Glossary

• Ability – Ability is synonymous with capability, potential, or capacity. It determines whether or not you possess the means to do something.
• Analytical thinking: the capability to extrapolate meaningful information from a problem-solving scenario, identify key elements of relevance to develop practical solutions.
• Art therapy: The use of artistic methods to treat psychological disorders and enhance mental health is known as art therapy. Art therapy is a technique rooted in the idea that creative expression can foster healing and mental well-being.
• Attention: Attention is a state of focus on a task or subject which is delivered through senses.
• Cognitive enhancement: Cognitive enhancement refers to interventions in the brain that improve attention, concentration, and information processing in executive functions such as reasoning and decision-making.
• Cognitive stimulus: The main objective of cognitive stimulation of the elderly is to slow down the decline of memory, whether visual, spatial or auditory. Depending on the activities carried out, it can also improve the elderly person’s ability to concentrate and adapt.
• Concentration: Concentration is the ability to maintain attention for a certain amount of time.
• Creativity: the use of imagination to create something new.
• Critical thinking: a judgment process as objective as possible.
• Decision making Is the ability to select between two or more options or alternatives and achieve the best outcome in the shortest possible time. Decision-making takes place once you have collected and analyzed the information available for each specific situation.
• Deductive reasoning: Deductive reasoning is a type of reasoning, also known as top-down reasoning. It is used in the scientific method and can also be used in everyday life. This method starts out with a general statement, or hypothesis, and follows some steps to reach a specific logical conclusion.
• Digital Competence: In the context of this module, digital competence is understood as the knowledge, skill and attitudes to browse, evaluate and protect online data.
• Digital Technologies: Digital Technologies means the general term that encapsulates both digital devices such as PCs, laptops, mobile phones, tablets; and digital content like social media platforms, multimedia, websites etc.
• Inductive reasoning: Inductive reasoning is a bottom-up type of thinking. With Inductive thinking, you’ll first form a conclusion, or hypothesis, then seek the evidence to support your conclusion.
• Interaction – reciprocal action or influence communication or direct involvement with someone or something. If you interact with someone — by talking, looking, sharing, or engaging in any kind of action that involves the two of you — you can be said to have had an interaction with that person.
• Long-term memory: Long-term memory is our brain’s system for storing, managing, and retrieving information. It has an unlimited capacity and duration.
• Memory: it is the ability to retain information learned, events and experiences over time. They can be recovered as memories when we need them to face some situations of the present. Memory is actually a process that takes place in three stages: encoding, storage and retrieval.
• Mental Fitness: Even though there isn’t a one-size-fits-all definition, mental fitness in the context of our module means the ability to concentrate, think clearly and creatively.
• Mnemotechniques: from the Greek μνημη “memory” and τέγνη “art” is the set of rules and methods used to memorize information that is difficult to remember quickly and more easily. Mnemonics exploit the natural ability of the human being to remember information if it is transformed into images or stories, or associated with paradoxical events or emotions, thus allowing to increase the natural capacity of human memor.
• Mozart Effect: More generally, the term refers to the possibility that listening to certain types of music enhances inherent cognitive functioning. Apart from the neurological research on this effect, some experts propose an arousal theory perspective, such that listening to music heightens emotional levels that correspond to higher performance on intelligence tests.
• Perception: Also called gnosis. Ability to perceive an object through our different senses (vision, hearing, touch) and to recognise it.
• Recall: it is an information or a network of information contained in long-term memory, which we can retrieve and bring back to consciousness at the time of need. The retrieval of information generally occurs when we receive a recall stimulus or a clue. Generally, this stimulus has similarities or is strongly associated with that information contained in our memory, and therefore facilitates its recovery as a memory.
• Self-awareness: a state of mind that enables people to compare and assess their current standards with their internals (and personal) expectations. Being self-awareness a powerful mean for deep and profound understanding of one’s emotions. Self-awareness triggers the design and “engineering” of a consistent response to a state of need – regardless of the context from where it comes from (family, business, etc.).
• Self-efficacy: originally proposed by the Canadian psychologist Albert Bandura, the concept of self-efficacy refers to: “how well one can execute courses of action required to deal with prospective situations”. A healthy self-efficacy mindset brings a boost-effect to learner’s competence to act with confidence, effectiveness and motivation.
• Sensory memory: Sensory memory is the shortest form of memory and considered the first step of memory. It lasts only for a very brief period, usually no more than a second.
• Short-term memory (MBT): it is a kind of storage in which the information received from the outside is kept for a short period of time (30 seconds) and has a limited capacity. Only some information, through its repetition over time, is then transferred into long-term memory (MLT), a much larger storage that is able to hold information for an unlimited period of time.
• Social interaction – any process that involves reciprocal stimulation or response between two or more individuals. These can range from the first encounters between parent and offspring to complex interactions with multiple individuals in adult life.
• Skills – the ability to do something well; expertise. There are two kinds of skills: technical skills and soft skills. Examples of : Good communication skills, Critical thinking, Working well in a team, Self-motivation, Being flexible, Determination and persistence, Being a quick learner, Good time management. Operate equipment, Paint a portrait, Write computer code, Teach a lesson, Investigate a scientific question, Sell products to customers.
• Stimulus: External or internal cause capable of provoking the reaction of an excitable system, of a living organism.
• Subliminal stimulus: Subliminal perception occurs when the subject says that he or she has not detected or identified the stimulus, but that the same stimulus modifies his or her behaviour.
• Visual Attention: The ability to focus on important visual information and filter out unimportant background information. It’s also the ability to sustain or focus on visual information for periods of time and shift focus when necessary.
• Visual Discrimination: The ability to determine differences or similarities in objects based on size, colour, shape, etc.
• Visual Processing: The ability to take in and understand information you see. It also includes the speed at which you’re able to take in and understand the information.