Final Flashcards
1
Q
What is the systems view on episodic vs semantic memory?
A
episodic and semantic memory are different memory systems that store different types of info and have different degrees and types of organization of info
2
Q
What is the process view on episodic vs semantic memory?
A
episodic and semantic memory are the same system with 2 different types of info (specific/episodic vs generalized/semantic memories)
3
Q
What are the different nodes in semantic memory?
A
stimulus word - structural node - semantic node
4
Q
What is the composition of semantic networks?
A
consists of nodes (concepts), features (properties related to nodes) and links (relations between features and nodes)
organization is hierarchical/contains information in itself
cognitive economy
5
Q
What is the concept of cognitive economy?
A
features or properties are represented only once at the highest level of the hierarchy
6
Q
What are some assumptions of the hierarchical network model?
A
it takes time to move from one level of the hierarchy to a different level
it takes additional time to retrieve features stored at a level (should be faster to answer category membership classes than questions about properties)
smaller categories are lower down on the hierarchy
7
Q
Describe the sentence verification task experiment.
A
answering true or false to a series of questions as fast as you can
ex. category membership
s0: a canary is a canary
s1: a canary is a bird
s2: a canary is an animal
ex. properties
p0: a canary is yellow
p1: a canary can fly
p2: a canary has skin
slowly moving further from the canary, takes more time
property judgements slower
also consistent with category size effect:
- members of smaller categories classified faster
8
Q
What are the problems with the hierarchical network model?
A
can’t explain reversals of category size effect
can’t explain typicality effect
- in model, atypical and typical members are at the same level of hierarchy so they should take the same amount of time
9
Q
What is the spreading activation network model?
A
concepts organized in network but it is not hierarchical, there is not structure imposed on nodes
features still stored with concepts
length of links between nodes represents strength of associations (further = weaker)
assumes activation spreads between concepts and decreases with distance
10
Q
Describe the lexical decision task.
A
words and nonwords presented one at a time, subjects have to decide if each letter string is a word
measure time to make each lexical decision
results:
- words following related words identified faster than words following unrelated words (semantic priming)
11
Q
What is the Moses effect?
A
“How many of each type of animal did Moses bring on the Ark with him?”
an example of spreading activation allowing us to answer 2 despite the fact that Moses brought no animals, it was Noah
12
Q
What are the different levels of analysis in semantic priming?
A
letter analysis
word analysis
semantic analysis
13
Q
Describe an experiment by Anderson on the Fan effect.
A
had people learn made up associations between concepts (so they had no prior knowledge)
varied the number of associations for each concept
participants were faster to recognize info when there were fewer associations, suggesting more suggestions leads to less activation of each
suggests there is a cost to knowing too much
- however benefit is that increased learning leads to sets of interrelated facts and easier retrieval of a concept, outweighing the costs
14
Q
What are the advantages of the spreading activation model?
A
it is the best model because it can explain:
semantic priming
- spread of activation in a model
typicality effect
- closer distance between concepts = more typical
category size effect + its reversals
- effects due to semantic difference, not hierarchy levels
the fan effect
- spread of activation and interference from other associations
15
Q
Describe McNamarras experiment on the spreading activation effect. (lion-tiger)
A
demonstrated 3-step priming using a lexical decision task
mane - lion - tiger - stripes
when mane becomes activated, spreads to related concepts, priming lion which primes tiger etc
16
Q
What were the results of Chwilla and Kolks experiment on spreading activation and 2/3 step priming.
A
showed that priming advantage decreases with distance
more advantage with 2 step than 3 step
17
Q
What is the problem with the spreading activation model?
A
simple network models cant represent richness of our semantic and episodic knowledge
need more than simple associations between nodes
solution: ACT model
18
Q
What is the ACT model?
A
an example of how a network model may be elaborated to more fully capture the richness of our knowledge
all info represented as propositions instead of concepts
- smallest unit of knowledge
- can be either true or false
ellipse represents “meeting point” of the elements of a proposition
- agent, object, and relation
ex. proposition “dog chase cat”
ellipse
- dog (agent)
- cat (object)
- chase (relation)
specifics can also be built in (episodic memory)
19
Q
What are schemas?
