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attribute substitution

trade off between efficiency and accuracy

How is attribute substitution an important concept?

It explains how people solve complex problems and or question by unconsciously answering with an easier related questions.

availability heuristic

Strategy based on the assumption that the likelihood of an event is established on the basis of how readily available other instances of that event are in our memory

representativeness heuristic

Strategy relying on the assumption that, that instances of a category and category are homogenous (each member is representative of the category)

Factors that affect memory affect the quality of our judgments

Memory organization/retrieval
• Kahneman & Tversky’s (1973, letter R): 105 first letter, 47 third letter

Recency, based on personal experience, media coverage, etc.
• E.g., probability of a plane crash

Examples of representativeness heuristic

Hamill, Wilson & Nisbett (1980): prison guard study
• Nisbett & Ross (1980): “man/woman who” argument

What was the prison guard study?

a psychological study where healthy college students, randomly assigned as guards or prisoners, quickly adopted abusive or submissive roles in a simulated jail, highlighting how situational power dynamics can cause normal people to act sadistic.

what is the man/woman who argument?

a communication framework suggesting men and women often argue differently due to distinct approaches: women tend to focus on emotional expression and detailed discussion, while men often focus on facts, resolution, or conflict avoidance.

Diagnostic information

information about an individual case, which indicates whether the case belongs into one category or another

What is an example of diagnostic information?

John the professor fits the stereotype of a statistician yet he is a Humanities prof.

Base rates

the overall likelihood that a particular case will be in one or another category, independent of the diagnostic information

Covariation

association of two variables

Illusory covariation

detection of covariation when there is none

Representativeness bias can affect judgments of covariation

true

How does representativeness bias can affect judgments of covariation

the basis of many social stereotypes

How does representativeness bias can affect judgments of illusory covariation

Relationship between a person’s astrological sign and their personality; weather and arthritic pain

System 1

• Operates quickly
• Heuristics, intuition
• No sense of effort or voluntary control
• Little understanding of logic and statistics
• Affected by memory availability

System 2

• Operates slowly
• Reasoning
• Accurate judgment
• Sense of effort, agency, choice, concentration
• Voluntary allocation of attention

Examples of System 1

Moses problem
• Halo effect
• Confirmation bias
• Related: illusory covariations

What is the moses problem?

How many animals of each kind did Moses take into the ark? A question that makes you answer quickly without reading the whole question.

What is the halo effect?

Lack of information about a person is filled-in with information that is consistent with our first impression.

What is an example study of the halo effect?

Asch’s experiments (1946, Exp. VI): Ps were read one of the following lists
• Alan: intelligent, industrious, impulsive, critical, stubborn, envious
• Ben: envious, stubborn, critical, impulsive, industrious, intelligent

Ps chose Alan more because the wording was better yet it was the same thing

System 1 is usually selected with

Time pressure
• Low attention levels

System 2 is primed and selected more often

• Depending on the format of the data (frequencies vs. probabilities)
• When the role of chance is evident
• With training
• With certain categories (background knowledge; Nisbett et al., 1983)

confirmation bias

Greater sensitivity to confirming evidence and tendency to neglect disconfirming evidence

Belief perseverance

Role of memory in retrieving information that is consistent with one’s
beliefs
• Experimenter’s comments
• Feedback
• Memories during the task

How does confirmation bias take form?

When people are assessing a belief or a hypothesis, they’re more likely to seek evidence that might confirm the belief than evidence that might disconfirm it

Ross et al., 1975: experiment with suicide notes and bogus positive/negative feedback

showing that once people form a belief, they cling to it even after the evidence supporting it is entirely discredited

According to the authors, experimental methods are not neutral. To what experimental methods and research do the authors refer and what do they mean when they hint at a lack of neutrality?

Intuitive statistician (experiential learning): people apply concepts from
statistics and probability theory
• Irrational mind (Tversky & Kahneman, descriptive methods)

Deduction

a process in which we start with general claims or assertions and ask what follows from these premises (draw conclusions)

Induction

a process in which one begins with specific facts or observations and draws some general conclusions from them

what is a syllogism?

