Chapter 8: Thinking, Language and Intelligence Flashcards
What is cognitive psychology?
The study of mental functions such as intelligence, thinking, language, memory, and decision making
What is cognition ?
The mental activity that includes thinking and the understandings that result from thinking
Cognitive psychology is based on two ideas. What are those ?
1) Knowledge : about the world is stored in the brain in representations
2) Thinking : is the mental manipulation of these representations
In thinking, we use two basic types of mental representations. What are they ?
1) Analogical and symbolic
What are analogical representations? Give an example.
Representation that have some characteristics of the objects they represent
Clock represent time, a map represents the geographical layout
What are symbolic representations? Give an example.
These representations are usually words, numbers, or ideas. They do not have relationships to physical qualities of objects in the world
The word violon, stands for a musical instrument. You cannot “see” any part of a violin in the shape of the word.
What is categorization? Why does this mental activity takes place?
Grouping things based on shared properties
This mental activity reduces the amount of knowledge we must hold in memory and is therefore an efficient way of thinking
What is a concept ?
It is a category, or class, of related items. enabling us to organize mental representations around a common theme
What is the prototype model of concepts?
When you think about a category, you tend to look for a best example, or prototype, for that category. Once you have the prototype, you categorize new objects based on how similar they are to the prototype
What is the exemplar model of concepts?
It proposes that any concept has no single best representation. All the examples, or exemplars, of category members that you have actually encountered form the concept
In cognition, we can use schemas for two reasons. What are those reasons ? Give an example.
1) Common situations have consistent rules
2) People have specific roles within situational contexts
1) If you go see theater, you have to stay quiet
2) Actors, staff and spectators don’t act the same
What is the unintended consequences of schemas or prototypes?
stereotypes
On a cognitive level, what are gender roles ?
A type of schema that operates at the unconscious level
What is a script? Give an example
A schema that directs behavior over time within a situation
Going to the restaurant. You know you’re gonna arrive, wait for a table, sit down, look at the menu, order food, eat and leave.
If schemas and scripts are potentially problematic, why do they persist?
Because they have an adaptative value. These shortcuts minimize the amounts of attention required to navigate familiar environments
What is happening during the process of decision making?
We select among alternatives. We identify important criteria and determine how well each alternative satisfies these criteria
What happens during the process of problem solving?
We overcome obstacles to move from a present state to a desired goal state
True or false. Decision makers are biased, use irrelevant criteria, and are unduly influenced by their emotions
True.
What are heuristics?
Shortcuts in thinking that are fast and efficient strategies that people typically use to make decisions
What is an hindsight bias?
An error in reasoning created by the after-the-fact explanations
What is anchoring ? Give an example.
It occurs when, in making judgments, people rely on the first piece of information they encounter or on information that comes most quickly to mind.
An anchor serves as a reference point in decision making.
For example, if I ask someone if cougars are dangerous vs if I ask them to describe cougars characterics, the answers would not be the same based on the question.
What is anchoring ? Give an example.
It occurs when, in making judgments, people rely on the first piece of information they encounter or on information that comes most quickly to mind.
An anchor serves as a reference point in decision making.
For example, if I ask someone if cougars are dangerous vs if I ask them to describe cougars characterics, the answers would not be the same based on the question.
What is framing ? Give an example.
It refers to the tendency to emphasize the potential losses or potential gains from at least one alternative in decision making
I wanna buy a computer. I could spend 3000$ on one that is very powerful or 800$ on a good one. I might choose the 800$, but it’s gonna have a shorter life span than the 3000$ one.
Within framing, what is the loss aversion effect?
People are generally much more concerned with costs than with benefits
What are the two types of relative comparisons heuristic ?
Anchoring and framing
What is the availability heuristic? Give an example.
The general tendency to make a decision based on the answer that comes most easily to mind
If you are part of the LGBTQ+ community, you might think there is more queer people than the reality, while if you come from a conservative environnement, you might think there is less than reality.
What is the representativeness heuristic? Give an example.
The tendency to place a person or an object in a category if the person or object is similar to our prototype for that category
Max is very well educated, loves to read and love going to the theater. You’re surprise to learn that he works in construction, because it doesn’t fit your prototype of someone that workds in this field.
What is the base rate effect when it comes to faulty thinking with representativeness heuristic? Give an example.
How frequently an event occurs
With the last example of Max, there are so many construction workers, that there is a good chance that a lot of them are educated, loves reading and loves going to theater.
True or false. When people are in good moods, they tend to be persistent and to find creative, elaborate responses to challenging problems
True
What is the cognitive purpose of anticipating future emotional states?
It serve as a source of information and a guide in decision making
emotions serve as (…) : They provide feedback for making quick decisions
Heuristic
When emotions and cognitions are in conflict, (…) typically have the stronger impact on decisions
Emotions
What is the affect-as-information theory? Give an example.
People use current moods to make judgments and appraisals. They rely on their moods even if they are unaware of a mood’s source
I’m a critic, I go see a play and I’m in a bad mood. I might give a negative critic
What is Damasio’s somatic marker theory? Give an example.
Most decisions are influenced by bodily reactions, that arise from emotional evaluation of an action’s consequences (called somatic markers).
The action is based on past history to future outcomes
I have a gut feeling that someone is following me, I hurry up even if the person is not a threat at the end
What part of the brain, when damage, make people insensitive to somatic markers?
The middle of the prefrontal region
What is affective forecasting? Give an example of common poor affective forecasting
Predicting how they will feel about things in the future
People overestimate how happy they will be for positive events, such as getting married, having children
One study found that people who had been paralyzed were more optimistic about their futures than were people who had won lotteries. Why ?
After a negative event, people engage in strategies that help them feel better . Making sense of an event helps reduce its negative emotional consequences.
Framing is poweful in marketing. Why ? Give an example
The point is that positively framed information is more influential in changing behavior than negatively framed information
It helps to frame it as discount instead of a surcharge.
It also helps with low-sugar product that are already high in sugar