A
general knowledge structures that represent organized clusters of knowledge
represent general procedures, objects, events, or sequences of events
20
Q
What are scripts?
A
a particular schema of knowledge organized around routine activities
give us an organized structure to guide encoding, comprehension, and retrieval
ex. visiting the doctor, eating at a restaurant
21
Q
What is script theory?
A
when a script is invoked, all typical actions of script are activated
when not all typical events are expressed, omitted events are inferred
22
Q
Describe the first experiment by Bower, Black, and Turner on script theory. (recognition of components)
A
had participants generate scripts for routine activities
compared scripts and found a high degree of agreement for components and order of events for scripts
23
Q
Describe the second experiment by Bower, Black, and Turner on script theory. (recognition test)
A
had subjects read 18 stories based on different scripts
- either 1, 2, or 3 stories based on each script
- not all actions/events included in each story
given a recognition test for memory of stories
results:
- stated script items confidently identified
- other items (new items not associated with a script) could be confidently rejected
- not-stated script items (new items associated with script) identified with a high degree of confidence despite not being read
- effects increased as more scripts read
24
Q
Describe the Script-Pointer-Plus-Tag theory.
A
when a script is activated the store in semantic memory, represents both stated and inferred typical events
we “tag on” atypical actions of the story to the script and have better memory for these actions since they are tagged on and more distinctive
disrupt script actions, better remembered than those irrelevant to script
25
What are 5 reasons to study language?
unique form of abstraction at the heart of cognition
has major impact on the form of representation of info in memory
provides a means to think about external events internally
chief form of human information exchange
influences perception, from which we obtain the basic data for cognition
26
What is the impact of language on homosapiens?
language made it possible for early humans to communicate info (pass on learning) from one person to another and one generation to another
produced exponential increase in knowledge over time
27
What are Miller's 5 levels of language?
phonemic
- the study of speech sounds
syntactic
- the set of rules that determines how words are combined
lexical/semantic
- the study of meaning from the level of morphemes to the word level, and integration of word meanings within phrases and sentences
conceptual
- analysis of phrase and sentence meaning with reference to knowledge in semantic memory
belief
- analysis of sentence/discourse meaning with reference to ones beliefs about speaker intent and motivation
28
What is grammar?
the rules of the language governing the first 3 levels of language (phonetic, syntactic, semantic)
29
What are the similarities between language and arithmetic?
both are infinitely productive
both are rule based
30
What are differences between language and arithmetic?
you learn the rules of arithmetic formally/explicitly and can state them
learn rules of language largely implicitly and can often not state them
31
What are linguistic intuitions?
aspects of language users can do implicitly without being able to formally state rules
32
What are the 4 linguistic intuitions?
knowing what is grammatical
grammatical relations (between words in a sentence such as subject, verb, object)
sentence relationships
- sentences can have different structures but the same meaning
identify ambiguity
- understand ambiguous sentences have multiple meanings
33
What is left to right grammar?
how we read
the way grammar specifies the probability one word can follow another in the language
34
What are the problems with left to right grammar?
would take too long to learn the rules
- ex. the probability of words following each other
probability rules not sufficient to explain language
- ex. sentences that consist of pairs of words that occur with high frequency but still is not grammatical vs. sentence that consist of pairs of words that occur with very low frequency but is grammatical
spoonerisms
- slips of the tongue
- demonstrate sentences not generated one word at a time because slips can be between words far apart in a sentence
35
What are the benefits of phrase structure grammar?
# define grammaticality
sentences planned hierarchically not word by word
- explains spoonerisms
can account for grammatical relations between words in sentences
can account for some ambiguous sentences
- 2 different sets of rules could generate a sentence so they can have 2 different meanings
36
What are the problems with phrase structure grammar?
cannot account for all ambiguous sentences
- lexical and surface ambiguity
cannot account for sentence relations
- don't specify how a sentence can be modified to form different sentences with the same meaning
- if 2 sentences have different rules then they should have different meanings
doesnt take meaning into account
- grammatically correct sentences arent always meaningful
37
What are the types of ambiguity?
lexical/word
- ex. cold meaning sickness or weather
surface
- ex. they are (flying) (planes) vs they are (flying planes)
- flying as the verb or descriptor
underlying
- ambiguity cannot be resolved by appealing to different phrase structure rules
38
Describe Chomskys transformational grammar.
