COGNITION

Thinking, Judgment, and Decision Making

Thinking• Cognition

– mental activity associated with thinking, knowing, and remembering

• Cognitive Psychology– the study of these mental activities

• concept formation

• problem solving

• decision making

• judgment formation

– maybe by studying the way we think we can actually think better

Thinking• Concept

– mental grouping of similar objects, events, or people

– Concepts are similar to Jean Piaget’s idea of…

• Schemas - knowledge clusters that provide expectations about topics, events, objects, people, and situations in one’s life These animals all look

different, but they fall under our concept of “dogs”.

• We organize much of our declarative memories (stores facts) into concept hierarchies

Animal

FishBird

SalmonSharkOstrichCanary

Has skinEats

Breathes

Has finsCan swimHas gills

Has wingsCan fly

Has feathers

Can singIs yellow

Can’t flyIs tall

Can biteIs dangerous

Is pinkIs edible

Thinking• Prototype

– the best example of a category

– If a new object is similar to our prototype, we are better able to recognize it.

– We base our concepts on prototypes

If this was my prototype of a man, what am I?

Thinking: Problem Solving• How do we solve problems?

• Good problem solvers are skilled at– Identifying the problem– Selecting a strategy

Problem Solving: Selecting a Strategy

• Algorithm– methodical, logical rule or procedure that

guarantees solving a particular problem– contrasts with the usually speedier – but

also more error-prone use of heuristics

• Heuristic– rule-of-thumb strategy that often allows

us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently

• sometimes we’re unaware of using heuristics

– A shortcut that can be prone to errors

Who would you trust to baby-sit

your child?

Your answer is based on your heuristic of their appearances.

Unscramble

S P L O Y O C H Y G• Try these strategies...

– Algorithm• try all 907,208 combinations

– Guaranteed to find the correct answer, but may take a while

– Heuristic• throw out all YY combinations

– you don’t usually see two Y’s connecting in words, may save you time

– Other heuristics for solving problems• Working backward, Searching for analogies, Breaking a big problem into smaller

problems, etc.

P S Y C H O L O G Y

Problem Solving• Insight

– sudden and often novel realization of the solution to a problem

– No real strategy involved– Wolfgang Kohler’s chimp experiments

• Chimpanzee had to get food in a variety of situations where it was not directly accessible.

• Showed that chimps can problem solve using insight

Problem Solving• The chimps’ insight in Kohler’s experiments

looked much like what is seen in this video clip.

• Other animals (dogs, cats, birds, etc.) use insight in similar experiments...

The Matchstick Problem

• How would you arrange six matches to form four equilateral triangles?

Obstacles to Problem Solving• Functional Fixedness

– tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual functions

– impediment to problem solving

– We aren’t used to using matches to make triangles

Obstacles to Problem Solving• Mental Set

– A tendency to approach a problem in a particular way, especially if it has worked in the past.

– May or may not be a good thing.

• Other obstacles include:– Self-imposed limitations

– Lack of interest

– Fatigue

– Drugs (legal and illegal)

Errors in Judging and Decision Making

Confirmation BiasConfirmation Bias

Hindsight BiasHindsight Bias

Representativeness Representativeness BiasBias

Availability BiasAvailability Bias

Errors in Judging and Decision Making

Confirmation BiasConfirmation Bias

Hindsight Bias

Representativeness Heuristic (Bias)

Availability Heuristic (Bias)

Ignoring or finding fault with information that does not fit our opinions, and seeking information with which we agree

Example: If you believe that during a full moon there is an increase in admissions to the emergency room where you work, you will take notice of admissions during a full moon, but be inattentive to the moon when admissions occur on other nights of the month.

Errors in Judging and Decision Making

Confirmation Bias

Hindsight BiasHindsight Bias

Representativeness Heuristic (Bias)

Availability Heuristic (Bias)

Tendency, after learning about an event, to believe that one could have predicted the event in advance

The hindsight bias creates a problem for many psychology students. When you read the results of experiments in your textbooks, the material often seems easy, even obvious. When you later take a multiple-choice test on which you must choose among several plausible conclusions, the task may become surprisingly difficult.

Errors in Judging and Decision Making

Confirmation Bias

Hindsight Bias

Representativeness Representativeness Heuristic (Bias)Heuristic (Bias)

Availability Heuristic (Bias)

Faulty heuristic strategy based on presumption that, once a person or event is categorized, it shares all features of other members in that category

Example: This is Linda. She loves books and hates loud noises. Is Linda a librarian or a beautician?

Errors in Judging and Decision Making

Confirmation Bias

Hindsight Bias

Representativeness Heuristic (Bias)

Availability Availability Heuristic (Bias)Heuristic (Bias)

Faulty heuristic strategy that estimates probabilities based on information that can be recalled from personal experience

Example: Although diseases kill many more people than accidents, it has been shown that people will judge accidents and diseases to be equally fatal. This is because accidents are more dramatic and are often written up in the paper or seen on the news on t.v., and are more available in memory than diseases.