Cognition... means thinking. Everything related to thinking including: remembering, learning, knowing, communicating. Meta-cognition Meta-cognition means thinking about thinking! Perhaps the highest form of thinking for humans.

A cognitive psychologist is a psychologist who researches topics related to mental processes, or whose practice is focused on how thoughts effect behavior Random Cognitive Psychologist. I’m guessing his name is Randy.

Thinking: We need to be able to assimilate experiences into familiar mental categories and take the same action toward them, so we give them the same label. We call this... Concepts: One of the main building blocks of thinking.

Concepts are mental representations of categories of similar items, ideas, or events. All of these are concepts: school, birthday party, house. Hierarchies: levels of concepts from most general to most specific (animal, dog, beagle, Bowzer)

FoodMeatCowsPigsVegetablesBroccoli

prototype: ideal or most representative example of a concept When you think of animal, you probably think of a giraffe or a cow.... but not a sponge Therefore, you will be less likely to recognize a sponge as an animal, as it is so different from the prototype.

One of the most fundamental things we do with thought is solve problems. Say you want to take a road trip, but you only have a limited amount of money for gas. Problem. Algorithms Creativity Heuristics

Algorithms: a formula or procedure to solve a problem which guarantees a solution. So, you can use an algorithm to figure your gas mileage and compare it to your sister’s gas mileage to see which car you should take on your road trip. This is an example of convergent thinking or finding the single best solution to a problem

What types of problems would algorithms NOT be useful for? What should you major in? Where should you live? Should you date the hot person or the funny person? What is the best strategy to study for final exams? So, without an “equation” to figure these out, what do we use?

Creativity: the ability to produce novel ideas... Rather than using convergent thinking creativity relies on divergent thinking: the process of creating many unique solutions in order to solve a problem

Heuristics! A heuristic is a cognitive strategy or mental short-cut; rules of thumb. Examples? Quickly zero in on the most likely solution. If you’ve lost your keys, you will probably look in the most likely places for the keys, rather than systematically scour the entire house What has worked in this situation before? If I explain to the teacher why I my assignment isn’t done, she will cut me some slack.

Judgment and Decision Making... or sometimes we’re not very smart. AfNQKc

Representative heuristic: assuming that all items in a concept are going to fit the same characteristics as the first one you encountered. Stereotypes is a good example this problem. Sarah loves to listen to New Age music and faithfully reads her horoscope each day. In her spare time, she enjoys aromatherapy and attending a local spirituality group. Based on this, is Sarah more likely to be a school teacher or a holistic healer? It is far more likely that Sarah is actually a school teacher based purely on probability. School teachers are far more common than holistic healers. SARAH

Availability heuristic: estimating how likely an event is based on how vivid a memory of it is (many people fear flying more than driving, why?) Overconfidence: overestimating the accuracy of your own beliefs or information. Belief perseverance: continuing to believe something, even after ample contradictory evidence has been provided

Obstacles to problem solving: Confirmation bias: noticing only the evidence that fits our preconceived notion Fixation mental set: tendency to respond to a new problem using the same way you approached a similar problem previously. functional fixedness: the inability to perceive a new use for an object associated with a different use.

Insight: The sudden often novel realization of the solution to a problem Sometimes the solution to a problem eludes us despite our best thinking! But, then suddenly we get a flash of inspiration! That is what we call...

Do Animals think?

Kohler’s Chimpanzees Kohler exhibited that Chimps can show insight, and problem solve.

FRAMING

Let’s say you want to subscribe to Psychology Today magazine. You get on their website and see the following offer: Internet Only subscription $59.00 Print-Only Subscription: $ Print-and Internet Subscription: $ Which would you choose?

One researcher found that in his sample of 100 MIT students only 16 chose internet only subscription and 84 chose print and internet. Obviously, they perceived a much better deal with the print and internet. But, when they were offered this... Internet Only subscription $59.00 Print-and Internet Subscription: $ Guess what happened?

Now 68 students selected internet only for $59.00 and 32 chose the combination for $ Why??? Look at the two offers side by side Internet Only subscription $59.00 Print-and Internet Subscription: $ Internet Only subscription $59.00 Print-Only Subscription: $ Print-and Internet Subscription: $ All we did was take out option 2 which nobody selected anyway!

FRAMING How an issue is posed can bring about very different responses, even though there is no difference in the two options

The framing effect is completely illogical, but it works... especially in marketing. What other examples can you think of? Given three choices, consumers usually pick the middle one! So, if you want to get rid of a certain television or blender or car, price it and place it between two other alternatives. Menus often have a very high-priced item that nobody ever orders, but the one just beneath it is typically the most popular. We are more likely to see a sweater marked down from to as a better deal, than a sweater that is $35.00