psy 340 OSU exam 3 pt.2

Why is the use of categories so important for our day-to-day functioning?

Categorization is so important for or day to day functioning because when we see an object we categorize it into it's appropriate family of objects. without categories we would have much more trouble remembering as much as we do

Describe the definitional approach to categories. Why does it initially seem like a good way of thinking about categories, but it then becomes troublesome when we consider the kinds of objects that can make up a category?

The problem with the definitional approach to categories is that categories have some room for interpretation whereas a definition gives a very clear cut result. a result is if we define chair's as having four legs, a been bag chair is still a chair but does not match the definition.

What is the prototype approach? What experiments did Rosch do that demonstrated connections between prototypicality and behavior?

The prototype approach is using things that are familiar to the object we are looking at to match them into categories based on our previous knowledge, then the object is with high prototypicality or low prototypicality and then objects which are most familiar to the prototype will be recognized quicker and more easily. This can effect behavior because it effect how we interpret the word.

What is the exemplar approach to categorization? How does it differ from the prototype approach, and how might the two approaches work together?

The exemplar approach is very similar to the prototype approach except where the prototype approach uses one single default member as the prototype, the exemplar approach uses each member of the group as an exemplar and objects can be compared to other exemplars and the more exemplars of a group the object matches the more easily and quickly the object will be recognized, the way that the two might work together is that at first we use prototypes, and have exceptions, and as we learn more we place the exemplar's more appropriately.

What does it mean to say that there are different levels within a category? What arguments did Rosch present to support the idea that one of these levels is “basic”? How has research on categorization by experts led to modifications of Rosch’s ideas about which category is “basic”?

Rosch and The "Privileged" Basic Level: - study had participants list features of either furniture, table, and kitchen table.

- results showed 3 features total for furniture, 9 for table, and 10.3 for kitchen table

- concluded that basic level is psychologically special because global has a large gap of lost information and specific results in little gain of information.

Naming Objects at the Basic Level:

- participants tended to pick a basic level name for an object

- for example, they said guitar (basic) instead of musical instrument (general) or electric guitar (specific).

- another study, participants said yes faster when a picture of an automobile was preceded by the word CAR than VEHICLE

What is the basic idea behind Collins and Quillian’s semantic network approach? What is the goal of this approach, and how did the network created by Collins and Quillian accomplish this goal?

The basic goal behind the semantic network is to create a computer model for memory to try and determine how fast and to create a hierarchy for how our brain organizes information

What is the evidence for and against the Collins and Quillian model?

Four properties of a good psychological theory is explanatory power, predictive power, falsify-ability, and generation of experiments,

What is a connectionist network? Describe how a connectionist network learns, considering specifically what happens to connection weights.

A connectionist network is a network using neuron's in the brain to represent different nodes.The connection weight is essentially the speed at which that neuron can fire, so if the neuron has a higher connection weight will tend to excite the next neuron more quickly whereas the lower the less excited the next neuron will be and if it's a negative value it can cause the neuron to inhibit and activity.

How does the way information is represented in a connectionist network differ from the way it is represented in a semantic network?

The way that information is represented in a connectionist network differ from the way that it is represented in a semantic network is that the activity for a concept is distributed throughout the network; It uses back propagation to properly adjust weights so correct representation can occur

How are connectionist networks affected by damage? How is this similar to what happens in cases of brain damage?

The operation of connectionist networks is not totally distributed by damage. The information in the network is distributed across many units damage to the system does not completely disrupt its operation. The graceful degradation is similar what often happens in actual cases of brain damage, in which damage to the brain causes only a partial loss of functioning

How do connectionist networks explain generalization of learning?

Since some concepts have similar patterns, training a system to recognize the properties of one concept (such as "canary") can also provide information about other, related concepts (such as "robin or sparrow)". This is similar to the way we actually learn about concepts because previous learning enables to predict properties of different types of categories

What is the sensory-functional hypothesis of brain categorization? Describe the neuropsychological evidence that supports this hypothesis.

It is the observation that concepts are separately distinguished by sensory properties and artifacts by functions; thus, we have a memory system that distinguishes attributes and a system that distinguishes functions

Describe neuropsychological evidence that can’t be explained by the S-F hypothesis.

Performance on a naming task for patients K.C. and E.W., both of whom had category-specific memory impairment. They were able to correctly name pictures of nonliving things (such as car and table) and fruits and vegetables (such as tomato and pear) but performed poorly when asked to name pictures of animals.

- Specific neural circuits for

specific categories.

What is the multiple-factor approach? How did research on non–brain-damaged participants support this approach?

