Thinking & Language

THOUGHT

Cognition—mental activities involved in acquiring, retaining, and using knowledge Thinking—manipulation of mental representations to draw inferences and conclusions Mental image—representation of objects/events that are not present

CONCEPTS

Concept—mental category of objects or ideas based on shared properties Formal concept—mental category formed by learning rules Natural concept—mental category formed by everyday experience

Examples of Concepts Formal concept—follows rigid rules, not usually intuitive (A polygon is…) Natural concept—results from everyday experience (Name some mammals…)

Insight and Intuition Insight—sudden realization of how a problem can be solved Intuition—coming to a conclusion w/out conscious awareness of thought processes involved

Problem Solving Strategies  y +  z = r 2 1.Algorithm: step-by-step procedure that guarantees a solution

2. Heuristic—strategy that involves following a general rule of thumb to reduce the number of possible solutions Speedier than algorithms More error-proned than algorithms

Can you unscramble this word, using heuristics? SPLOYOCHYG

Heuristics Heuristics make it easier for us to use simple principles to arrive at solutions to problems. S P L O Y O C H Y G S P L O Y O C H G YP S L O Y O C H G YP S Y C H O L O G Y Put a Y at the end, and see if the word begins to make sense.

Functional Fixedness type of mental set inability to see an object as having a function other than its usual one

Using only the objects present in the next picture, attach the candle to the bulletin board in such a way that the candle can be lit and will burn properly Mounting Candle Problem

Answer to candle problem Most people do not think of using the box for anything other than its normal use (to hold the tacks) To solve the problem, you have to overcome functional fixedness

Functional Fixedness A tendency to think only of the familiar functions of an object. ? Problem: Tie the two ropes together. Use a screw driver, cotton balls and a matchbox.

Functional Fixedness Use the screwdriver as a weight, and tie it to the end of one rope. Swing it toward the other rope to tie the knot. ? The inability to think of the screwdriver as a weight is functional fixedness.

Mental Set Q: Why couldn’t you solve the previous problems? A: Mental set—a well- established habit of perception/thought

The Matchstick Problem: How would you arrange six matches to form four equilateral triangles? From “Problem Solving” by M. Scheerer. Copyright © 1963 by Scientific American, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

The Matchstick Problem: Solution From “Problem Solving” by M. Scheerer. Copyright © 1963 by Scientific American, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Nine dots problem W/out lifting your pencil/re- tracing any line, draw 4 straight lines that connect all 9 dots

Most people will not draw lines that extend from the square formed by the 9 dots To solve the problem, you have to break your mental set

Decision Making

Single feature model: make a decision by focusing on only 1 feature Additive model: systematically evaluate the important features of each alternative. Elimination-by-aspects: rate choices based on features. Eliminate those that don’t meet the desired criteria, despite other desirable characteristics.

Availability Heuristic

Judge probability of an event by how easily you can recall previous occurrences of that event How is retrieval facilitated? 1. How recently we have heard about the event. 2. How distinct it is. 3. How correct it is.

Most overest. deaths from natural disasters b/c disasters are frequently on TV Most underest. deaths from asthma b/c they don’t make the local news

Representative Heuristic Judge probability of an event based on how it matches a prototype Can be good Can also lead to errors Most overuse this strategy

Rep. Heuristic If you meet a slim, short, man who wears glasses and likes poetry, what do you think his profession would be? An Ivy league professor or a truck driver?

Making Decision & Forming Judgments Each day we make hundreds of judgments and decisions based on our intuition, seldom using systematic reasoning.

Overconfidence Intuitive heuristics, confirmation of beliefs, and the inclination to explain failures increase our overconfidence. Overconfidence is a tendency to overestimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgments. At a stock market, both the seller and the buyer may be confident about their decisions on a stock.

Exaggerated Fear The opposite of having overconfidence is having an exaggerated fear about what may happen. Such fears may be unfounded. The 9/11 attacks led to a decline in air travel due to fear. AP/ Wide World Photos

“We have nothing to fear but fear itself” -F.D.R.

4 Influences on our Intuitions of Risk:

1. We fear what our ancestral history has prepared us to fear (height, spiders, snakes, etc.) 2. We fear what we can’t control (flying, surgery, etc) 3. We fear what is immediate 4. We fear what is most readily available in memory

Framing Decisions  Decisions and judgments may be significantly affected depending upon how an issue is framed. Example: What is the best way to market ground beef — as 25% fat or 75% lean?

Belief Bias  The tendency of one’s preexisting beliefs to distort logical reasoning by making invalid conclusions. God is love. Love is blind Ray Charles is blind. Ray Charles is God. Anonymous graffiti

Belief Perseverance Belief perseverance is the tendency to cling to our beliefs in the face of contrary evidence. If you see that a country is hostile, you are likely to interpret their ambiguous actions as a sign of hostility (Jervis, 1985).

Confirmation Bias  Only search for info confirming one’s hypothesis. If you believe that people act strange during a full moon, you will take notice of people acting strangely during a full moon, but be inattentive to the moon when people act weird during other nights of the month. A tendency to do this over time unjustifiably strengthens your belief in the relationship between the full moon and peoples’ actions.

Fallacy of Positive Instances Remember uncommon events that confirm our beliefs & ignore those that do not Plane crashes-planes are unsafe Horoscopes

Barnum Effect It is the tendency for people to accept very general or vague characterizations of themselves and take them to be accurate. A good example of this can be seen when people believe what is said about them in psychometric tests, personality profiles, horoscopes, etc named after P. T. Barnum, who believed that a good circus had "a little something for everybody." Even though the descriptions or descriptive terms used in the inventories, typologies, and tests can apply equally well to other people, some individuals believe they are unique to themselves.

1. Break mental sets 2. Find useful analogy 3. Rep. info. efficiently 4. Find shortcuts 5. Estab. sub-goals 6. Turn ill-defined prob into well- defined prob Strategies for solving problems

A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) Science of designing computer systems to perform operations that mimic human thinking & do “intelligent” things such as play chess

Practical side: Industrial robots that “sense” their environment Carry out chemical analysis Weather forecast Medical diagnosis Average grades

Theoretical side: Herbert Simon Goal: process info, solve problems, learn from experience, & remember The brain processes many things at once, computers must do so step-by-step

Computer neural networks Computer sys designed to mimic the brain’s interconnected neural units Feature: learn from experience; more humanlike