proposed 2 modifications to phrase structure grammar
1. set of transformation rules that specify how to transform sentences based on phrase structure rules
- ex. from active to passive
2. modified transformational grammar to consist of 2 levels
- surface structure: actual sentence
- deep structure - meaning of the sentence
- so underlying ambiguity can be solved
can generate an idea and express the idea in more than one way
39
Describe the differing pathways of phrase structure grammar and transformational grammar.
phrase structure grammar
phrase structure rules - surface structure
transformational grammar
phrase structure rules - deep structure - transformational rules - surface structure
40
Describe the results of Jis experiment on language and relational response.
bilingual Chinese gave taxonomic response when tested in English, and relational response when tested in Chinese
the language, not the person, that determined what objects the person focused on
ex. chicken, cow, grass: which 2 do you group together
41
What is the Whorfian hypothesis?
a culture's language influences the way people of that culture think
ex. in English pink and red are considered 2 different colours even though pink is a shade of red
42
Describe Roberson, Davies, and Davidoffs experiment on the Whorfian hypothesis. (colours)
compared British participants with Berinmo speakers on their memory for colours
Berinmo only have 5 names for different colours, the British have many more which improved their memory for colours
- did better on recognition task
43
Describe Nunez and Sweetsers experiment on the Whorfian hypothesis. (numbers)
Piraha tribe do not have numbers in their language, use terms such as few or many
do not remember exact quantities as well as people whose language does include numbers
44
Describe Boroditskys experiment on the Whorfian hypothesis. (direction)
asked to sort cards that depicted images in a temporal progression (ex. a banana being eaten)
English speakers arrange left to right, Hebrew from right to left (as they read), Pormpuraaw arranged east to west in the direction of sun's movement
45
Describe Boroditskys experiment on how language can influence causality.
took English, Spanish, and Japanese speakers and had them watch videos of people breaking eggs either by accident or on purpose
no difference in responses when action was on purpose
when action was an accident, English speakers would say "John broke the glass" whereas Spanish/Japanese would say "the glass broke"
later in surprise memory test, English speakers had better memory for accidental events
language influences conceptualization and memory for causality
46
What is the current view of the Whorfian hypothesis?
labels in a language (ex. colour, numbers) draw our attention to certain distinctions and make them more memorable
therefore language is a way attention is drawn to an aspect of the environment
47
What are the 2 major categories of language disorders?
dyslexia = difficulty in reading
aphasia = difficulty in producing or understanding speech
48
What is dyslexia?
extreme difficulty in reading and learning to read
actually a category of reading disorders
49
What is Broca's aphasia?
cause by damage to back of left hemisphere adjacent to motor cortex
speech severely impaired, takes severe effort, short and hesitant utterances, agrammatical speech, loss of syntax and noun/verb categories
BUT comprehension is unimpaired
50
What is Wernickes aphasia?
caused by damage to back of left temporal cortex adjacent to auditory cortex
severely impaired comprehension, invented words, semantically inappropriate substitutions, lack of awareness that speech is incomprehensible
BUT speech quality is unimpaired
51
What did Broca contribute to psychology?
provided first evidence that a well-defined mental capacity can be assigned to a specific area of cortex
founded neuropsychology
52
What is anomia?
anomic aphasia
cause by damage to left hemisphere
impairment in normal ability to retrieve concepts and their names
some aspect of normally automatic semantic components of retrieval has been damaged
53
What are the levels of the constituent processing model from bottom to top?
```
lexical access
constituent construction
syntactic translation
visuospatial construction
memory
```
54
What are some lexical access strategies?
word identification
- bottom up and top down processes used to read individual words
speech segmentation
- bottom up and top down processes help separate words in continuous speech
word frequency effect
- high frequency words identified faster than low frequency words (lower threshold of activation)
context effects
- words perceived faster if they fit the meaning of the sentence
55
Describe Swinney and Seidenbergs experiment on lexical access and resolution of ambiguity using context effects.