-Seeking to describe how concepts are represented in the brain by searching for multiple factors that determine how concepts are divided up within a category.

-some researches propose that patients who appear to have category-specific impairments, such as difficulty recognizing living things but not artifacts, don't really have a category-specific impairment at all. They propose that these patients have difficulty recognizing living things because they have difficulty distinguishing between items that share similar features.

What is crowding?

Animals tend to share many properties, such as eyes, legs, and the ability to move. This is relevant to the multiple-factor approach to the representation of concepts in the brain.

What is the semantic category approach? What do the results of Huth’s imaging experiment in which participants had their brain scanned while listening to stories indicate about how concepts are represented in the brain?

-there are specific neural circuits in the brain for some specific categories

-Huth and coworkers (2012), showing where different categories are represented in the cortex. This "category map" was determined by measuring fMRI responses as participants were viewing films, and determining how individual voxels responded to objects in the films. But semantic categories come into play not only when we look at a scene but also when we listen to someone speaking. Understanding spoken language involves not only knowing about concrete categories like living things, food, and places, but about abstract concepts like feelings, values, and thoughts.

What is the embodied approach?

knowledge of concepts is based on reactivation of sensory and motor processes that occur when we interact with the object

What is the hub and spoke model? Where is the hub?

A model of semantic knowledge that proposes that areas of the brain that are associated with different functions are connected to the anterior temporal lobe, which integrates information from these areas.

How do the results of transcranial magnetic stimulation experiments provide evidence for the hub and spoke model?

demonstrating the functional relevance of specific brain regions, particularly the hub region, in information processing and communication within the brain

Make a list of the important events in the history of the study of imagery in psychology, from the imageless thought debate of the 1800s to the studies of imagery that occurred early in the cognitive revolution in the 1960s and 1970s.

1) Wundt's first lab of Psy. (1879). He proposed that images were on of the 3 basic elements of consciousness, along with sensations & feelings. (Structuralism), proposed that because images accompany thought, studying images was a way of studying thinking

2) Gave rise to the imageless thought debate

3) Evidence supporting ideas that imagery was not required for thinking was from Galton's work (1883) observing people who had a great difficulty forming visual images were still capable of thinking

4) Behaviorists era kept the study imagery out of mainstream (1920s-1950s) because Watson described images as "unproven" and "mythological" (1928)

5) Cognitive Revolution (150s & 1960s) methods to measure behavior that could be used to infer cognitive processes were key

Ex: Paovio's (1963) work on memo showing it was easier to remember concrete nouns that can be imagined than abstract nouns. Method: Paired-associate learning proposed conceptual peg hypothesis

Ex: Shepard & Metzler (1971) inferred cognitive processes by using mental chronometry, determining the amount of time needed to carry out various cognitive tasks. Important because they were first to use quantitative methods

How did Kosslyn use the technique of mental scanning (in the boat and island experiments) to demonstrate similarities between perception and imagery?

Kosslyn used this technique of mental scanning because she wanted to show that imagery and perception are both based on spatial mechanisms

What is the imagery debate? Describe the spatial (or depictive) and propositional explanations of the mechanism underlying imagery. How does the propositional explanation interpret the results of Kosslyn’s boat and island image-scanning experiments?

- The imagery debate: a debate about whether imagery is based on spatial mechanisms, such as those involved in perception, or on mechanisms related to language, called propositional mechanisms

- Pylyshyn says that because we experience imagery as spatial it does not mean that underlying representation is spatial

- Epiphenomenon: something that accompanies the real mechanism but is not actually part of the mechanism

- The propositional explanation would interpret results from Kosslyn's research by showing how imagery operates in a way similar to semantic networks. That is, parts of the boat are connected with lines that indicate the distance

Describe experiments by Kosslyn, Perky, and Farah that demonstrate interactions between imagery and perception.

Kosslyn (1973)• Memorize picture and create an image of it• In image, move from one part of the picture to the other• It took longer for participants to mentally move long distances than shorter distances.• Like perception, imagery is spatial.

- Mental walk task: n which they were to imagine that they were walking toward their mental image of an animal. Their task was to estimate how far away they were from the animal when they began to experience "overflow"—when the image filled the visual field or when its edges started becoming fuzzy

Perky: Perky asked her participants to "project" visual images of common objects onto a screen and then to describe these images. Unbeknownst to the participants, Perky was back-projecting a very dim image of this object onto the screen. Thus, when participants were asked to create an image of a banana, Perky projected a dim image of a banana onto the screen

Farah: letter visualization experiment. (1985) instructed her participants to imagine either the letter H or the letter T on a screen.

