ThinkingGroup 4

The frontal lobes of the brain are involved in thinking.

Thinking is a cognitive process in which the brain uses information from senses, emotions and memory to create and manipulate mental representations, such as concepts, images, schemas and scripts.

Thinking

We will examine different building blocks of cognition and the first ones are called concepts.

The ability to categorize experiences and certain objects into different mental categories and give them a label is one of the most basic features of thinking.

The mental categories that we form this way are called concepts. Concepts are understandings of different items or ideas retained into one’s mind from experience.

1) An ability to do or act 2) Strength 3) A person or a thing having authority 4) A continuous multiplication of a number

by itself 5) An electricity supply

For example for the word power there are at least 5 different concepts, here are

some examples:

Classes of objects: a table or a chair for example Activities: birthday party, a wedding Living organisms: animals, cat, dog Features of something: small, big Practices: how to wash your hands, how to tie

your shoe laces It is difficult to observe concepts because they

are mental structures but there are two ways of observing them indirectly. The first one is that you can study ones reactions to certain stimuli and see how many people react in the same way to different concepts. And the other one is to observe the brain activity.

Concepts can be mental representations for different items or ideas such as:

Natural concepts-”Mental representations of objects and events drawn from our direct experience”-inprecise mental categories -based on prototypes

Artificial concepts-”Concepts defined by rules, such as word definitions and mathematical formulas”-represent precisely defined ideas or abstractions rather than concrete objects

Two kinds of concepts

-”Levels of concepts, from most general to most specific, in which a more general level includes more specific concepts” You organise declartive memory General to specific Concepts are arranged in hierarchy levels - For example animal – bird – blackbird Linked to many different concepts

Concept hierarchies

Concepts are different in different cultures People think differently Everyone forms concepts

Culture, concepts and thought

Schema can be defined as a cluster of related concepts that provides a framework for thinking about objects, events, ideas, or even emotions.

Expectations Making inferences (

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzbRpMlEHzM)

Humor Scripts/ event schemas

Schemas

What shape are a German shepherd’s ears?

Imagery

Visual imagery adds complexity and richness to our thinking, as do images that involve the other senses (sound, taste, smell, touch)

Cognitive map- a cognitive representation of physical space

Cultural influences on cognitive maps

Visual Thinking

Event-related potentials are EEG patterns associated with particular stimuli

With PET and MRI it is possible to find out which parts of the brain become active during various mental tasks

Visual imagery drawn from memory arises from the visual cortex, auditory memory from auditory cortex etc

Thought and the brain

Prefrontal cortex takes on three different tasks:

1.Keeping track of the episode2.Understanding the context3.Responding to a specific stimulus

...or sometimes called „common sense“ allows us unconsciously to add emotional „hunches“ to our decisions in the form of information about past rewards and punishments

When people make decisions they draw on feelings as well as reason

Intuition

“Good thinkers not only have a repertoire of effective strategies, called algorithms and heuristics, they also know how to avoid the common impediments to problem solving and decision making.”

What abilities do good thinkers possess?

1. Identifying the problem good problem solvers consider all the

possibilities before committing to one solution

2. Selecting strategyAlgorithms =problem solving procedures of

formulas that guarantee a correct outcome, if correctly applied.

Designed formulas or procedures to solve particular kinds of problems.

Step-by-step procedure that leads directly from the problem to solution

Problem solving

values are subjective too many unknowns too complex problems

Does not work if…

= Cognitive strategies or ”rules of thumb” used as shortcuts to solve complex mental tasks. Does not guarantee a correct solution.

require no specialized knowledge.

Heuristics

working backward-solving problem from finish to start searching for analogies-to solve problem by associating it with same type of problem that it previously solved Braking a big problem into smaller

problems

Heuristic strategies

Knowing different styles of strategies is essential to problem solving.

Different situations require different methods.

Obstacles to problem solving

”The tendency to respond to a new problem in the manner used for a previous problem. ”

For example: when your computer shows some kind of error, you try to solve the problem by restarting the computer.

Functional-fixedness ”The inability to perceive a new use for an

object associated with the different purpose.” Functional-fixedness is a form of mental set. In other words, this is when a use of familiar

objects becomes so fixed that you cannot think any alternative ways of using it.

Mental Set

You built up your own limitations, when solving a problem.  

To illustrate this phenomenon, lets make a short test;

Self-imposed limitations

Result

1. The Confirmation Bias Ignoring and finding fault with

information that doesn’t fit ones opinions Seeking information which one can agree

with Common for everyone every once in a

while, especially on issues we hold strong opinions on

The 5 most common causes of poor judgment:

2. The Hindsight Bias A.K.A. “I-knew-it-all-along effect”

(Fischhoff, 1975; Hawkins & Hastie, 1990) After an event has occurred, people

overestimate themselves by claiming to have been able to predict the past

Can potentially flaw judgment of historians, jurors etc.

3. The Anchoring Bias A flawed evaluation of a problem Tendency of estimating problems

based on completely unrelated quantities

Based on Kahneman & Tversky´s experiment

4. The Representativeness Bias Derives from people’s prejudices Risk of underestimating diversity of

individual cases and the complexity of human beings

5. The Availability Bias People’s tendency to use examples from

memory to judge probabilities of events

Genius has to have a lot of imagination

Requires high knowledge on their own field

How to become a genius?

Five main things geniuses are Independent Intensely interested in a problem Willing to restructure the problem Preference for complexity A need for stimulating interaction

Importance of high IQ: Able to become genius with low IQ, they are called savants. Their low IQ decreases creativity but they might have high develop skills.High IQ doesn’t mean that you will become genius, it just helps on it.Intelligence and creativity are whole separate abilities.

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