cognitive psychology 1 Flashcards
1
Q
What is cognitive psychology?
A
The scientific study (which includes controlled experiments) of mental processes.
2
Q
What is cognitive psychology also referred to as?
A
The information-processing approach. This is because of the analogy between the mind and a computer.
3
Q
How does the mind/computer analogy work?
A
It assumes that the brain processes information from the environment in a similar matter as a digital computer. The hardware is the physical system (nervous system), the software are the mental processes (memory, attention, perception), and the mind and behaviour is information processing.
4
Q
What is representational account?
A
Internal representations of external objects.
5
Q
What is indirect realism (representationalism)?
A
The idea that we access external reality via representations.
6
Q
What are propositional representations?
A
They are ‘token’ mental representations with semantic properties - they are tokens with meaning.
7
Q
What do Shannon and Weaver, (1949) define information as?
A
The amount of entropy/disorder in a system. Information is the amount of surprise and it is a mathematical system which involves predictive probability in the system.
8
Q
What do cognitive processes aim to do?
A
They aim to process this surprise and filter out any noise.
9
Q
How is environmental information processed?
A
It is processed by several different processing systems (known as modularity) such as visual, auditory, memory, attention etc.
10
Q
What is cognitive psychology interested in?
A
How and what information is processed, systems involved, types of errors made, speed and capacity limit, amount of control we have, and implications.
11
Q
What approaches came before the cognitive approach?
A
Structuralist approach and Behaviourism
12
Q
Approximately when was the cognitive revolution?
A
Around the 1950s, although there were things happening before that.
13
Q
What is included in information flow 1?
A
Bottom-up and top-down.
14
Q
What is bottom-up?
A
It is data-driven and begins with an analysis of the sensory input - for example, light on the retina - and perception is built on upon low level information.
15
Q
What is top-down?
A
It is concept driven and includes high level cognitive influences; knowledge and experience influence our perceptions of the world
16
Q
What is included in information flow 2?
A
Serial and parallel.
17
Q
What is the experimental cognition approach?
A
It is very common. An experimenter controls the variables in an attempt to study only one other variable/system. Structures are deduced indirectly as a result of measurements of accuracy.
18
Q
What is the cognitive neuropsychology approach?
A
It uses experiments/tests on samples of patients, and can sometimes compare them with a control group. It assumes the “modularity of mind” by Fodor, (1983) and works by deducing how systems work based on abnormalities and injuries to the brain.
19
Q
What is the cognitive neuroscience approach?
A
It uses brain imaging techniques, such as EEG, PET, fMRI, and TMS.
20
Q
What is sensation?
A
The physical stimulation of the sensory system (pressure on skin, light in the retina etc.).
21
Q
What is perception?
A
The mind’s capability to refer sensory information to an external object and its cause. In other words, it is the experimental (consciousness) component (5 classic senses) of sensation.
22
Q
What is consciousness?
A
The state of awareness of our own existence, sensations, thoughts, and surroundings. Its state is the opposite to unconsciousness.
23
Q
Where are the primary receptors for the 5 classic senses?
A
- Eye: light receptive ganglion cells in the retina.
- Ear: timpanic membrane (eardrum), organ of corti, and hair cells in the ear.
- Skin: various mechanoreceptors.
- Tongue: taste buds in the papillae.
- Nose: cilia in the mucus layer of the epithelium which are situated at the top of the nose and back of the throat.
24
Q
What areas in the brain are involved in the 5 classic senses?
A
- Vision: primary visual cortex.
- Hearing: primary auditory cortex.
- Touch: primary sensory cortex.
- Taste: amygdala and hypothalamus.
- Smell: pituitary gland.
25
Why does vision so many pathways and locations? And how does sensory information convert into other actions/perceptions?
Sight is the dominant sense in humans. Sensory information is captured, converted to electrical energy, carried along multiple pathways and processed in those locations for different purposes.
26
What is the ventral stream used for in vision?
Vision for perception.
27
What is the dorsal stream used for in vision?
Vision for action.
28
What proof is there that proves that perception is not accurate?