1. Describe how experiments using the following physiological techniques have provided evidence of parallels between imagery and perception:

   • (a)

     recording from single neurons in the human brain;

   • (b)

     brain imaging;

   • (c)

     multivoxel pattern analysis;

   • (d)

     deactivation of part of the brain; and

   • (e)

     neuropsychology

(a). LiBihan and coworkers showed that the visual cortex is activated by both imagery and perception

(b). Amedi and coworkers showed overlap but also showed that when images were created by using visuals by participants, some areas were deactivated that were associated with nonvisual areas like touching or hearing. There may have been mental images that were visualized are weaker than perception

(c). In a lot of cases it has shown that patients with brain damages have a problem in perception

(d). Kreiman and coworkers studied patients having electrodes implanted in different areas of the medial temporal lobe for the determination of the sources of the epileptic seizures that only medicine could control. As a result, they found neurons which responded to some neurons but not others. They were known as imagery neurons

What are some differences between imagery and perception? What have most psychologists concluded about the connection between imagery and perception?

Most psychologists conclude that imagery and perception are closely related and share some (but not all) mechanisms

Differences:

- Perception is automatic, but imagery needs to be generated with some effort

- Perception is stable and imagery is fragile

- Harder to manipulate mental images than images that are created perceptually as shown by Chalmers and Reisberg when they showed ambiguous figures (can you see a rabbit or a duck). Perceptually easy to flip images, but hard to do so if you are holding a mental image of the figure

Under what conditions does imagery improve memory? Describe techniques that use imagery as a tool to improve memory. What is the basic principle that underlies these techniques?

Placing images at locations: method of loci, a method in which things to be remembered are placed at different locations in a mental image of a spatial layout

Associated images with words:
- Pegword technique: e.g., "one-bun, two-shoes, three-tree, four-door, five-hive, etc"
- Easy to remember these words in order because they were created by rhyming with the numbers

What is the evidence for individual differences in imagery? What is the difference between spatial visualizers and object visualizers?

Spatial visualizers focus on location and spatial relations.

Object visualizers focus on visual properties of objects such as shape and color.

1. What is the hierarchical nature of language?

The hierarchical nature of language means that it consists of a series of small components that can be combined to form larger units. For example, words can be combined to create phrases, which in turn can create sentences, which themselves can become components of a story.

The rule-based nature of language?

The idea that there are rules in a language that specify the permissible ways for arranging words and phrases.

Why has the need to communicate been called universal?

because it occurs wherever there are people

What events are associated with the beginning of the modern study of language in the 1950s?

Skinner vs. Chomsky -- behaviorism (lang learned via rewards/punishments) vs. innate lang. acquisition device

What is psycholinguistics? What are its concerns, and what part of psycholinguistics does this chapter focus on?

psychological study of language, concerned w/ comprehension, speech production, representation (how lang is repped in mind/brain) and acquisition. this chapter focuses on the first 3

What is semantics?

the meaning of languages

The lexicon?

all words a person understands

How does word frequency affect our processing of words? Describe the eye movement experiment that illustrates an effect of word frequency.

word frequency effect; the faster response (RT) to high-frequency words in the lexical decision task and by measuring eye movements (longer fixations and lower-frequency words). This is related to our ability to access their meaning.

What is the evidence that context helps people deal with the variability of word pronunciation?

The pronunciation of words is variable (i.e. accents), which can make it difficult to perceive words when they are heard out of context.

What is speech segmentation and why is it a problem?

The process of perceiving individual words within the continuous flow of the speech signal.

Problem: Because speech segmentation is fast and largely automatic

What are some of the factors that help us achieve speech segmentation?

Past experience with words, the word's context, statistical properties of language, and knowledge of the meanings of words help solve this problem

What is lexical ambiguity?

the fact that a word can have more than one meaning. The context of the sentence is used to determine which definition applies.

1. What is meaning dominance?

some words are used more frequently than others

Biased dominance?

When words have two or more meanings with different dominance

Balanced dominance?

When words have two or more meanings with about the same dominance

How do frequency and context combine to determine the correct meaning of ambiguous words?

For words with more than one meaning, it's meaning dominance (frequency) and context are considered to identify the word.

1. What is syntax?

rules for combining words into sentences

-Sentences are merely strings of words in sequence

What is parsing?

mentally groups the words into phrases

-helps the listener create meaning

What are garden path sentences?

sentences that begin by appearing to mean one thing, but then end up meaning something else

Describe the garden path model of parsing. Be sure you understand what a heuristic is and the principle of late closure.

