Reason and Decision Making Flashcards
What is problem solving?
- Two states: current position and goal
- It is purposeful (goal-directed)
- Want to work out the optimal strategy
Why do we need to work out the most optimal strategy when problem solving?
In the real world there may be repercussions for not taking the most optimal strategy
How is the frontal lobe related to planning?
Planning involves control processes which is related to the frontal lobe
What are the two main dichotomies of problem-solving?
Well-defined and ill-defined
What is well-defined problem solving?
Current position, possible moves, and goal well specified
What is ill-defined problem solving?
Current position, possible moves, and goal not well specified
What are the other two main dichotomies of problem-solving?
Knowledge-rich and knowledge-lean
What are knowledge-rich problems?
Only solvable via relevant knowledge e.g. chess
What are knowledge-lean problems?
Can be solved without needing prior knowledge. All information contained in presentation of problem
What is insight in problem-solving?
- the point at which the solution to the problem is sudddenly seen
- the ‘ah ha’ moment
What did Metcalfe & Weibe find about insight?
- PPs rated warmth during problem solving task - proximity to goal/solution
- For problems that included ‘insight’, sudden increase in warmth - i.e. rapid sudden progress
- problems that often solved without insight, gradual increase in warmth - slow accumation to goal
What did Jung-Beeman et al 2004 find about insight?
- Remote Associates Test
- Fence, Card, Master - Post
- Indicate insight for particular trials
- Increased activity in superior temporal gyrus
Is insight special?
- Ellis et al 2011
- Insight is real in the sense that people experience it
- However it may not be a seperate cogntiive process - higher order processes may gradually arrive at a solution but we only become aware once threshold reached
- However does gradual accumulation concept make sense for all complex problem-solving tasks?
Is insight special?
- Ellis et al 2011
- Insight is real in the sense that people experience it
- However it may not be a seperate cogntiive process - higher order processes may gradually arrive at a solution but we only become aware once threshold reached
- However does gradual accumulation concept make sense for all complex problem-solving tasks?
How is insight facilitated?
- Hints
- Incubation
- Sleep
How does incubation facilitate insight?
- Stop directly thinking about the problem for a period of time
- Led to a small but consistent improvement in problem solving, esp for problems that requires more creative solutions
- Allows people to think of more possible solutions to that question
How does sleep facilitate insight?
- ‘Sleep on it’
- Similar to incubation
What is the representational change theory?
- Olsen
- proposes that insight occurs through relaxing self-imposed constraints on a problem and by decomposing chunked items in the problem
What did Newell & Simon 1972 find about problem-solving strategies?
People solve problems via heuristics because they can’t hold all steps in their mind at once
What are heuristics?
- Computationally cheap rules of thumb that can produce reasonably accurate answers
What heuristics do we use to solve problems?
- Means-end analysis
- Hill-climbing
- Planning
- Progress Monitoring
What is the means-end analysis?
- Forming a sub-goal to minimise distance between current location and goal
- However requires info about the location of the final goal
- Don’t need to initially worry about the end goal
- Useful way to compartmentalise the problem
What is the hill-climbing heuristic?
- Change present state to one closer to the end goal
- No explicit -sub-goal’
- Analogous to climbing hill by always moving to the next highest point caught in local maxima
How do we use planning to solve problems?
- Planning before trying to reach a goal
- Useful when reaching goal involves sequence of behaviour - e.g. cup of tea
How do we use progress monitoring to solve problems?
- Track progress towards goal and switch strategy if progress is slow
What did MacGregor et al 2011 find about progress monitoring?
- Performance worse when PPs thought progress was being made
- When PPs realised progress was slow, they were more likely to switch strategies
How does expertise affect problem-solving?
- Lab tasks often knowledge-lean
- Expertise important for solving many real-world problems (problems in real life often knowledge-rich)
Define expertise.
- High level of knowledge and performance in a given domain acquired through a long period of systematic study/practice
How can experience be bad for problem solving?