Optical illusions, the ventriloquist effect, and the McGurk effect. Perception is adequate, and we don’t sense or process everything we sense, nor do we always process explicit/conscious things.
29
What is the difference between consciousness level and content (according to Bor & Seth, 2012)?
Consciousness level is the scale of awareness from zero contents to fully aware, while consciousness content is moment to moment here and now experience.
30
What are the different levels of consciousness content experience (according to Baumeister & Masicampo, 2012)?
Low-level is basic here and now awareness that all animals have. High-level involves reasoning, self-reflecting, and future goals - only humans have this.
31
What is the easy/soft problem of consciousness?
Where does it come from? It comes from brain activity for stimuli processed.
32
What is the hard problem of consciousness?
How, where, and why?How does brain activity actually become conscious awareness and where does the experience come from?
33
How is consciousness measured objectively and subjectively?
- Subjectively is an individual’s own report and points at which individuals can/cannot report awareness of a stimulus.
- Objectively is an observer’s report which points at which individuals can/cannot make accurate forced decisions about a stimulus, or adjust a stimulus.
34
What is the binding problem?
If incoming information is extracted and broken down to be processed in many locations, how is it put back together?
35
What is precise synchrony?
Using the timing of a single cell firing to timestamp information. It is computationally expensive though.
36
What is general synchrony?
It is the general pattern of cells firing used to bind. It is not as detailed as precise synchrony, though.
37
What are the possible explanations for why we are conscious?
- Perceptual: perceiving our environment might help us better interact with it (or not).
- Action control: we have free well, control, and agency (probably not).
- Social communication: understanding and interacting with others (ToM), but what about other animals?
- Information integration: organised “information”, reflecting on our own experience, and allowing us to integrate experiences as we have them (but we don’t know why).
38
What is bottom-up attention?
Alertness or arousal - including reflexive attention, like towards a light source.
39
What is top-down attention?
Selective attention - we choose whether to react to something or not.
40
How can the eye be compared to a camera?
The brain and optic nerve are the processors, the retina is the film, and the lens, ciliary muscles, and cornea are optics.
41
What effect does acuity have in the eye?
Acuity is the highest in the centre of the retina and as something appears further from it, acuity drops a lot. Despite this, we perceive a world that is sharp in focus, probably because of our brain filling in blind spots and using frequent eye movements.
42
Why does saccadic suppression happen?
it happens to suppress motion blur between saccades so we see a stable world. Our vision stops temporarily.
43
How long could we be “blind” for due to saccadic suppression?
50ms x 4 x 60 x 60 x 16 = 192 minutes (over 3 hours) a day.
44
What is overt attention?
The focus of attention is what the fovea is looking at. Both attended information (everything in/around the fovea) and unattended information (everywhere else) are involved in this.
45
What is covert attention?
Looking at an object without moving the eyes towards the object to pay attention to it.
46
How quick are overt and covert attention?
Overt attention is around 3-4 saccades per second (1 every 300ms); covert attention takes around 50ms to shift.
47
What does voluntary orientation lead to
Faster reaction times.
48
What are the primary themes which characterise attention?
- Capacity limitation: our limited ability to carry out various mental operations at the same time requires a way to prioritise information.
- Perceptual gating (selection): conscious perception is always selective, but selection isn’t always conscious.
49
What is selective/focused attention?
The ability to selectively attend to certain stimuli in our environment while ignoring others. It is present for when 2 or more stimuli are present, and there are instructions to respond to only one.
50
What is divided attention/multitasking?
The ability to carry out several tasks at once. It is present for when 2 or more stimuli are present, and there are instructions to respond to all of them.
51
What is the vision attentional modality?
There is a limit on how much we can take in visually, since things in the environment are placed in different spacial locations.
52
What is the auditory attentional modality?
Stream of sounds from different locations.
53
What is an example of focused/selective attention?
Cherry’s Cocktail Party Effect (1953), which pointed out that we are able to follow one conversation in a crowded room where several more people are talking.
54
What is attenuation?