Listeners use heuristics (rules) to group words into phrases

Grammatical structure of sentence determines parsing

Describe the constraint-based approach to parsing. How does it differ from the garden path approach?

Garden path model states syntactic rules are the only thing taken into account.

Constraint based says non-linguistic information is also considered.

1. Describe the following lines of evidence that support the constraint-based approach to parsing:

   • How meanings of words in a sentence affect parsing.

   • How story context affects parsing.

   • How scene context affects processing. Be sure you understand the visual world paradigm.

   • How memory load and predictions based on knowledge of language structure affect parsing. Be sure you understand the difference between subject-relative and object-relative constructions and why object-relative constructions are harder to understand.

An approach to parsing that proposes that semantics, syntax, and other factors operate simultaneously to determine parsing.

- the meaning of the words in a sentence is important to understand if it makes sense or not

- Using story context helps to clarify the phrase

- contexts are provided by scenes.

How can garden path sentences be related to prediction?

Garden path sentences force us to predict sentences.

How is prediction important for understanding sentences?

Understanding prediction can improve our sentence understandings, especially when noisy or when listening to accents

1. What does the “fixing the birdhouse” experiment indicate about inference?

demonstrates how individuals rely on their prior knowledge, experience, and observations to make educated guesses and draw conclusions in situations with limited information.

What is coherence? Describe the different types of inference that help achieve coherence.

Representation of the text in one's mind that creates clear relations:

- between parts of the text and the story's main topic

CAI:

Causal

Anaphoric

Instrument

What is the assumption behind a situation model? Describe what the following evidence tells us about this approach to understanding stories: (a) reaction times for pictures that match or don’t match the orientations or shapes of objects in a story; (b) brain activation for action words compared to actual action; (c) predictions based on the situation.

That situations change the idea about what the text is about. For instance, people react faster to images that match their mental representation, when reading about an action the same parts of their brains light up as if they were doing the action, and the brain has more activity when trying to read an unexpected situation.

What is the given–new contract?

a speaker should construct sentences so that they include two kinds of information:

(1)given information—information that the listener already knows; and

(2)new information—information that the listener is hearing for the first time

New then becomes the given information.

Think of transition words in long paragraphs.

What is common ground? How is it established in a conversation?

1. the mental knowledge and beliefs shared among conversational parties - where both understand the content of the conversation.

2. Established (studied with referential communication task) by knowing what each other knows.

3. Makes conversations flow much more smoothly - entrainment

What does the “abstract picture” experiment tell us about how common ground is established?

but it demonstrates how difficult it can be to establish shared understanding when there are no clear references to guide communication

Once common ground is established, what happens?

Synchronization between the people in the conversation (entrainment; gestures speaking rate, body position, pronunciation, and grammatical structure.), as demonstrated by syntactic coordination (using similar grammatical structure)

What is syntactic coordination? Describe the syntactic priming experiment that was used to demonstrate syntactic coordination.

1. How people's grammatical constructions become coordinated.

2. Two people converse, and you determine who's grammatical construction is making the other conform. In Branigan's experiment, they play a card game (like battleship). BUT, the way that the participant subsequently speaks usually conforms to how the confederate speaks.

What are some similarities and differences between music and language?

Similarities: There is a close relation between song and speech, music and language both cause emotion via prosody, and both consist of organized sequences.

Differences: They create emotions in different ways (music through sounds that have no meaning and language with meaningful words), and rules for combining tones and words are different. The most important difference is based on the fact that words have meanings.

What is the tonic? What does return to the tonic say about expectation in music?

tonic; The key of a musical composition

return to tonic; In a musical composition, coming back to the tonic note that was at the beginning of the composition. It says that the way in which the notes are organized around a key set's an expectation for what a song will be like.

Describe Patel’s experiment in which he measured the P600 response of the ERP to syntactic violations. What does his result say about connections between music and language?

The results of the experiment showed that both musicians and non-musicians exhibited a P600 response to syntactic violations in language. However, the P600 response was significantly larger in musicians compared to non-musicians.

What is the evidence for and against the idea that music and language activate overlapping areas of the brain?

Different Cognitive Processes: Although music and language may utilize some of the same brain resources, they possess distinct characteristics and requirements. Language relies heavily on syntax and semantics, while music focuses on melody, rhythm, and harmony. This indicates that there are likely unique neural mechanisms dedicated to each domain.

Variability in Brain Activation: Studies have shown that while both music and language processing can activate areas such as the auditory cortex, the specific ways these regions are stimulated can differ. For instance, the superior temporal gyrus is often more specialized for language processing, whereas other areas may be more involved in music processing.

