general knowledge and facts about the world, such as word meanings, independent of when they were learned.

A learning strategy in which study of the same material is spread across several sessions separated in time, which improves long-term retention compared with massing study into one session.

Better recall when a person’s internal state at retrieval, such as mood, arousal or the effect of a drug, matches their state at learning.

A situation in which awareness of a negative stereotype about one’s group is thought to impair performance on a task that the stereotype concerns.

A form of deductive argument in which a conclusion is drawn from two premises; it is valid if the conclusion must be true whenever the premises are true, whatever its real-world truth.

The pattern in retrograde amnesia in which recent memories are lost more than older ones, because older memories have been consolidated outside the hippocampus.

A behaviour modification system in which tokens are given immediately for target behaviours and later exchanged for backup reinforcers such as privileges, activities or items.

The principle that memory is best when the kind of processing used at encoding matches the kind of processing the later memory test requires.

A research method in which participants answer a reasoning problem twice, first quickly under a deadline or load that blocks deliberate thinking, then again with unlimited time, to separate intuitive from deliberate responses.

A teaching method in which the learner watches a recorded demonstration of a target skill, which can be paused and repeated, before practising it.