Sometimes, unattended things are still processed, which can occur depending on task demands. On occasion this means that unattended items bleed into the filter as they’re processed enough to become part of our conscious awareness.
55
What is the attentional competing hypothesis?
- Early selection: physical characteristics of messages are used to select one message for further processing and all others are lost (Broadbent, 1958).
- Attenuation: physical characteristics are used to select one message for full processing and other messages are given partial processing (Treisman, 1964).
- Late selection: all the messages get through, but only one response can be created (Deutsch & Deutsch, 1963).
56
What is inattentional blindness?
What we do not attend to, and what we are not aware of.
57
What is memory defined as?
The faculty by which the mind stores and remembers information.
58
What are the memory processes?
- Encoding: transforming information into a form that can be entered and retained in te memory system.
- Storage: retaining information in the memory so that is can be used at a later time.
- Retrieval: recovering information stored in memory so that we are consciously aware of it.
59
How does the multi-store model by Atkinson and Shriffin, (1971) work?
Environmental stimuli > Sensory memory (SM) > Attention > Short-term memory (STM) ^ Maintenance rehearsal > Elaborative rehearsal < Retrieval > Long-term memory (LTM).
- i tried my best with this looool bc i can’t use pics, google it atp
60
What is iconic memory for?
Visual information.
61
What is echoic memory for?
Auditory information.
62
What did Sperling’s (1960) experiment 1 reveal about iconic memory?
It either has a limited capacity or the information decays rapidly.
63
What did Sperling’s (1960) experiment 2 reveal about iconic memory?
Participants could typically name all letters from any row,therefore suggesting that all 12 letters are initially available, and the information ends up decaying.
64
What are key characteristics of iconic memory?
Rapidly decays, ability to selectively report visual properties but not report category information, and information must be transferred from the sensory store to the short-term store before it becomes available to us.
65
What are the comparisons in decay for iconic and echoic memory?
Iconic memory decay happens within a second, while echoic memory takes a few seconds.
66
What is the approximate amount of items/chunks that our STM can hold (according to Miller, 1956)?
7 ± 2 items/chunks. However, chunk size can depend on information being encoded, some items being recalled from LTM, or duration of time.
67
What is a method used for improving the 7 ± 2 items/chunks?
Chunking information into smaller, more recognisable groups.
68
What did Cowan, (2001) claim about Miller’s 7 ± 2 chunks?
They are an overestimation since some items/chunks were recalled from LTM. A more likely proposition of 4 ± 1 was made.
69
What are the differences between STM and LTM?
- Duration: LTM is longer than STM.
- Capacity: LTM is unlimited, STM is limited.
- Type of forgetting.
70
What is the difference between maintenance rehearsal and elaborative rehearsal?
Maintenance rehearsal keeps information and retains it in STM, while elaborative rehearsal is needed to transfer information from STM to LTM.
71
What are the 2 different levels of processing (according to Craik & Lockhart, 1972)?
- Shallow/physical: for detecting specific letters in words, fonts and colours, and phonemic processing.
- Deep/semantic: for recalling facts, creating sentences, and associations.
72
What does the working memory do?
It performs complex tasks that are important for moment-to-moment functioning, such as learning, comprehension, reasoning, and problem solving. It is more than only a passive retention of information.
73
What are the 2 components of the phonological loop?
The phonological store, which is concerned with speech perception, and the articulatory control process, which is concerned with speech production and rehearsal.
74
What did Papagno et al., (1991) conclude about the phonological loop?
They concluded that the phonological loop plays a vital role in the learning of new information.
75
When is the visuo-spacial sketchpad used?
It is used in the temporary storage and manipulation of spacial and visual information. Its purpose is to keep track of where we are in relation to other objects as we traverse the environment.
76
What are the two components of the visuo-spacial sketchpad?
- Visual cache: stores information about visual form and colour.
- Inner scribe: processes spacial and environmental information, is involved in the rehearsal of information in the visual cache, and transfers information from the cache to the central executive.
77
What is the average capacity for the visuo-spacial sketchpad?
