problem solving and intelligence Flashcards
Intelligence
Ability to perform cognitive tasks and the capacity to learn from experience and adapt, remember important info and cope with the demands of daily living
Reliable indicator of intelligence
Problem solving
Two forms of reasoning to solve problems
Deductive and inductive reasoning. They are at the heart of the scientific methods
Deductive reasoning
Works with general ideas and info to arrive at specific conclusions.
Inductive reasoning
Moving from specific facts to broader generalizations and theories
Deductive and inductive in scientific method
Use theories to generate hypothesis via deductive reasoning and then use collected data and use inductive reasoning to interpret them
Functional fixedness
Difficulty seeing alternative uses for common objects
Two important qualities of a test
Reliability and validity
Reliability
Measures the extent to which repeated testing produces consistent results
Validity
Measures the trait the experiment is supposed to measure
The Flynn effect
The observation that the raw IQ scores have been steadily increasing since 1932. Mean score will always be centred around 100
Flynns argument about the increase IQ scores
Increased quality of life and access to ideas and info, nutrition and food, technology etc. Nobody knows why this effect exists
Schema
A mental framework for interpreting the world around us
Assimilation
Incorporating new info into existing schema
Accomodation
Modifying existing schemas to fit incompatible info
Piagets four stages of cognitive development in children
Sensorimotor stage (0-2 years), preoperational stage (2-7 years), concrete operational (7-12 years) and the formal operational stage (12+ years). No stages can be skipped and same order. Every stage has to be completed
Sensorimotor (object permanence)
Realization that objects continue to exist even when no longer visible
Preoperational (egocentrism, seriation, Reversible relationships, conservation)
Difficulty with these tasks
ego: If the child wants to do something then everyone else wants to do it. Unable to see other povs
Seriation: logically order a series of objects
Reversible relationships: if you ask a girl if you have a brother she will say yes, Matthew but if asked does Mathew have a sister she might say no
Conservation: different objects with different heights can contain the same amount of liquid but they fail to see that
Concrete operational
Ego, seriation, reversible and conservation are developed in any order. But struggles with abstract thinking and reasoning
Formal operational
Master abstract thinking and work with hypothesis. In this stage children develop interests in games, books, shows involving fantasy
flaw in piagets theories
Development of skills out of order (decalage)
Reliance on language abilities of children
Confirmation bias
Our tendency to seek out information that supports our hypothesis but it doesn’t test the actual hypothesis
Heuristic
Mental shortcut used to solve problems quickly and often correctly
availability heuristics: Our tendency to make decisions based on the information that is most quickly available to us
Representativeness heuristic
Our tendency to assume that what we are seeing is representative of the larger category we have in our mind. Useful when making judgements about probability ot belongs to a larger category. Not all category members are the same
availability heuristics
Our tendency to make decisions based on the information that is most quickly available to us
Good when you want to judge the frequency that an event occurs but errors can occur
ANALYTICAL intelligence
Book smart. Analyzing, contrasting, judgement
Creative intelligence
New ways to approach a problem
Practical intelligence
Street smart. Sort problems in everyday lives
Arch of knowledge
A model which illustrates how deductive and inductive reasoning work together to guide the scientific method.
Well defined problem
A problem in which the starting position, allowable rules and end goal are clearly stated
ill defined problem
A problem in which the starting position, allowable rules and end goal are not clearly stated. Everyday life problems are example
Adoption studies
A research method in which an adopted child is compared to their biological parents and adopted parents to assess genetic and environmental influence on a particular trait