Influence of Prior Knowledge: Individual differences in prior musical training or linguistic abilities can affect how the brain responds to music and language tasks. This variability suggests that the interaction between music and language processing is influenced by cognitive capacities, further complicating the notion of overlapping activation.

Functional Imaging Studies: Some functional imaging studies indicate that while there is some overlap in brain activation, the patterns of activation differ significantly when individuals engage in music versus language tasks. This suggests that the brain may employ different strategies and processes for each domain, despite some shared areas.

Neurophysiological Evidence: Research has documented that certain brain regions are more active during specific tasks related to either music or language, reinforcing the idea that while there may be some common ground, the two domains are processed through distinct neural pathways.

If music and language both activate the same brain area, can we say with certainty that they share neural mechanisms?

There is evidence that music and language activation can occur within an area but involve different neural networks

What is the psychological definition of a problem?

It is an obstacle between a present state and a goal and is not immediately obvious on how to get around the obstacle. It is difficult to solve

What is the basic principle behind the Gestalt approach to problem solving? Describe how the following problems illustrate this principle, and also what else these problems demonstrate about problem solving: the circle problem; the candle problem; the two-string problem; the water jug problem. Be sure you understand functional fixedness.

Problem solving, for the Gestalt psychologists, was about (1) how people represent a problem in their mind and (2) how solving a problem involves a reorganization or restructuring of this representation

"Circle (radius) Problem": This problem asks us to determine the length of the segment marked x if the radius of the circle has a length r. One way to describe how this problem is represented on the page is "a circle with vertical and horizontal lines that divide the circle into quarters, with a small triangle in the upper left quadrant". The key to solving this problem is to change the last part of the representation to "a small rectangle in the upper left quadrant, with x being the diagonal between the corners". Once x is recognized as the diagonal of the rectangle, the representation can be reorganized by creating the rectangle's other diagonal. Once we realize that this diagonal is the radius of the circle, and that both diagonals of a rectangle are the same length, we can conclude that the length of x equals the length of the radius, r. What is important about this solution is that it doesn't require mathematical equations. Instead, the solution is obtained by first perceiving the object and then representing it in a different way (Restructuring)

"Candle Problem": The candle problem illustrates how functional fixedness can hinder problem solving. In this experiment, participants are asked to use various objects to complete a task. The following demonstration asks you to try to solve Duncker's problem by imagining that you have the specified objects (candles, matches in a matchbox, some tacks) with cardboard on the wall in a room. The solution to the problem occurs when the person realizes that the matchbox can be used as a support rather than a as a container. When Duncker did this experiment, he presented one group of participants with small cardboard boxes containing the materials and presented another group with the same materials, but outside the boxes, so the boxes were empty. When the two groups were compared, it was found that the group that had been presented with the boxes as containers found the problem more difficult than did the group that was presented with empty boxes

"The Two-String Problem": Another demonstration of functional fixedness is provided by Maier's two-string problem, in which the participants' task was to tie together two strings that were hanging from the ceiling. This is difficult because the strings are separated, so it is impossible to reach one of them while holding the other. Other objects available for solving this problem were a chair and a pair of pliers. To solve this problem, participants needed to tie the pliers to one of the strings to create a pendulum, which could then be swung to within the person's reach. In Gestalt terms, the solution to the problem occurred once the participants restructured their representation of how to achieve the solution (get the strings to swing from side to side) and their representation of the function of the pliers (they can be used as a weight to create a pendulum)

"The Water-Jug Problem": The Gestalt psychologists showed how mental set (a preconceived notion about how to approach a problem, which is determined by a person's experience or what has worked in the past) in which participants are given three jugs of different capacities and are required to use these jugs to measure out a specific quantity of water. All of the participants who began the Luchins' water-jug problem with problem 7 used the shorter solution, but less than a quarter of those who had established a mental set by beginning with problem 1 used the shorter solution to solve 7

What is insight, and what is the evidence that insight does, in fact, occur as people are solving a problem?

a sudden realization of a problem's solution and often requires restructuring the problem.

Metcalfe and Wiebe:

- Insight: triangle problem, chain problem

- Noninsight: algebra

- Warmth judgements every 15 seconds

- Insight problems solved suddenly

- Noninsight problems solved gradually.

Describe Newell and Simon’s approach to problem solving, in which “search” plays a central role. How does means–end analysis as applied to the Tower of Hanoi problem illustrate this approach? What is the think-aloud protocol?

