Cognitive Slippage

Cognitive Slippage is a symptom of mental disorders/diseases and is exhibited by groups of objects being categorized in an over generalized manner. It is a result of "tangential thinking" where mental representations 'slip' and cause individuals to be incorrect in categorizations because of loose associations. An example would be a patient who was asked to list types of trees. The patient says "Pine, oak, dogwood, maple, syrup, pancake, breakfast." The slippage occurs because of the loose association between maple which is a type of tree that produces the syrup used in pancakes. The patient overgeneralizes trees by including things that are not trees in the same category.