WHAT ISCOGNITION?
Literally “thinking”
The brain’srepresentations ofinformation in theworld around us
CIRCLE OF THOUGHT
Describe
Elaborate
Decide
Plan
Guide/Act
5 Core Functions ofHuman Thinking
CONCEPTS
A mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, orpeople.
Enables us to chunk large amounts of information – don’tneed to treat every new piece of information as unique.
Chairs
Holidays
Political ideologies
Psychologists
Concepts = Categories
Categories: mental groupings of similar objects, events, and people.
.
What’s the category?
Human infant
Photo albums
Jewelry
Dog
Insurance documents
Data discs
Tapestries
“Things to take from a burning house”
CONCEPTS
Category Hierarchies – We organize concepts intocategory hierarchies
Prototypes = objects or events thatrepresent cPrototypes = objects or events thatrepresent concepts:
Mental image or best example of acategory
SOLVING PROBLEMS
Algorithm
A methodical, logical rule or procedure thatguarantees solving a particular problem
Heuristic
A rule-of-thumb strategy that often allows us tomake judgments and solve problems efficiently(speedier but error-prone)
OBSTACLES…
In the Thompson family there are 5 brothers, andeach brother has one sister. If you count Mrs.Thompson, how many females are there in theThompson family?
Fifteen percent of people in Topeka have unlistedphone numbers. You select 200 names at randomfrom the Topeka phone book. How many of thesepeople can be expected to have unlisted phonenumbers?
Without lifting your pencil from the paper,draw no more than 4 lines that will crossthrough all 9 dots.
OBSTACLES TO PROBLEM SOLVING
Irrelevant Information
Unnecessary constraints (self-imposedlimitations)
OBSTACLES TO PROBLEM SOLVING
Confirmation Bias
A tendency to search for informationthat confirms one’s perceptions
Fixation
The inability to see a problem from anew perspective
Mental Set = tendency toapproach situations in a certainway because that method workedin the past
Functional Fixedness = form ofcognitive bias in which a person isunable to think of other, morecreative uses for an object asidefrom its traditional use
Learned
REPRESENTATIVENESS HEURISTIC
A rule of thumb for judging thelikelihood of things in terms of howwell they seem to represent, ormatch, particular prototypes
people determine the probabilityof something based on assumptionsor past experience
used quite often when makingdecisions….we make our decisionsbased on the likeliness of a sample tooccur in the population.
HEURISTICS EXAMPLE
Pick a number between 1 – 9
Subtract 5
Multiply by 3
Square the number (ex 6 x 6 = 36)
Add the 2 digits together (ex 3 + 6 = 9)
If your number is less than 5, add 5 HOWEVERif you number is 5 or above, subtract 4
Multiply by 2
Subtract 6
Find the corresponding letter in the alphabet
Think of a country that begins with that letter
Find the 2nd letter of the country & think of amammal that begins with that letter
HEURISTICS EXAMPLE CONTINUED
This demonstration ofcognitive heuristics worksbest for people who are mostfamiliar with Europeancountries, for the load causedby doing the math pops thename Denmark into theirheads most rapidly (insteadof the Dominican Republic).And while people can, if theygive it some time, think of ananimal whose name startswith an E besides anElephant (how about an Elk),Elephants are cognitivelyeasier.
Pick a number between 1 – 9
Find the corresponding letterin the alphabet
Think of a country that beginswith that letter
Find the 2nd letter of thecountry & think of a mammalthat begins with that letter
Think of the color of thatmammal
Is it a grey elephant fromDenmark?
USING AND MISUSING HEURISTICS
AvailabilityHeuristic
Estimating thelikelihood ofevents based ontheiravailability inmemory
If instances cometo mind = wepresume suchevents arecommon
USING AND MISUSING HEURISTICS
Anchoring Heuristic
Starting with an implicitly suggestedreference point (the "anchor") andmake adjustments to it to reach theirestimate
Once the anchor is set, it usually wontchange.
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