Thinking, Reasoning and Decision Making Flashcards
1
Q
What does thinking include?
A
- inductive reasoning
- deductive reasoning
- problem-solving
- judgement and decision-making
- creative thinking
2
Q
What’s the definition of inductive and deductive thinking?
A
- inductive: predicting the future from past data and making judgements on it, statistical generalisations, probabilistic judgements, predictions, hypothesis-testing, rule induction
- deductive: solving logical or mathematical problems that have right answers, based on certain grounds/given facts they generate a valid conclusion/evaluate the validity of a conclusion
3
Q
What is involved in research on thinking?
A
- focuses primarily on cases where there’s a right answer, a way of evaluating the rationality of the answer, a way of assessing the efficiency with which one gets there
- there’s strong emphasis on human imperfection
- practical motivation for this focus: importance of false medical, legal, military decision making, improvements through training and/or IT support, allows for attempts to change behaviour
4
Q
What is the general dual-process theory of reasoning, problem-solving and decision-making?
A
- system 1: intuitive, automatic, largely unconscious, quick and dirty, approximate procedures, schemas, rules of thumb/ heuristics. it’s adaptive and mostly effective when applied in appropriate domain, may lead to error if inappropriate domain
- system 2: slow, sequential, effortful, rational, logical, conscious reasoning system. allocates attention to effortful mental activities that require it, constrained by limited working-memory capacity and other basic limitations of cognitive machinery
5
Q
How do the 2 systems work in relation with each other?
A
- using system 2 is effortful so can get depleted, self-control and cognitive effort are forms of mental work
- if cognitively busy, system 1 has more influence on behaviour and we’re more likely to follow temptations
6
Q
What is inductive reasoning?
A
- illustrate how basic properties of the cognitive machinery limit our ability to use optimal reasoning strategies and introduce biases
- difficulty attending to relevant information when other salient information is available
- limited working memory capacity
- properties of retrieval from long-term memory
- difficulties in shifting mental perspective
7
Q
What is deductive reasoning?
A
- logical reasoning with quantifiers: idea that we reason by imagining concrete examples rather than using abstract and general logical operations (illustrates impact of WM limits)
- Wason’s 4-card test of deductive reasoning with ‘if-then’ propositions: explanation of effects on performance of the content of the problem and nature of characteristic errors in terms of domain-specific heuristics
8
Q
What is the availability in memory?
A
- availability heuristic: judge as more probable/frequent events/objects of which more examples are readily available in memory/environment
- works as it’s generally easier to retrieve from memory examples of events/objects that’s more frequent
- retrievability is determined by: recency, salience, similarity to current case
- so we tend to over-estimate probability of events of which we know are easily retrievable
9
Q
What is the neglect of base rate and the representativeness bias?
A
- when we evaluate cases we tend to ignore our knowledge of base rates (overall frequencies of events and an important source of information)
- if something/one has features that are representative of being in a certain group we think they have the standard properties of being in that group
10
Q
What is functional fixedness in problem-solving?
A
- classic experiments of the Gestalt psychologists
- difficult to change between 2 perspectives
- Duncker (1945): Ps had to find way to support candle on vertical wall with the props of matches, candle and box of drawing pins, were less successful that subjects given same problem but with drawing pins tipped out allowing them to see box as object on it’s own
11
Q
What is conservatism and confirmation bias in inductive reasoning?
A
-in ordinary life/scientific research we try to create a rule/principle to describe the instances we’ve experienced and test hypothesised rule against further observations
12
Q
What is the problem space?
Newell and Simon, 1972
A
- there’s at least 1 path through state space between start and goal states
- problem-solver must search for operators that will: move through intermediate states on path approaching the goal, avoid the need for backing up from dead-ends/going round in circles, minimise the path length
13
Q
What are the capacity limits of working memory and heuristics in problem-solving?
A
- given a big workspace and time it’s possible to exhaustively enumerate all potential legal moves and pick shortest path (don’t have WM capacity for this)
- so instead have to recognise familiar patterns and retrieve previously effective moves from LTM, and hunt for way between initial and goal states in small steps using heuristics (e.g. mean-end analysis)
- mean-end analysis: pick general means for reaching the goal, if that means isn’t available then a sub-goal until a sub-goal generated can be satisfied by available operator. requires maintenance of ‘goal stack’ in WM
14
Q
How are design limitations intrinsic to the cognitive machinery?
A
- retrieval, limited working memory, difficulty in attending to relevant info, difficulty in shifting cognitive ‘set’
- general effortfulness of sequential reasoning: lead to reliance on heuristics, result in intrinsic biases when we apply these heuristics
15
Q
What are mental models and syllogistic reasoning?
A
- given a set of premises we imagine 1 or more possible concrete worlds in which the premises are true
- then generate a conclusion or determine whether conclusion offered is valid by examining mental models
- errors arise through failure to generate all the possible mental models for the premises and lack of WM capacity for maintaining multiple models