asked people to read a sentence
- ex. "they need a new sink"
then pronounce a probe word that follows
- ex. "tap" or "swim"
right away both tap and swim are primed, but later only tap is primed
- lexical access of multiple word meanings occur rapidly, selection of meanings follow shortly after based on context
56
Describe Carpenter and Danemans experiment on constituent construction. (garden path sentences)
used garden path sentences to show processing of constituents
correct constituent is selected using context which sometimes requires disambiguation
57
Describe Carpenter and Justs experiment on constituent construction. (eye movements)
measured subject pacing/eye movements
found often much of the time reading is spent between sentences
58
Describe Cirilo and Foss' experiment on constituent construction. (passages)
most time reading is spent at the beginning and end of passages where the heavy constituent construction occurs
less time on sentences in the middle
59
What is an example of syntactic effects?
even though the Jaberwockee is nonsense, we create meaning by using syntax
"the old man the boat"
- with high frequency we interpret old as an adjective and man as a noun, but here our syntactic expectation is wrong causing reinterpretation of the sentence
60
What are propositions?
unit ideas
comprehension involves constructing and storing a related set of propositions that represent details of a story
61
Describe Kintsch and Keenans experiment on propositions. (timed reading)
subjects timed on how long it took them to read sentences
sentences were same length, but different # of propositions
time to respond increased as # of propositions increased, shows comprehension based on propositions not words
62
Describe Caplans experiment on propositions. (probe technique)
given a sentence and then a probe word, had to determine as quickly as possible if the word was presented in the sentence
faster at identifying word when it is in the last proposition
- last proposition still in working memory (recency effect)
- supports propositions, not words
63
Describe Ratcliff and Mckoons experiment on propositions. (priming)
presented subjects with sentences to remember
given a recognition test, asked if a word was in one of the sentences studied
2 predictions:
- faster recognition for a word when the preceding word was from the same sentence
- even faster recognition for word that follows a word from the same proposition
- both due to spreading activation
predictions proven true, showing sentences stored as linked propositions
64
What is Kintsch model of comprehension?
comprehension is easiest if we can relate new info to propositions in working memory, slower if we must retrieve concepts from LTM (reinstatement search), and even slower if reinstatement search fails and we must infer how new info relates to previous info
65
Describe the results of Lesgold, Roth, and Curtis' experiment on relating new info to old info.
when sentence contains info that is relevant to last sentence, they are easy to relate as it is still in WM
when sentences are not easy to relate. need a reinstatement search
66
Describe Bransford and Franks' experiment on semantic integration. (jelly on the table)
studied sets of sentences that contain 1-4 propositions, each set based on 4 propositions
not asked to memorize, just to read and then answer a question about it
- ex. read "the jelly was on the table", then asked "where was the jelly?" or "what was on the table?"
later given a recognition test for sentences and ranked from absolutely hadn't seen to for sure have seen
regardless of old or new, ranked sentences low if containing only 1 proposition and higher if containing more
67
Describe Bransford and Johnsens experiment on effects of context on comprehension. (familiar vs unfamiliar)
read passages about familiar or unfamiliar topics
either told what the topic was before, after, or not at all
asked to recall details of passage
poor recall with no context (not told topic) or told after
- context aids comprehension since it allows use of prior knowledge to understand info
68
Describe Oatley's model on aspects of comprehending a story/play.
event structure leads to discourse structure which leads to realization structure (below) or association structure (beside) which also leads to realization structure
event structure = deep structure/authors ideas
discourse structure = surface structure/text (bottom up)
association structure = what the reader brings to story construction (knowledge, schemas, emotions - top down)
realization structure = constructive enactment of story by reader, everyone comes away with slightly different view
69
What is visual imagery?
the experience of a vision-like mental event
a mental picture
70
What is a cognitive map?
a mental representation of a real-world space
can be biased or inaccurate
71
What are some ways in which we use imagery?
memory retrieval
problem solving
producing descriptions
daydreaming
72
Describe Pavio, Smythe, and Yuille's experiment on imagery. (paired associates)
proposed dual coding theory (verbal and pictoral)
presented words scaled for imagery level
- imaginable = concrete
- not imaginable = abstract
subjects studied 16 paired associates, 4 of each type
- concrete concrete
- concrete abstract
- abstract concrete
- abstract abstract
2 concrete associates remembered best, shows dual coding gives memory advantage
73
Describe the dual coding theory.
