Cognition: Problem-Solving and Decision-Making Flashcards
Cognition
mental activity that goes on in the brain when a person is processing information; Organizing information, understanding information, and communicating information
What do Congitive Psychologists study?
concepts, problem solving, decision making
Concepts
mental groupings of similar objects, ideas, events, or people
Why are concepts important?
Makes our lives faster, easier, and more predictable; brain works less to work through concept I imagine
How do we form concepts?
Artificial and Natural concepts
Artificial Concepts
(formal concepts): arise out of logical rules or definitions; all of those meeting the criteria are included, and those missing features are excluded ; Often found in scientific disciplines
Example: triangle has 3 sides and 3 angles(must have these to be included as a triangle)
Natural concepts
categories that have “general rules” about what belongs; we create a “prototype” or “best example”
Example: concept of bird, a robin or sparrow may come to mind since it captures “birdness” lol
Problem Solving
moving from a given state(problem) to a goal state(solution)
Problem solving strategies
Algorithms, Heuristics, Insight
Algorithms
step by step procedure that, if appropriate, will always result in solution
Example: math problems, assembly instructions(building furniture), rubic’s cube
Heuristics
an educated guess, your “go to” strategy; applying shortcut solutions based on past knowledge and experience
o Advantage: provide shortcuts to solutions
o Disadvantage: increased errors
Example: Unscramble SPLOYOCHYG
* Psychology 😊
Insight
when puzzling over a problem and we suddenly divine an abrupt, true-seeming, satisfying solution; the “AHA!” moment
Example: think of one word that goes with all three of the following
Pine, crab, sauce
Barriers to problem solving
Mental sets, functional fixedness, confirmation bias, and incubation
Mental sets
can only think of solutions that have gone before, lack of creativity, inability to see things from a fresh perspective
Example:
Physician sees 9 patients in a row with the same illness; 10th patient comes in with some similar symptoms; Because of experience with the first nine patients, the doctor diagnoses the 10th patients with the same illness; Could be dismissing symptoms that may point to a different illness altogether
Functional Fixedness
view objects as only serving in their intended capacity; fail to see objects can serve more than one purpose
Example: life hack videos show how objects can be used for a variety of purposes
Confirmation Bias
we tend to favor evidence that confirms our preconceived ideas
Example: sample 2-4-6; There is a rule used to generate these three numbers, what is it?
Incubation
some problems require a period in which we allow the most pertinent facts to come into focus, allowing the distracting or irrelevant info to fade from our minds
Decision Making
When we make decisions, we either
* Engage in concerted problem-solving efforts, weighing the pros and cons, doing research, weighing the evidence(Example: choosing a new fridge; size, price, features we want)
Use intuition: our facts automatic, unreasoned feelings and thoughts
Which through decision process do we use most?
Intuition, because it is easier, faster, and often successful; BUT NOT ALWAYS; Sometimes we only take in what we want from decision, can lead to remorse and regret of decision made; Want to favor some decisions over others
Common errors in decision making
Availability Heuristic, Overconfidence, Belief perseverance, and Framing
Availability Heuristic
estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; information that is more vivid, recent, or distinctive will more easily come to mind, leading to us thinking that it happens frequently
Example: Deer are the most dangerous animals to humans in America, but we relate to other animals that have caused shocking, unusual deaths; Think it is most likely to happen from other animals because of their newsworthiness/random; Deer not mentioned because it causes deaths so frequently
Overconfidence
the tendency to be more confident than correct, to overestimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgements
Example: the “planning fallacy”; Student routinely underestimate the number of days it will take to complete an assignment, project, paper, test prep
Belief Perseverance
clinging to one’s original beliefs even when faced with legitimate evidence to the contrary; No matter how much evidence, still thinking one way
Example: estimating grade a student gets for the class based on points left, some still argue they can score higher than evidence claims
Detailed example of belief perseverance
researchers gave mixed evidence to people on each side of an issue; Study A and Study B, conservatives and liberals; Both sides were impressed with the study that supported their view and disputed the opposing study; Showing both groups the same mixed evidence increased their disagreement on the issue
Framing
how an issue is posed can greatly affect our perceptions and their our decisions and judgements
Example: 10% of patients die during this surgery, rate your concern on scale of 1-10
Example: 90% of patients survive during this surgery, rate your concern on scale of 1-10