- Functional fixedness
- Mental Set
Why is functional fixedness bad?
- Any given object only has a fixed set of uses
- Can’t see novel use of object to solve problem
- fixed on typical function of objects
Why is mental set bad for problem solving?
- Experts don’t always find the quickest route to victory
- Often found longer solution based on familiar strategy
What is inductive reasoning?
- Drawing general conclusions from premise
- Probably, but not necessarily true
- E.g. extrapolation
What is deductive reasoning?
- Draw definite conclusions if tenets are true
- Based on formal logic
- Conclusions drawn will be logically correct
What is informal reasoning?
- Everyday reasoning
- Relies on knowledge and experience of the real world
What is a premise?
A limited set of data
Explain hypothesis testing.
- Scientists use inductive reasoning to generate hypotheses based on limited data
- Falsification of null hypothesis
Why do we want to falsify hypotheses rather than confirm?
Confirmatino can never fully support hypotheses, falsification can prove that the hypothesis is wrong
What is Wason’s 2-4-6 task?
- Given 3 numbers (2-4-6)
- Guess the rule that generated these numbers
- Give three further numbers to test your hypothesis
- 21% guess correctly on first attempt
- 28% never guess correctly
What is the use of Wason’s 2-4-6 task?
- Provides insight in inductive reasoning and how scientists reason
- However it’s not real world, rule is very general and so confirmation testing is not appropriate
- Immediate confirmation or falsification is not realistic in the real world
Do scientists hypothesis test?
- Often, but not always
- Unusualness heuristic - guided by unusual results
- What if? - hypothesis generation and stimulation without experimentation
What is conditional reasoning?
- Propositional logic
- Logical operators (e.g. if, and, or) applied to reach conclusions
- e.g. if P then Q
Explain Modus Ponens
If P then Q - P therefore Q
Explain Modul Tollens
If P then Q - not Q therefore not P
What is denial of the antecedent?
- If P then Q
- Not P therefore not Q
What is the relationship between formal logic and probability?
Formal logic does not care about probability, it’s either 100% true or not
What is affirming the consequent?
- If P then Q
- Q therefore P?
- Alternatives increase correct rejection of invalid conclusions
Give an example of a conditional reasoning task.
Wason Selection Task
What is the probability of informal reasoning being correct?
80%
What is the straw-man fallacy?
- Select weaker points of opponents’ argument and focus on them to decrease probability of their point being correct
- Your argument becomes RELATIVELY more probable
What contributes to informal reasoning?
- Knowledge
- Experience
- Cultural values
- Motivation
What is bounded rationality?
- Idea that we are rational, within the limits of our cognitive capacity
- We produce workable solutions to real-world problems in spite of limited processing resources
- Hence correlation between performance in reasoning tasks and IQ - more processing capacity = better at reasoning
What is the difference between a decision and a judgement?
- Calculating likelihood of events using incomplete information
- Different from ‘decision’ - actively choosing 1 from number of possible actions
- Decisions are about consquences but judgements are all about accuracy
What is a judgement?
- Selecting one of two possible actions
- Calculating likelihood of events using incomplete info
- Knowing exact likelihood with complete info
What is a hit in disease diagnoses?
Positive result if you have disease
What is a miss in disease diagnoses?
Negative result if you have disease
What is a correct rejection?
Negative result if you don’t have the disease
What is a false alarm in disease diagnoses?
Positive result if you don’t have the disease
What is Bayes Theorem?
Probability of an event, based on current information and prior beliefs
What is Bayes Rule?
Posterior ∝ likelihood x prior
prior = probability of having the disease
likelihood = probability of data given prior
posterior = belief that you have a disease
What does Bayes theorum provide?
The optimal way of calculating probability of events
How did Kahneman and Tversky 1973 test whether humans are optimal?
Lawyer/Engineer problem
- 90% said engineer regardless of split
- Ignored base-rate
How did Cascells et al 1978 test whether humans are optimal?
