7.7 CHAPTER REVIEW

KEY POINTS

• Cognition refers to the mental activities involved in acquiring, retaining, and using knowledge.

• Thinking involves manipulating internal, mental representations of information in order to draw inferences and conclusions. Thinking often involves the manipulation of two kinds of mental representations: mental images and concepts.

• Most research has been done on visual mental images. We seem to treat mental images much as we do actual visual images or physical objects.

• Thinking also involves the use of concepts. Formal concepts are defined by logical rules. Natural concepts are likely to have fuzzy rather than rigid boundaries. We determine membership in natural concepts by comparing an object with our prototype for the natural concept or by comparing it to exemplars that we have stored in memory.

• Problem solving refers to thinking and behavior directed toward attaining a goal that is not readily available.

• Strategies commonly used in problem solving include trial and error, algorithms, and heuristics. Heuristics include breaking a problem into a series of subgoals and working backward from the goal. Sometimes problems are resolved through insight or intuition.

• Functional fixedness and mental set are two common obstacles to problem solving.

• Decision-making models include the single-feature model, the additive model, and the elimination-by-aspects model. Different strategies may be most helpful in different situations.

• When making risky decisions, we often use the availability heuristic and the representativeness heuristic to help us estimate the likelihood of events.

• Language is a system for combining arbitrary symbols to produce an infinite number of meaningful statements.

• Language has the following characteristics: Meaning is conveyed by arbitrary symbols whose meaning is shared by speakers of the same language; language is a rule-based system; language is generative; and language involves displacement.

• Language influences thinking by affecting our perceptions of others.

• Animals communicate with members of their own species, sometimes in a complex fashion. Some can also be taught to communicate with humans. Bonobos and dolphins seem to have demonstrated an elementary grasp of the rules of syntax. Animal cognition is an active field of research in comparative psychology.

• Intelligence can be defined as the global capacity to think rationally, act purposefully, and deal effectively with the environment. Intelligence tests are designed to measure general mental abilities.

• Alfred Binet developed the first widely accepted intelligence test, which incorporated the idea of mental age that was different from a chronological age. Binet did not believe that intelligence was inborn or fixed nor that it could be described by a single number.

• Lewis Terman adapted Binet’s test for use in the United States and developed the concept of the intelligence quotient, or IQ score. Terman believed that success in life was primarily determined by IQ.

• Group intelligence tests were developed for screening military recruits during World War I.

• David Wechsler developed the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS), which included scores on subtests that measured different mental abilities. Wechsler also changed the method of calculating overall IQ scores.

• Achievement tests and aptitude tests are two types of psychological tests. Psychological tests must meet the requirements of standardization, reliability, and validity. The norms, or standards, for intelligence tests follow the normal curve, or normal distribution, of scores.

• Debate over the nature of intelligence centers on two key issues: (1) whether intelligence is a single factor or a cluster of different abilities and (2) how narrowly intelligence should be defined.

• Charles Spearman believed that intelligence could be described as a single factor, called general intelligence, or the g factor.

• Louis L. Thurstone believed that there were seven primary mental abilities.

• Howard Gardner believes that there are multiple intelligences. He defines intelligence as the ability to solve problems or create products that are valued within a cultural setting.

• Robert Sternberg’s triarchic theory of intelligence emphasizes both the universal aspects of intelligence and the importance of adapting to a particular cultural environment. He identifies three forms of intelligence: analytic, creative, and practical intelligence.

• The IQ of any individual is the result of a complex interaction between heredity and environment. Intelligence is not determined by a single gene, but by the interaction of multiple genes.

• Twin studies are used to determine the degree to which genetics contributes to complex characteristics such as intelligence. Heritability refers to the percentage of variation within a given population that is due to heredity. Within a given racial group, the effects of environment and genetics are roughly equal.

• There are differences in the average IQ scores for different racial groups. However, there is more variation within a particular group than there is between groups.

• Although it is possible to calculate the differences within a given group that are due to heredity, it is not possible to calculate the differences between groups that are due to heredity. Unless the environments are identical, no comparisons can be drawn. Rather than genetic factors, environmental factors are more likely to be the cause of average IQ differences among groups.

• Cross-cultural studies have demonstrated that the average IQ scores of groups subject to social discrimination are frequently lower than the average IQ scores of the dominant social group, even when the groups are not racially different.

• Intelligence tests can be culturally biased. All intelligence tests reflect the culture in which they are developed. Cultural factors may also influence test-taking behavior and individual performance. IQ scores reflect only selected aspects of intelligence.

KEY TERMS

KEY PEOPLE