Approximately 4 items.
78
Where are the visual and spacial components of the visuo-spacial sketchpad located in the brain?
- Visual processing: occipital and temporal lobes.
- Spacial processing: parietal cortex.
79
What is the central executive?
It drives the whole system of working memory and allocates data to the sub-systems as a way to decide what the working memory pays attention to, while dealing with cognitive tasks like mental arithmetic and problem solving.
80
What are the executive processes (according to Baddeley, 1996)?
Focusing attention, assigning/dividing attention between tasks, dividing attention between different sources or incoming information, communicating with LTM.
81
When was the episodic buffer added to the working memory model?
In 2001.
82
What does the episodic buffer do?
It explains how the LTM can influence processing in the STM; this is done by it integrating information from many sources and acting as an intermediary between the phonological loop and the visuo-spacial sketchpad.
83
What are the limitations of the episodic buffer?
It is unclear how all of the different information from the sources is integrated, and it seems to have limited work on smell and taste memory.
84
What are flashbulb memories?
They are argued as vivid, detailed, and highly accurate memories that are related to dramatic experiences. People can usually recall where they were and what they were doing when an experience occurred.
85
What sets flashbulb memories aside from regular memories?
Flashbulb memories are different in relation to longevity, accuracy, and reliance on a unique neural mechanism.
86
How can LTM be categorised?
- Explicit: semantic memory and episodic memory.
- Implicit: priming and procedural.
87
What is explicit/declarative memory in the LTM?
A memory that requires a conscious recollection of information or a memory that we can explain.
88
What is semantic memory in the explicit category of LTM?
Semantic memories don’t relate to particular times or places and include general knowledge of the world and language.
89
What is episodic memory in the explicit category of LTM?
These types of memories are for episodes or events in our lives. Autobiographical memories are examples of episodic memories.
90
What is the difference between autobiographical and episodic memory?
Autobiographical memory requires an emotional response and are more complex, while episodic memory does not and are not as complex.
91
What is a reminiscence bump?
A surprisingly large number of memories coming from between the ages of 10-30 (for those over 40 years old).
92
What is implicit/procedural memory in the LTM?
The memory for learned skills, such as juggling, writing, riding a bike, walking etc., and they can be automated and require little attention.
93
What is marginal knowledge?
What is available in a memory store may of always be accessible, and therefore is difficult to retrieve. It can only be retrieved when given a memory cue.
94
What happens with the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon?
It is a failure in retrieval, where people report being very close to accessing the information they need; they can’t recall the word but they can recall words of a similar form or meaning.
95
Studies have been done to investigate if interference or delay affect the STM and WM. What did they find?
Accuracy in studies declined throughout the tasks, which could’ve been explained by interference. When interference was limited there was very little decay of information.
96
Why is decay no longer a valid theory of forgetting LTMs?
There is a lack of physiological evidence for LTM decay, after a study in 1924 examined memory recall of non-existing syllables and found that recall was better after sleep.
97
Why is lack of encoding a possible reason for forgetting LTMs?
Do we forget what we are told, or do we just not encode the information in enough detail? Quite often, we don’t encode features that are necessary to ‘remember” objects/events.
98
Why is interference a possible reason for forgetting LTMs?
Some memories have the ability to ‘interfere’ with other memories and this effect is stronger when materials are similar.
99
What are the types of interference involved in forgetting LTMs?
- Proactive interference: old memories interfere with the ability to remember new memories, and interference is present when retrieving new memories.
- Retroactive interference: new memories interfere with the ability to remember old memories, and interference is present when retrieving old memories.
100
What is amnesia?
It is a severe impairment to the LTM caused by brain damage.
101
How does Patient H.M. give insight into amnesia?
He can remember childhood events, but surgery to cure his epilepsy led to his memory being poor for events after the operation.
102
How does Clive Wearing give insight into amnesia?
He has anterograde and retrograde amnesia, so he lack the ability to form new memories and to recall some past memories. He has no knowledge of ever learning music but can still play the piano.
103
What is retrograde amnesia?
