Module 31 - Thinking

Question 1

What is thinking?

Answer 1

Thinking refers to all the mental activities such as understanding, remembering and communicating.

Question 2

What is cognitive psychologist?

Answer 2

Its the study of how we;

1. Create Concepts
2. Solve Problems
3. Make Decisions
4. Forms Judgements

Question 3

Concepts:

Answer 3

• Formed to manage countless things that we are exposed too

- Mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas or people

Question 4

Why do we use concepts?

Answer 4

• Speed and to guide our thinking
• Doesn’t take as much effort
• Doesn’t always work sometimes

Question 5

Category Hierarchies:

Answer 5

is a method we use to organize concepts

Question 6

Development of Concepts:

Answer 6

• Using definitions/rules we form concepts

- Usually using mental images/typical examples to form concepts

Question 7

Memory Shifting Experiments:

Answer 7

Read in text and put something here

Question 8

Different Types of Problem Solving:

Answer 8

1. Trail and Error
2. Algorithms
3. Heuristics
4. Insight

Question 9

Trail and Error:

Answer 9

Guessing; something might happen to work

Question 10

Algorithms:

Answer 10

• Step by step procedure to get an answer thats expected

- Time consuming, looking at all possibilities before getting an answer

Question 11

Heuristics:

Answer 11

• Simple, thinking strategies that allow us to make judgements and solve problems efficiently
• Less time consuming, more error phone than algorithms
• Makes it easier for us to use simple things to get to the solution to the problem

Question 12

Insight:

Answer 12

• Sudden realization of a solution to a problem
• Humans and animals have insight
• When using insight, brain images show that the right temporal cortex is triggered

Question 13

Confirmation Bias:

Answer 13

Information that has been searched for in order for confirm a personal bias (info against is ignored)

Question 14

Fixation:

Answer 14

Inability to see a problem from a fresh perspective

Question 15

Mental Set:

Answer 15

Tendency to approach a new problem with thinking that has worked before

Question 16

Functional Fixedness:

Answer 16

Inability to see new functions or use for familiar objects

Question 17

Facts about making decisions and forming judgements:

Answer 17

• We make lots of decisions/judgements each day
• Most decisions/judgements are based on heuristics and intuition, but can be prone to over confidences and belief perseverance.

Question 18

2 different kinds of Heuristics:

Answer 18

1. Representativeness Heuristics

2. Availability Heuristics

Question 19

Representativeness Heuristics:

Answer 19

Judging likelihood of things/objects in terms of how well they seem to represent/match a particular prototype. (Truck driver vs. Ivy league Professor)

Question 20

Availability Heuristic:

Answer 20

Estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory.

• More likely to retrieve if;
  1. Occurred Recently
  2. Are vivid or distinct

Question 21

Overconfidence:

Answer 21

• Overestimating the accuracy of our beliefs and judgements

- Confident people are happier and healthier

Question 22

Belief Perseverance:

Answer 22

Tendency to cling to our beliefs in the face of contrary evidence

Question 23

Intuition:

Answer 23

An effortless, immediate, automatic feeling or thought as contrasted with explicit, conscious reasoning (enables quick decisions)

Question 24

Framing:

Answer 24

The way information is presented