- Real World Harvard Medical Students
- Answer = 2% but 45% of PPs said 95% (1-false positive rate)
- Neglected base-rate
What is conjunction fallacy?
Mistaken assumption that probability of conjunction of two events is higher than the probability of one of them
What could be an explanation of conjunction fallacy?
- Maybe we value precision/specificity
- We may ignore redundant information in answers i.e. bank teller in both answers so it must be true and so we focus on the extra information
What evidence is there that we aren’t optimal?
- Base-rate neglect
- Conjunction fallacy
What evidence is there that humans ARE optimal?
- Including info about casual structure improves performance
- Presenting in frequentist terms improves performance
- Personal relevance of problem improves performance
- Often when presented in the ‘correct’ format, people do much better
What are judgement heuristics?
- Cheap sort of computational rules of thumb that allow us to make reasonably accurate predictions or judgements in the presence of sort of noist information and we can do it quickly.
What is the representative heuristic?
Assume object/individual belongs to specific category because it’s representative
What is the availability heuristic?
Frequences of events estimated by ease of retrieval e.g. estimate probability of contracting disease based on no. of people you know with the disease
What is the opposite effect of the availability heuristic?
- e.g. which surname is more common - famous or non-famous
- PPs often choose non-famous despite the availability
What are the issues with heuristics?
- Somewhat vaguely defined
- Doesn’t define when specific heuristics are used
- Not necessarily biased processing, but poor information
- List of heuristics don’t equate to a theory
Why are heuristics important?
For explaining possible reasons we aren’t always optimal or logical
What theories explain human judgement?
- Dual-process Theory
- Fast-and-frugal heuristics
What is the Dual-process Theory?
- Judgements based on 2 distinct systems
- 1: fast, automatic, effortless, implicit
- 2: slow, serial, effortful, controlled
Explain Dual-process theory.
- Likely to be 2 systems, one faster and more automatic, and one slower and more effortful
- Conforms to intuitive sense of fast solution vs slow effortful solution
- Often system 1 is used (heuristics)
What are the issues with dual-process theory?
- Emphasises system 1 is not as optimal and prone to errors
- cognitive misers - we can used system 2 to produce correct answer, but often use system 1 because it is easier
- System 2 can also lead to errors but it is not clear when
- Both relatively ill-defined
What is the fast-and-frugal heuristic theory?
- If we’re so dumb then how come we’re so smart?
- Heuristics are useful
- Allow for rapid processing with little information
- Correct high percentage of the time but susceptible to errors
- Trade-off between time and accuracy
What is the recognition heuristic?
select the object that is recognised
What does base-rate neglect refer to?
Down weighting the base rate of something occurring
What is a decision?
- Choosing a specific option from >1 options
- Judgements emphasize accuracy - often proceeds decision
- Decisions emphasise consequences
What are normative theories?
- Concerned with how people SHOULD make decisions
- Assumption that people act rationally
What are descriptive theories?
Concerned with how people ACTUALLY make decisions
What is utility theory?
- Assumption that people act rationally to maximise expected utility
- Expected utility = given outcome x utility of outcome
- utility = SUBJECTIVE value we attach to a given outcome
What do we calculate in utility theory?
- Calculate expected utility of each outcome and choose option with the greatest expected utility
What are the main assumptions of prospect theory?
- Individuals identify ‘reference point’ representing current state (starting point critical)
- Individuals more sensitive to potential loss than gains (loss aversion)
- Individuals overweight rare events
When are indiivduals likely to take a 50-50 bet?
When gains are x2 of losses
- Based on how sensitive individuals are to gains/losses, can calculate a value function
What is a value function?
Relationship between utility and actual gains/losses
What is the framing effect?
Decisions influenced by irrelevant aspects of situation
What is the sunk-cost effect?
Tendency for people to pursue a course of action even after it has proved to be suboptimal, because resources have been invested in that course
i.e. throwing good money after bad
Explain overweighting a rare event. What is loss aversion?