2 coding systems
- verbal/abstract
- nonverbal/spatial
verbal and nonverbal info represented in functionally independent but interconnected systems
memory is better when info is coded in both systems rather than only one
74
What is Pavios theory of imagery representation?
imagery corresponds to a unique type of representation
dual code = verbal + imagery
75
What is Pylyshyns theory of imagery representation?
imagery is not a way of representing info, it is an experience we have due to processing propositions in a particular way
all info is represented as propositions regardless of modality
76
Describe Shepard and Metzlers findings on imagery. (rotation)
the further one has to mentally rotate the object to have it be the same, the longer it takes to label the object as the same or different
angle of rotation (degrees) and response time (seconds) are positively correlated
77
Describe Shepards research on mental rotation.
shows we perform mental rotation as if we were doing it in the real word
rotation speed correlates almost perfectly to perceived motion
78
What was Kosslyns first experiment on imagery? (thinking vs imagining animals)
compared thinking about an animal to imagining an animal and then timed responses to questions
if thinking about something, faster to determine associations
if imagining something, faster to determine appearance
79
What was Kosslyns second experiment on imagery? (reference animals)
imagine a target animal beside a reference
- ex. rabbit beside an ant or an elephant
timed decision regarding properties of target animal
- ex. does it have whiskers?
visual image size varied by size of reference animal
faster response when target animal is larger
- image size determines response time
- suggests image is spatial in nature
80
Describe Kosslyn, Ball, and Reisers experiment on visualization. (fictional map)
had people memorize location on a fictional map
asked to imagine "looking" at one location and when ready move a pointer to another specified location
time it took people to visually go from one point to another was linearly related to their distance apart
- image preserves original map distances
- suggests imagery is spatial in nature
81
Describe Kosslyns experiment on propositions vs imagery. (boat)
asked people to memorize and imagine a boat, then asked them to move from one point on the boat to another
time to answer depended on distance apart
can be explained from proposition perspective
- image of boat represented as a set of linked propositions, time to answer depends on number of propositions to go through
82
Describe Carmichael, Hogan, and Walters experiment on ambiguous objects and their labels.
presented ambiguous object with different verbal labels
- ex. presented an ambiguous shape with 2 different labels
later asked to draw the images they encoded at study as closely as they could to the image they saw
drew closer to label given than original stimulus
- label changed memory of visual objects
- when encoding an image we dont encode a snapshot of it but an interpretation
83
Why don't we know exact details of coin or clock faces?
we dont need to attend to every detail to identify the coin/time
84
What is the relationship between imagery and perception?
closely related, share some mechanisms
imagery mechanisms located in higher visual centres whereas perception mechanisms located in both higher and lower
perception is bottom up starting as image on retina
- automatic
imagery is top down starting in higher visual centre
- controlled
85
What similarities do visual and verbal memory have?
show same serial position curve
same spread of activation and priming effects
86
What is the method of loci?
associate new info with landmarks along a route
when it comes time to generate, simply go on a "mental walk" past landmarks
used by Ancient Roman politicians to recall many points of a speech
87
Describe Bradys experiment on the detail of visual memory.
had people study pictures of 2500 objects for 3 seconds each alone without context
later shown 2 images and had to choose which they had seen before
- novel condition = new picture is from a different category (93%)
- exemplar condition = new picture is a different version of the same object (88%)
- state condition = new picture is the same object in a different state/condition (87% correct)
we can remember a huge amount of perceptual detail
88
Describe Konkles experiment on detailed visual memory. (varied # of pictures shown per category)
studied 2912 pictures of scenes for 3 seconds each
given a forced choice recognition test where the new picture was either the same or different category as old picture
novel new item category - 96%
new item from same category that 4 pictures had been presented from - 84%
new item from same category that 16 pictures had been presented from - 80%
new item from same category that 64 pictures had been presented from - 76%
89
Describe Standings experiment on detailed visual memory. (vivid vs normal vs words)
compared recognition memory for vivid pictures, normal pictures, and words
1000 pictures in experiment 1, 10,000 in experiment 2
best recall for bigger picture
recalled 66% of the normal pictures
- phenomenal capacity
90
What is the picture superiority effect?