Three statements
– Two premises
– One conclusion

example of a syllogism

All human beings are mortal (premise 1)
• Socrates is a human being (premise 2)
• Socrates is mortal (conclusion)

Form:
– All x are y
– z is x
– z is y
• Syllogisms that follow this structure are
necessarily true

what are errors of syllogisms?

All rice fields need water.
• Roses need water.
• Therefore, roses are rice fields

Belief bias

tendency to accept the syllogism if the content of the conclusion is generally true

Conversion errors

mistaking “all x are y” for “all y are x”

Matching strategy

the quantifiers in the premises create an “atmosphere” in which conclusions using the same quantifier are accepted as true

Confirmation strategy

the object in my hand is a frog; therefore, it is green

Falsification strategy

the object in my hand is not green; therefore, it is not a frog

Ps use a confirmation strategy more often than a falsification strategy

true

The role of the content

Ps do better if the task involves a concrete or familiar content

Utility maximization theory

We make decision by maximizing the benefits and minimizing the risks (we systematically ponder pros and cons)

Evidence against the utility theory

Reasoning is influenced by how the problem is framed
– Framing: manner in which a rational choice problem is presented

We often make decisions based on

– What justification we can offer
– Our ability to forecast our emotions

Examples of framing

The way a problem is framed, ps choose options that sound more positive yet are the same as the negative. Hamburger meat and asian disease problem

The role of perceived justifications (reason-based choice)

Ps rather go through surgery than take two different options for medication.

Role of emotion in decision-making

Somatic marker hypothesis
• Affective forecasting

Somatic marker hypothesis

Iowa Gambling Task -
Results
• Start selecting advantageous decks
– Anticipatory autonomic response before selecting a deck, larger when considering a risky choice (Bechara et al.,1997)

Affective forecasting

The ability to predict our emotions in the future
– Decisions are made based on the assessment of how we will feel

Some factors that influence decision making are

– How problems are framed
– Ability/possibility to find justifications
– Prediction of how we will feel

Hyperthymesia

mnemonist, a person with extraordinary ability to recall, able to absorb events in vivid detail, text, faces, conversations

The problems with hyperthymesia

unable to forget traumatic events, cause for mental overload, exhaustion, OCD etc

what is a concept ?

a generic idea from particular instances, form of knowledge

what is general knowledge?

information built overtime across diverse subjects through experience

Contrast of features and Wittgenstein

the triangle= 3 sides/angles, closed figure.

Family features= all have beards yet they are all different, from shape to color

Compare of features and Wittgenstein

Reverently the same concept and idea of what it’s meant to look like or meant to be.

prototype theory origin

No clear boundaries for concepts

Graded membership

not all birds are equal

Fuzzy boundaries

no inclusion/exclusion criterion is unambiguously specified

Exemplar theory

the exemplar view holds that concepts are represented by their exemplars (at least in part) rather than by an abstract summary

Categorization

relies on mental images of specific exemplars of a category

Feature theory

Bird=Animal that flies, lays eggs, has a beak

Prototype theory

Bird=an average bird that resembles a robin

Exemplar theory

Bird={my bird, the bird I saw in my backyard this morning, or at the zoo, ...}

What can the exemplar theory explain?

• Typicality judgements
• Production
• Variability within and pliability of concepts

Production tasks

The first items that come to mind are the most frequent (e.g., robin for birds)

Exemplar theory is better equipped at explaining

• Flexibility depending on the context
• Expertise

Interim summary

Different tasks have been used to study how we mental represent and
think about things in the world

Category judgments rely on matching an item with that mental representation (establishing resemblance)

• List of features
• Prototypes
• Exemplars

Concepts as theories

Categorization is based on knowledge (theories, beliefs), not
prototypes or exemplars in isolation
• Not necessarily scientific theories
• Inferences can be drawn