Phenomenon where a real or potential loss is perceived by individuals as psychologically or emotionally more severe than an equivalent gain.
What are positives of prospect theory?
- More detailed than utility theory
- Introduces concept of value function - non-linear mapping between objective and subjective value
- Predicts ubiquitous phenomena - loss aversion, overweighting
What are disadvantages of psopect theory?
- Doesn’t explain why value function exists
- Many predicted phenomena can disappear/be reversed in specific experimental situations
- Doesn’t account for individual differences (e.g. high self-esteem, high narcissism
What factors may explain loss aversion?
- Emotional
- Social
What social factors may explain loss aversion?
Omission bias
- Status-quo bias
- Accountability
Explain omission bias
Preference for intaction when engaged in risky decision making
Explain status-quo bias
Prefer to accept status-quo than change decision
Explain accountability as a factor which explains loss aversion
Increased accountability -> increased sunk-cost
- Experience greater need to justify initial decision, so stick with it for longer
What is the difference between lab-based decisions and real-life decisions in terms of complex decision making?
Lab-based often involve selecting between 2 options but in the real world there are many option
What steps should we take when making complex decisions?
- identify attributes relevant to decision
- Decide how to weight attributes
- List all options under consideration
- Rate each option on each attribute
- Obtain total utility -> select option with highest utility
What did Simon 1957 say about bounded rationality?
Decision making is bounded by:
- environmental constraints
- cognitive
- we are as rationale as permitted within these constraintse constraints
What is satisficing?
Choosing first option that satisfies individual’s minimum requirements
What is elimination-by-aspects theory?
- Serial elimination based on specific criteria until one option remains
- order can matter
- cand’t handle trade-offs
What is the somatic marker hypothesis (compressed)
Suggests we use emotion/stimulation of consequences to make quick judgements about multiple options
- allows us to focus on likely better options and ignore likely worse options
What is memory-guided decision making?
- Often use past experience to make rapid, pressured decisions
Why are we rational?
- We’re good at reasoning and decision-mak,ing
- Heuristics are useful and often accurate
- Do use base-rate info when made explicit
- Certain tasks artificial and unlike those made in real world
- Real world rarely binary, but probabilistic in nature
Why aren’t we rational?
- Motivation in reasoning tasks leads to modest improvements in performance
- Complex judgement tasks are performed better by people with higher IQ
- Even when fully describes, performance in certain tasks are still poor
- Dunning-Kruger effect
What is the Dunning-Kruger effect?
People with poor reasoning ability have less insight into their competence (i.e. they think they are good when they are not)
What higher-order functions does executive control include?
Reasoning, planning, and decision making
What parts of the brain are involved in executive control/
- Higher-order functions rely on prefrontal regions
What is the somatic marker hypothesis?
- brain stimulates consequences of any possible decision
- body reacts to stimulation, causing responses (somatic markers)
- brain interprets somatic markers for possible options
- attention focussd on good options for further processing
What is good about the somatic-marker hypothesis?
- Quick way to assess various response options
- Provides ‘gut feeling’ about what to do in a given situation
- mPFC simulates consequences/interprets somatic markers
What evidence is there for SMH?
- Skin-conductance responses
- Iowa Gambling Task
- Measuring SCRs during the IGT
What is the skin conductance response?
- Presented ‘socially charged’ vs neutral visual stimuli + ‘elementary unconditioned’ stimulus
- mPFC patients had normal SCR
- mPFC patients had no SCR to socially charged stimuli
What is the Iowa Gambling Task?
- Variable reward/loss
- Decks A&B - high reward
- Decks C&D - low reward
- Long term - decks C&D -> higher profit
- Healthy PPs chose A&B initially but switch to C&D
- mPFC patients choose A&B but don’t switch
What have we found about measuring SCRs during the Iowa Gambling Task?
- Healthy PPs: anticipatory SCRs before picking ‘bad’ decks
- mPFC PPs: no anticipatory SCRs before picking ‘bad’ decks