stimuli presented as pictures during study are more likely to be recalled at test than those presented as words
occurs even when words are the stimuli presented at tests
91
What is the typicality effect?
atypical faces recognized more accurately than typical faces
advantage seen both in higher hit rate and lower false alarm rate
92
What is the thatcher illusion?
illusion for inverted faces
becomes more difficult to detect local feature changes in upside down face despite being obvious in an upright face
93
What is the special mechanisms view of facial recognition?
face and object recognition based on different and specialized mechanisms
some neurological patients show deficits in face recognition while having normal object recognition, and vice versa
94
What is the expertise view of facial recognition?
face recognition reflects highly developed skill that is product of extensive practice
leads to holistic processing of faces
while object recognition occurs at basic category level, face recognition occurs at subordinate level, reflecting expertise
95
Describe Galottis model of decision making.
top: set or revise goal
opposite sides: make plans, gather info
- connect to top, bottom, and opposite side
bottom: structure decision
result: make decision
involves gathering info and weighing it to arrive at a decision, have to assign a weigh to different characteristics of option, some characteristics will influence your decision more than others
96
Describe Lepper and Iyengars experiment on the paradox of choice. (jams)
displayed either 6 or 24 jams in an array
invited customers to sample all the jams, offered $1 off coupons to buy the jam if they sampled
array of 24 jams attracted more customers than 6 jams, but array size did not affect the sampling rate
30% of customers purchased jam when the array size was 6, but only 3% of customers purchased jam when the array size was 24
- too many options can overwhelm/repel us
97
What is subjective utility?
the personal value of a given factor
decisions involve costs and benefits, and weighing them to maximize utility
98
What is expected utility?
the actual value of a given factor
99
What is the difference between normative and descriptive account?
normative = what people should choose to do based on expected utility
descriptive account = what people actually do
people don't always behave as predicted by expected utility theory, subjective utility of outcomes will vary and can be more important than expected utility
100
Describe Tversky and Shafirs experiment on justifying decisions. (vacation package)
3 groups of students told to imagine that they just wrote a tough exam; 1 group told they passed, 1 told they failed, 1 told they would find out in 2 days
if failed, they would have to rewrite again the following month
all students given chance to buy a very attractive 5-day December vacation package to Hawaii for a very low price but the offer ends tomorrow
students have 3 choices:
- buy
- don't buy
- make non-refundable $100 fee to retain the right to buy the package in 3 days
results:
- passing or failing made no difference to decision, students could justify the decision as a reward for passing or consolidation for failing
yet students who didn't know their exam mark needed to defer decision until exam mark is known in order to justify decision
101
Describe Shafir, Simonson, and Tverskys experiment on justifying decisions.
situation: want to buy a CD player but haven't decided what model
scenario A: walk past a store with a Sony player for $99, well below list price
a) buy it
b) wait until you learn more
scenario B: walk past a store with popular Sony player for $99 and top of the line Yamaha for $169, both well below list price
a) buy the Sony
b) buy the Yamaha
c) wait until you learn more about other models
results
- in scenario A, 66% bought Sony, 34% to continue shopping
- perceived value of Sony greater than continuing to shop
- in scenario B, 27% bought the Sony, and 46% continued to shop
- perceived value of shopping greater than either model
- results dont make sense from utility theory since the Sony has the same value in both scenarios, results do make sense if we assume people need reasons to justify their decision
- when more than one choice available, more difficult to justify one over the other, more people elect not to decide and move on
102
What is a positive frame?
emphasizes gains
people tend to be risk averse
- choose $900 for sure over 90% gamble to get $1000
103
What is a negative frame?
emphasizes losses
people tend to be risk seeking
- choose 90% chance to lose $1000 than sure loss of $900
104
Describe system 1 and 2 for judgement and decision making.