A type of amnesia that affects episodic memories compared with semantic memories, and is usually associated with cortical and neocortical damage. People with this have issues with recalling past events.
104
What is anterograde amnesia?
A type of amnesia which includes problems with the consolidation of memories, and can be caused by damage to subcortical areas. People with this find it hard to store new memories in the long term.
105
How is Korsakoff’s syndrome used in the research for amnesia?
It is an alcohol related problem which leads to brain damage in areas of the hippocampus and diencephalon, which results in a loss of episodic memory. On the other hand, there is more widespread damage which can vary and its onset is gradual.
106
What are the key areas of the brain for amnesia?
The hippocampus, medial temporal lobe (MTL) and the neocortex.
107
What is consolidation?
The process in the brain that makes the memory for an event enduring. It refers to the process of information being transferred from one region to another, and the gradual reorganisation of brain regions in order to support memory.
108
What are the 2 models of consolidation?
- Hippocampal consolidation: the rapid process of initial recoding of new information into the hippocampus.
- Systems consolidation: the longer process of transferring information from the hippocampus to other brain areas for long-term storage.
109
How does consolidation relate to retrograde and anterograde amnesia?
Retrograde amnesia is due to the lack of consolidation, and anterograde amnesia is due to a failure to consolidate new memories.
110
What is the multiple trace theory for retrograde amnesia (according to Nadal & Moscovitch, 1997, 1998)?
Consolidation is important bur so it retrieval; the consolidation process creates multiple traces of a memory in the brain, rather than a trace being more established over time. Hippocampal damage removes some traces and newer memories have less traces - this creates the temporal gradient.
111
What evidence is there that implicit memory is intact from amnesia?
Claparede’s (1911) amnesiac patient whose hand was pricked when he introduced himself again. She didn’t want to shake his hand when he reintroduced himself.
112
How is procedural memory measured?
Using a mirror drawing task, researchers can see how long amnesiacs take to learn to draw between lines and if they remember to do this, and compare it to control groups.
113
What was the discovered relationship between alcohol and memory performance found by Moulton et al., (2005)?
Memory was improved when alcohol was consumed shortly after learning. This is because alcohol consumption inhibits the formation of new memories that can interfere with the consolidation process, and is not recommended…
114
What is the method of loci?
A memory technique for associating items to be learned with familiar locations. Studies in 2009 found that this method had better recall when it was based on locations on the way to work instead of places in the home.
115
What did German gestalt psychologists in the 1910s suggest about perception?
They suggested that perception could not be done by breaking it down into parts, but instead by considering the whole experience. This has links to object identification.
116
What are the gestalt Laws?
Law of proximity, Law of similarity, Law of closure, Law of good continuation, Law of common fate.
117
What is viewpoint generalisation?
Looking at one object but from different viewpoints, while still knowing it is the same object, and being able to create a novel viewpoint.
118
What are the two main school of thoughts and theories for object recognition?
Image based models and Structural description models.
119
How does image based models work in object recognition?
Specific views are stored and recognition performance is based on generalisations based on these views (we don’t really understand how though).
120
How does structural description models work in object recognition?
Information about the 3D structure of an object is extracted from a single view. This means that different parts of a mug come together (like the handle and the rest) in the mind to create a mug.
121
What is Marr’s Vision?
Object parts are represented independently of their spacial configuration and viewpoint.
122
What are different aspects of structural description models?
Marr’s Vision and recognition by component (RBC) by geons.
123
What are geons?
They are defined by variations in a small number of basic parameters called non-accidental properties (NAP), which are basic features that define variations in shapes (distinguishing between a cylinder and a cuboid).
124
What are the properties of NAPs?
- Curvilinearity: curviness in the 2D image caused by curve on an object.
- Parallelism: lines in parallel in 2D objects that are caused by parallel lines on the object.
- Cotermination: 2 or more edges that terminate at the same point; the same as in the object.
- Symmetry: axis of symmetry in 2D objects reflect the axis of symmetry on the object.
- Collinearity: a straight line in the 2D image is caused by a straight line in the object.