They described problem solving as a search that occurs between the posing of the problem and its solution

Tower of Hanoi problem: - initial state - conditions at the beginning of the problem (three discs on the left peg)

- goal state - the solution of the problem (three discs on the right peg)operators - actions that take the problem from one state to another

-well-defined and intermediate processing:
means end analysis is a way of solving a problem in which the goal is to reduce the difference between the initial and goal states

in the example, establishing subgoals, each of which moves the solution closer to the goal state

-subgoals are the movements of the discs

-intermediate states are conditions after each step is made toward solving a problem

Approach can be applied to real world settings

How does the mutilated checkerboard experiment illustrate that the way a problem is stated can affect a person’s ability to solve the problem? What are the implications of this research for Newell and Simon’s “problem space” approach?

ability to solve depended on how board was set up (w/ colors, words, or nothing)

w/ a blank board, it was harder to solve, but with words "bread" and "butter," it was easier because info that was provided pointed to correct sol'n

this is more similar to Gestalt idea of restructuring, but prob. space could be used too (realize you can't follow intermediate steps governed by operator rules to reach sol'n so the answer to the prob is no)

What is the basic idea behind analogical problem solving? What is the source problem? The target problem? How effective is it to present a source problem and then the target problem, without indicating that the two are related?

Using the solution to a similar problem to guide solution of a new problem. the transfer is called:

-analogical transfer, participants who are trying to solve a target problem are presented with a problem or a story called the source problem that shares some similarities with the target problem and that illustrates ways to solve the target problem

-can be effective- e.g. radiation problem is given to participants. the problem is where a doctor needs to find out how to get radiation to a tumor without destroying healthy tissue in one blast. most participants couldn't solve it. but once they learned the fortress story, where an army was divided into small groups and dispatched onto each roads, then participants were able to solve the radiation problem.

Describe Duncker’s radiation problem. What is the solution, and how have researchers used this problem to illustrate analogical problem solving?

Solution is using low intensity rays from different directions. Has shown that even when people are exposed to analogous source problems or stories, most people do not make the connection between the source problem/story and the target problem.

What are the three steps in the process of analogical problem solving? Which of the steps appears to be the most difficult to achieve?

1. Noticing that there is an analogous relationship between the source story and the target problem. This step is the most difficult to achieve

2. Mapping the correspondence between the source story and the target problem- e.g. connection elements in one story (dictator's fortress) to elements in the target problem (tumor)

3. Applying the mapping to generate a parallel solution to the target problem- e.g. generalizing from the many small groups of soldiers approaching the fortress from different directions to the idea of using many weaker rays that would approach the tumor from different directions

What is analogical encoding? What two strategies have been described that help people discover similar problem features?

is the process by which two problems are compared and similarities between them are determined.

Trade-off strategy and contingency strategy

What is the analogical paradox? How has analogical problem solving been studied in the real world?

Analogical paradox is that participants in lab experiments tend to focus on surface features in analogy problems whereas people in the real world focus on structural features

-In vivo problem-solving research: observed real world problems at play

-Researchers listened to molecular biologists and immunologists and found that they used analogies 3 to 15 times per hour. Engineers proposed an analogy every 5 minutes

What is an expert? What are some differences between the way experts and nonexperts go about solving problems? How good are experts at solving problems outside of their field?

An expert is someone who devoted a large amount of time to learn about a field and practice and apply that learning, have become acknowledged as being extremely knowledgable or skilled in the particular field

1. Experts possess more knowledge about their fields: the chessboard pieces, experts were much better at remembering. knowledge is organized so it can be accessed when needed.

2. Experts' knowledge is organized differently from novices': in a physics problem experiment, the novices solved the problem using surface characteristics (how similar the objects in the problem were) whereas experts used deep structural features (actual principles of physics).

3. Experts spend more time analyzing problems: experts often have a slow start because they spend time trying to understand the problem which allows for a more effective approach to the problem

In general, experts are only experts within their own field and perform like anyone else outside their field
- one disadvantage of knowing well established facts is that experts can be less open to new ways of looking at a problem

What is divergent thinking? How is it related to connectivity? How does the definition of creativity extend beyond originality?

Divergent thinking is the ability to generate novel ideas by breaking away from established concepts. It is related to connectivity, as it requires making diverse connections and associations between various ideas. The definition of creativity extends beyond originality to include divergent thinking.

Describe analogical problem solving as illustrated by de Mestral’s invention of Velcro and Odón’s invention of a birthing device.

ability to look at one thing and relate it to a current problem as a potential solution.

What does it mean to say that problem solving is a process?

1. 4 stage prices; beginning with generating the problem and ending with implementing the solution

2. Realizing the problem, leading to ideas, which are evaluated and eventually turned into a product.

Discuss the factors involved in generating ideas, including the role of knowledge, the use of brainstorming, and the creative cognition approach.