1
- fast, automatic, largely unconscious
- generates quick impressions based on priming/familiarity
- we rely heavily on this in making decisions under uncertainty due to limitations of info and time
2
- slow, conscious, effortful
- involves concentration, reasoning, and computation
105
What is an algorithm?
a guaranteed route to an outcome which is usually more tedious and effortful
106
What is a heuristic?
a shortcut
a strategy that risks error to gain efficiency (speed)
involved in decisions using likelihoods or probabilities
- can lead to reasonable decisions but can also produce biases in decision making
107
What is the availability heuristic?
basing estimates of frequency and probability on how easily or how many instances of an item/event come to mind
factors that influence the ease of retrieval of instances affect judgements on availability
- recency, familiarity, retrieval cues present
ex. thinking planes are more dangerous than cars because plane crashes get extensive coverage in the media
108
What is hindsight bias?
the "knew it all along" effect
looking at a situation after the fact
knowing outcome provides a set of retrieval cues that biases info we retrieve, leads us to believe that this is what we would have predicted
ex. juries who have knowledge of the outcome are more likely to believe the outcome was foreseeable
109
Describe an experiment done on anchoring and adjustment. (multiplication)
subjects asked to estimate product of A or B
a: 1x2x3x4x5x6x7x8
b: 8x7x6x5x4x3x2x1
mean estimate for b is considerably higher than for a
estimating first approximation acts as anchor, then make an adjustment
- rely too heavily on anchor and make too small of an adjustment
110
How is anchoring used in marketing?
initial high price given serves as high anchor, we know it is high so we adjust it down but not far enough
sounds like a great deal even if it isn't
111
Describe Chapman and Bornsteins experiment on anchoring and adjustment. (lawsuits)
participants read 1-page description of personal injury lawsuit
varied about of claim sought ($100, $20,000, $5 million, $1 billion)
participants awarded greater amounts of compensation as the amount of the claim increased (claim served as anchor)
112
Describe Stewards findings on anchoring and adjustment. (credit card bills)
on credit bills the size of the minimum payment acts as an anchor and influences the amount of partial payment (adjustment) made
smaller the minimum payment = smaller partial payment = greater interest owed
113
What is the representativeness heuristic?
in judging whether a sample is part of a population we consider how representative the sample is of the population
cognitive processes skilled at assessing similarity (remembering prototype and exemplar based models)
"anything that looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck is most likely a duck"
114
What are the 4 biases that can come from representativeness heuristic?
gamblers fallacy
failure to consider sample size
failure to consider base rate
conjunction fallacy
115
What is gamblers fallacy?
each flip of a coin/toss of a dice is random, doesn't depend on past turns
if the last 7 cards were red it doesnt make it more likely that the next will be black
116
What is the failure to consider sample size bias?
small samples are more likely to yield more extreme outcomes
117
What is the failure to consider the base rate bias?
ex. a description of a man sounds much more representative of a librarian than a salesman, however it is far more likely that he is a salesman since they are statistically more common
118
What is the conjunction fallacy bias?
single probability is always more likely than double probability
ex. "a man has a heart attack" is more likely than "a man smokes and has a heart attack"
the probability of a conjunction of 2 events cannot be greater than the probability of its constituent components
119
In what 3/4 ways are slot machines designed to encourage greater gambling?
gamblers fallacy
- misconception about odds of winning despite odds being the same every turn
availability
- frequency of individual winning symbols higher than would occur by chance to give impression that they are more probable than they are
- frequency of "near misses" where all but one simple present on pay line occur higher at above chance rate to increase perception that winning is frequent
illusory correlation
- "stop" button on stop machine gives player illusion of control even though the outcome of the spin is calculated at the start and has no relation to the stop button
120
What is the recognition heuristic?
ex. when asked which city is larger of Kansas city or Junction city, we likely don't know the size of either city but we would choose Kansas since we recognize it
likely bigger since we recognize it
- not knowing something can be informative
121
What does Gigerenzer argue about heuristics?
argued others placed too much emphasis on the biases and limitations of heuristics
said they are a form of adaptive thinking and we should appreciate their usefulness
122
What is the definition of a problem?
there is an initial state and a goal state that differ from the initial state, and the process of going from the initial state to the goal state is not immediately obvious
123
What are operators?
ways to make move from one state to another
124
What are constraints?
things that prevent you from going from one state to another
125
What is problem solving?
involves attempting to move from initial state to the goal state via available operators while observing any constraints
126
What are the 2 types of problems in terms of breadth of knowledge?
knowledge lean
- can be solved by use of instructions for the task and general problem solving skills
- ex. finding a parking space at the mall
knowledge rich
- requires specific knowledge or skill to solve the problem
- ex. calculus problem
127
What are well-defined problems?