125
Why is canonical viewpoint so important?
- Frequency hypothesis: it is the view we see mostly in our lifetime.
- Maximal information hypothesis: the viewpoint contains the most amount and the most informative information about the object.
126
Why does the frequency hypothesis work so well for object recognition?
The simplicity of recognition is related to the number of times that we see the object from each viewpoint - Google usually shows images of horses from a side angle.
127
Why does the maximal information hypothesis work so well for object recognition?
Some views on objects provide more information than other viewpoints of the same object.
128
What is the term that is used to refer to the fact that we see faces everywhere in everyday objects?
Apophenia.
129
Why is face recognition so important to psychology?
Errors in face recognition can be catastrophic (like in eyewitness testimony), its use in technology, and it involves ‘within-category’ discrimination (less so is it a face, but more so which face it is).
130
What does the featural hypothesis suggest about face recognition?
It suggests that faces are primarily remembered due to their facial features (Garner, 1978).
131
What does the configurational/spacing hypothesis suggest about face recognition?
It places the emphasis on the relationship among the facial features, rather than the individual features alone (Bartlett & Searcy, 1993; Diamond & Carey, 1986).
132
What are the three hypotheses for face recognition?
Featural, configurational, and holistic.
133
What does the holistic hypothesis suggest about face recognition?
The hypothesis suggests that humans take the face as a perceptual whole where both featural and configurational information are required for accurate recognition. Still, the holistic hypothesis places more importance on the configurational hypothesis and recognises that a loss of either type of information can be detrimental.
134
What does the Thatcher illusion reveal about face recognition?
We perceive faces in terms of the global configuration of facial features, and we are unable to detect or process the properties of local individual facial features if they are upside-down.
135
What is the model of face recognition (by Bruce and Young, 1986)?
Faces are structurally encoded, encoded information activates face recognition units (FRUs). If there is a match between the encoding and the FRU then semantic information can be accessed, and personal identity nodes (PINs) contain information about that person.
136
What does the use of fMRI scans show about face recognition?
One area of the brain becomes more active during face viewing (the fusiform face area), while another area becomes more active during object viewing (the lateral occipital complex).
137
What evidence suggests that face recognition is special?
Infants show a tendency to track moving faces at just 9 minutes old; face agnosia without object agnosia exists, and vice versa; fMRIs show different brain activity; propagnosic participants are better at recognising inverted faces than upright ones, which is the opposite to healthy participants.
138
What evidence suggests that face recognition is not special?
A prospoagnosic farmer could identify his cows regularly; another farmer could recognise faces but not cows.
139
What is hemianopias?
It is the loss of vision on the left or right side of fixation due to damage in the visual cortex, not the eye itself surprisingly.
140
What happens with hemianopias patients in terms of blindsight?
Some individuals can respond to stimuli in the blind parts of their visual fiend (under some conditions), despite not consciously seeing anything.
141
What are the different types of agnosia?
- Visual: where a person has difficulty recognising objects, faces, and/or words.
- Auditory: involves the inability to recognise sounds.
- Somatosensory: where a person has difficulty perceiving objects through tactile stimulation.
142
What is the cause of visual agnosia?
A deficit in processing that is restricted to the visual input modality.
143
How did patient D.F. with visual agnosia react to the postcard experiment?
Their perception of where to post the card was bad in comparison to a control, yet the action of posting was a lot better.
144
How did patient D.F. with visual agnosia react to 2 different sized blocks?
They couldn’t distinguish the blocks perceptually but managed to adjust grip when picking the different blocks up.
145
What are the 2 visual processing streams?
- Dorsal system: involved in object localisation (the “where” system).
- Ventral system: involved in object identification (the “what” system).
146
Where do the ventral and dorsal system split apart from each other?
After the primary visual area (V1).
147
Which system (ventral or dorsal) is affected by visual agnosia?
The ventral system.
148
How is optic ataxia the opposite to visual agnosia?
Optic ataxia is the ability to see/perceive objects but the inability to interact with them, while visual agnosia is the inability to see/perceive objects but the ability to interact with them.