Idea Generation serves as the foundational phase within the innovation process, tailored particularly for conceiving novel products, inventive solutions, and innovative business models. A diverse array of idea generation techniques stands ready to aid in the creation of fresh concepts. Among these techniques, brainstorming emerges as a well-recognized exemplar, joined by methods such as mind mapping, role-playing, and reverse thinking

Why would deactivating the left anterior temporal lobe be expected to increase creativity? Describe Chi and Snyder’s experiment.

Deactivating the left anterior temporal lobe (ATL) is expected to increase creativity because it limits access to existing knowledge and schemas, leading to more flexible and unconventional thinking. Chi and Snyder's experiment involved simultaneously decreasing excitability of the left ATL while increasing excitability of the right ATL

What is the evidence that the default mode network and the executive control network are both involved in creativity? Why is their joint involvement in creativity called a paradox?

The Default Mode Network (DMN) and the Executive Control Network (ECN) are both involved in creativity. However, their joint involvement in creativity is called a paradox because they represent contrasting networks: the DMN is associated with self-generated and internally-directed thought, while the ECN is related to controlled processes

Describe the actions of daydreaming and solitude, as practiced by highly creative people.

many of these people will participate in things that promote daydreaming. this can involve things like taking long walks or showers and journaling

What is the difference between focused attention meditation and open monitoring meditation? Which one has been shown to result in greater creativity?

Focused Attention Meditation improves focus and concentration, while Open Monitoring Meditation enhances creativity and reduces mind-wandering. Research suggests that these meditations have differential effects on cognitive processes

What is inductive reasoning? What factors contribute to the strength of an inductive argument?

making conclusions based on observations

if there are many observations, the observations are representative, and the evidence is quality

How is inductive reasoning involved in everyday experience?

Make a prediction about what will happen based on observation about what has happened in the past

Describe how the following can cause errors in reasoning: availability heuristic; illusory correlations; representativeness heuristic.

availability: events you remember better are judged as being more probable

illusory: appears to be a correlation that's not there/not as strong as you think it is

representativeness: make judgements based on how much one event resembles another

How can failure to take into account base rates cause errors in reasoning? Be sure you understand how the judging occupations experiment relates to the representative heuristic and base rates.

base rate = relative proportion of diff. classes in the pop. ppl often ignore this and judge someone as being in a certain class based on their characteristics even if that's the less likely class to choose.

i.e. Jack who's quiet and likes to read and play chess judged as a librarian not a farmer even tho base rate of farmer is higher--when more info than just base rate is given, we go off that info (Jack resembles what we think of a librarian as)

What is the conjunction rule? Describe the experiment involving Linda the bank teller and indicate how it relates to both the representativeness heuristic and the conjunction rule.

he probability of two events combined cannot be higher than the individual probabilities of each event.

participants were told to judge whether Linda was likely a bank teller (A) or a feminist (B) bank teller (A) and they said feminist bank teller even though the prob. for being feminist AND a bank teller is much smaller than the prob. of just being a bank teller. they ignored the rule and judged based on whether Linda resembled a feminist or not

Describe the male and female births experiment. How do the results of this experiment relate to the law of large numbers?

ppl incorrectly said the bigger hospital would be more likely to have uneven birth rates of males/females on a given day than a smaller hospital even though this violates the law of large numbers. the larger hospital (more samples) should be more representative of the pop (50/50) and the smaller hospital would be more likely to have uneven birth rates

What is the myside bias? Describe Lord’s experiment on attitudes about capital punishment.

tendency to generate/evaluate evidence in a way that's biased towards their own opinions

ppl in favor of/against death penalty read research supporting or opposing it. they rated research that agreed w/ their view as more convincing than research that contradicted it

What is the confirmation bias? Describe Wason’s experiment on sequences of numbers.

Confirmation Bias is an individual's tendency to look for & believe in things that coincide with their pre-existing beliefs. Participants were presented with 3 numbers which confirm to rule which he has in mind. Later, they were asked to think of what they think the rule is which, they were supposed to write three set of numbers based on that rule. Wason gave them feedback on whether he thinks the numbers corresponded to his rule or not. After many trials, he discovered that the participants found it challenging to understand his simple rule because of the hypothesis which they had come up with. They generated sets of numbers based on the rules which they thought were right. Thus, this exemplifies how confirmation bias influences people's judgment

Describe Wineburg’s experiment on how people sometimes fail to critically evaluate evidence. What is the backfire effect, and how might it lead to incorrect conclusions?