goal state, operators, and any constraints are known
128
What are ill-defined problems?
don't know the goal state, operators, or what info to use
129
What is an example of an arrangement problem?
anagram - KEROJ
ill defined since goal state isnt clear
130
What is an example of an inducing structure problem?
ex. 1 2 8 3 4 6 5 6
"cracking code"
ill defined
131
What are the steps of the problem solving process?
form initial problem representation (states, operators, constraints)
try to plan potential solution
- if fail: try to reformulate problem and then try again
- if succeed: execute plan and check results
execute plan and check results
- if fail: take break and retry (restart cycle)
- if succeed: done
132
What does it mean to search the problem space?
starting at a state, moving to another state and evaluation potential result to see if it gets you close to your solution
aka what is the best way to reach your goal
133
What are the main methods for searching the problem space?
generate and test
- generate a sequence of steps to go from present state to goal state, reevaluate at each step
- aka trial and error
heuristic searches
- use systematic approach to define way of getting from present state to goal state
- hill climbing strategy, means-end analysis, subgoals, work backward from goal state
134
What is the hill climbing strategy?
at each choice point simply choose alternative that seems to lead most directly to goal state
useful only when we know next step
- will fail when you must do something that temporarily takes you away from goal state
encourages short term goals rather than long term solutions
135
What is an example of response set?
water pitcher problem
have to measure out exactly 100 units of water from an unlimited source of water
A holds 21, B holds 127, C holds 3
what sequence of filling/pouring would be necessary to get 100 units?
- given 5 problems that could be solved by a certain solution, 6th one could be solved in an easier way but failed to do so due to falling into a response set
136
What are 2 examples of functional fixedness/perceptual set?
Duncker candle experiment
string-tying experiment
bird and train problem
137
What are the 3 most common forms of rigidity in problem solving? What do they do?
response set
perceptual set
imposing constraints that are not there
hinder our ability to find the "right set" to solve the problem in an often large problem solving set
138
What is creativity?
finding a new solution to a problem
ability to find new connections among ideas
139
What is insight/illumination?
the sudden perception or realization of how to solve the problem
140
Describe Metcalfes experiment on creativity and insight.
gave people different problems to solve
every 10 seconds people gave a rating from 1-10 as to how close they were to solving the problem (warmth rating)
ratings consistently low until insight where rating shot up
- happened regardless of insight being correct or incorrect
141
What are the 4 steps in the creative process?
```
preparation
incubation
- setting aside
illumination/insight
verification
- checking solution
```
142
Why does incubation help insight?
recovery from fatigue
forget inappropriate approaches
reorganization
influence of external events
143
What are 8 heuristics for influencing problem solving?
Guys Can Make U Cry When Ur Right
```
generate explicit inferences
classify or organize action sequence
means end analysis
use subgoals
contradiction
work backwards from goal state to initial state
use analogies/find relations among problems
represent problems physically
```
144
Describe the "generate explicit inferences" heuristic.
we often implicitly draw inferences and stick to them
making inferences explicitly helps to overcome the tendency to view the problem in only one way
examine representation of problem and ensure it is reasonable
145
Describe the "classify or organize action sequence" heuristic.
replace trial and error with systematic trial and error
organize how you do trial and error to make it a systematic and efficient search of the possible actions
146
Describe the "means end analysis" heuristic.
most effective and flexible heuristic
identify differences between initial and goal state, then select options to best reduce these differences
ideal when goal state is well defined
2 key advantages:
- highlights differents
- often leads to breaking down problem into subgoals
147
Describe the "subgoals" heuristic.
divide problem into sub-problems leading towards goal state
helpful for multi-step or transformation problems
148
Describe the "contradiction" heuristic.
eliminate inferences/actions that are inconsistent with goal state
leaves fewer options to consider
149
Describe the "work backwards from goal to initial state" heuristic.
helpful when goal state is well-defined but initial state is not
150
Describe the "use analogies/find relations among problems" heuristic.
use past knowledge of similar problems
have to ensure old and new problem are the same on more than just a superficial level
151
Describe the "represent problem physically" heuristic.
use diagrams, graphs, etc to represent problem
can help search problem space more systematically
can overcome limitations of working memory