149
What are the key features of the ventral and dorsal systems (according to Milner & Goodale, 2006)?
- Ventral system: an abstract representation of the world, can be stored for future reference which enables us to organise the information in the world and to plan future actions.
- Dorsal system: acts in real time, guides actions, and enables smooth and effective movement.
150
How are schemas used for vision?
Theorists suggest that there is not enough information provided by the 5 classic senses for us to made sense of what we see, and so schemas are used to fill in the gaps - therefore concluding that perception is an active and constructive process.
151
What are the 2 types of visual illusions?
Bottom-up (psychological) and top-down (cognitive).
152
What is reason?
The conscious formal act of making sense of the world through the controlled, deliberate application of logic to problems, decisions, and judgements. It is a distinguishing feature of being human as well as the high marker of human thought, intellect, and behaviour.
153
What are decisions?
Selecting from a number of options available. The information is often incomplete and typically consequential.
154
What are judgements?
An assessment of the likelihood of an event occurring based on incomplete information, which often forms the basis of the process of decision.
155
What is the formal conditional reasoning rule?
Drawing a conclusion from “If…Then…” propositions. This can either be modus ponens (interference): “if A then B”, or modus tollens (valid argument and a rule of interference): “if not B then not A”.
156
What is syllogistic reasoning?
When a conclusion is inferred/logically deducted from a premise or premises (a statement about something). For example, “all A are B, and all B are C. Therefore all A are C”.
157
What is inductive reasoning?
Forming conclusions based on previous examples.
158
What are heuristics and cognitive bias?
They’re very common in reasoning and problem solving and are defined as shortcuts and rules of thumb.
- They’re a way of enabling us to learn, discover, solve, or decide something.
- They are cognitively undemanding, since we have limited brains.
- They are fast and frugal and give approximately accurate answers most of the time.
159
What are some types of heuristics?
Availability, representative, and familiarity.
160
What are some types of biases?
Confirmation, Implicit, and the Dunning-Kruger effect.
161
What does the dual process model reveal about heuristics and cognitive bias (according to Kahneman, 2003)?
Sometimes we don’t use our heuristics or cognitive bias. System 1 (fast) is the intuitive, which is our first train of thought. System 2 (slow) is the deliberate, which follows the intuitive after we think it through.
162
Why might thinking be limited?
It is hard to be rational all of the time, there are system limits (STM capacity, attention, language), and heuristics and bias mostly work since they are easy and inexpensive.
163
Why is reasoning not limited?
- It is often unclear which information is important in a given problem space, so adding or removing information can change the decision process.
- Human heuristics and bias are not errors but rather shortcuts which allow quick access to reasonably accurate judgements and decisions.
- So called “errors” may reflect the artificiality of the problem.
- Decisions are not made in a social and emotional vacuum, or out of context in the real world.
164
What is consequentialism?
Doing the greater good, which usually includes less harm in the outcome.
165
What is deontologicalism?
Having the highest morality.
166
What is omission bias?
The tendency to judge harmful actions as worse, or less moral than harmful omissions, even if they are just as bad as each other. We do this since the harmful act is more obvious than a harmful inaction.
167
What is classical rationality?
Rational thought that is governed by logical thinking. We are quite bad at this so it appears that humans are not so rational.
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What is normativism rationality?
Human thinking reflects a normative system against which it should be measured and judged. There must be a correct and incorrect solution.
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What is our thinking affected by?
Biases about expectations of us, accountability and consequences, and emotion.
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What is language?
A system of symbols and rules that enable us to communicate. They specify how words are ordered to form sentences.
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What do we know about language being exclusive to humans?
Bonobo great apes can grasp some parts of language but not as well as humans can. Panbanisha, an ape, lived in captivity receiving language training via a keypad of around 400 geometric patterns to communicate with. At around age 14, the ape had a 3000 word vocabulary and understood English at a level of a 2.5 year old child.
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According to Chomsky, (1965) why is language innate?
There is an innate universal grammar, including a set of grammatical principles, present in all human languages.