This study was supposed to test the critical evaluation of facts presented online, for which the participants were shown a picture online, which had a daisy with a malformed appearance. The caption claimed that this appearance of the flower is because of a nuclear defect caused by the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan. The participants were then asked if they believe that the presented evidence is true, & the results showed that 80% of the participants believed that the information presented was correct, while only 20% rejected the claims. The picture was in fact taken near Fukushima; however, there is no evidence which proves that the anomaly is because of the nuclear disaster. The study claimed that the results were such because the nuclear disaster. The study claimed that the result were such because the participants did not get the opportunity to research about the facts & if they could, the results would have been different. However, this may not always be the case. Some studies have shown that people are prone to another thinking error which is known as the backfire effect, where people conform to their own beliefs even more strongly after being presented with opposing facts. This can be problematic as, when a person rigidly believes in something despite knowing the actual facts, it can lead to errors in forming sound conclusions

What is deductive reasoning? What does it mean to say that the conclusion to a syllogism is “valid”? How can a conclusion be valid but not true? True but not valid?

deciding if a conclusion logically follows from set of premises

valid = when conclusion follows logically from it's two premises- validity depends on the form of the syllogism

truth = refers to the content of the premises which have to be evaluated to determine whether they are consistent with the facts

What is a categorical syllogism? What is the difference between validity and truth in categorical syllogisms?

A categorical syllogism is when the premises and conclusion describe the relation between two categories by using statements that begin with all, no, some.

valid = when conclusion follows logically from it's two premises- validity depends on the form of the syllogism

truth = refers to the content of the premises which have to be evaluated to determine whether they are consistent with the facts

What is the belief bias? Be sure you understand the results shown in Figure 13.2.

It is the tendency to think a syllogism is valid its conclusion is believable

Fig. 13.2: shows the results of an experiment in which participants read valid and invalid syllogisms that had either believable or unbelievable conclusions. It is therefore important to realize that it is easy to fall prey to the belief bias, and that even conclusions that might sound true are not necessarily the result of good reasoning.

What is the mental model approach to determining the validity of reasoning?

The mental mode approach supports the notion that humans have a tendency to mentally represent a problem & look at its various aspects before dismissing or accepting it. To deductive reason helps in making appropriate judgment about the validity of a syllogism. Johnson conducted an experiment to test how people use mental models. He presented the participants with a problem & noted that instead of logically solving the problem, most participants relied on imagining the problem. This reflected how people tend to represent a problem or a situation mentally, using perception & imagination. This also creates the space to look for any errors in the problem & make modifications if errors are found.

What is a conditional syllogism? Which of the four types of syllogisms described in the chapter are valid, which are not valid, and how well can people judge the validity of each type? How does changing the wording, while keeping the form the same, influence the ability to determine whether a syllogism is valid?

Syllogism with two premises and a conclusion, like a categorical syllogism, but whose first premise is an "If ... then" statement.

(Refer to lecture 13 ppt. 24)

What is the Wason four-card problem? Describe why the 7 card needs to be turned over in order to solve the problem.

A conditional reasoning task developed by Watson that involves four cards. Various versions of this problem have been used to study the mechanisms that determine the outcomes of conditional reasoning tasks.

What do the results of experiments that have used real-life versions of the Wason four-card problem indicate about how knowledge of regulations and permission schemas and awareness of cheating may be involved in solving this problem? What can we conclude from all of the experiments on the Wason problem?

Concrete tasks are easier than the abstract tasks, because it involves regulations people are familiar with. Permission schemas helped solve the problem because it was things they already knew & applied to the answer. Helps people focus attention on the card that would test that schema. People are sensitive to situations in which permissions or regulations are involved. Real-world are also easier to solve because people are on the lookout for cheaters, which is an evolutionary point of view that is important for survival. In conclusion, all of these conclude that the context within which conditional reasoning occurs makes a big difference. The four-card problem in terms of familiar situations can often generate better reasoning than abstract statements or statements that people cannot relate to.

What is the basic assumption of the expected utility approach to decision making? What are some examples of situations in which people do not behave to maximize the outcome, as the utility approach proposes?

The expected utility approach assumes that people are basically rational, if they have all the relevant information they will make a decision that results in the maximum expected utility, where utility refers to outcomes that achieve a person's goals. But people often behave in ways that ignore the optimum way of responding based on probabilities. Example= gambling, the two bowls and the red beans, people chose the larger bowl which had LESS of a probability to get the red bean-considerations rather than knowledge of probabilities. people driving rather than driving flying because they are paranoid about 9/11, even though driving is more dangerous. Deal or no deal.