4 - Problem Solving and Intelligence (NOT INCLUDING TEXTBOOK)

intelligence

the cognitive ability of an individual to:

• learn from experience

• reason well

• remember important info

• cope w/ demands of daily living

2 strategies used to solve problems

1. deductive reasoning

2. inductive reasoning

deductive reasoning

• person works from ideas + general info to arrive at specific conclusions (make a hypothesis)

inductive reasoning

• person works from specific conclusions to arrive at broader generalizations

insight problems

• problems that test your ability to think outside the box

functional fixedness

• difficulty seeing alternative uses for common objects

2 important qualities of a test

1. reliability

2. validity

reliability

the extent to which repeated testing produces consistent results

validity

the extent to which a test is actually measuring what the the researcher claims to be measuring

Francis Galton

attempted to measure intelligence by measuring participants’ reaction times

most popular intelligence tests today

weschler adult intelligence scale (WAIS)

weschler intelligence scale for children (WISC)

8 types of intelligence (Gardner)

1. verbal

2. mathematical

3. musical

4. spatial

5. kinesthetic

6. interpersonal

7. intrapersonal

8. naturalistic

does nature or nuture matter more?

they both the same level lwk

Flynn effect

• raw IQ scores have been on the rise since 1932

schema

• a mental framework for interpreting the world around us

assimilation

• incorporating new info into existing schemas

accommodation

• modifying existing schemas to fit incompatible info

4 stages of cognitive development

1. sensorimotor

2. pre-operational

3. concrete operational

4. formal operational

sensorimotor stage

0-2 years

• child recognizes that they can make changes in environment

• object permanence

object permanence

• realization that objects continue to exist even when you can’t see them

• occurs during sensorimotor stage

pre-operational stage

2-7 years

• challenges of:

  • egocentrism

  • seriation

  • reversible relationships

  • conservation

seriation

ability to logically order a series of objects

• challenge of pre-operational stage

3 mountains task

• child sees display of 3 mountains

• child is asked from a series of pictures “what would the mountains look like from the perspective of someone across the table?”

reversible relationships

sister is asked “do you have a little brother” and sister says yes

sister is asked “does your little brother have a sister” and sister says no

• trouble in pre-operational stage

conservation

child sees 2 identical glasses of milk and is like “yeah its the same amount of milk”

child sees 1 glass poured into a slimmer, taller glass and is like “so the taller glass has more milk”

• trouble in pre-operational stage

concrete operational stage

7-12 years

• struggles with:

  • abstract thinking + reasoning

formal operational stage

12+ years

• children develop a liking for video games + fantasy worlds

decalage

some children develop skills out of the original order

criticisms of Piaget’s theory

• decalage

• reliance on language abilities

confirmation bias

• tendency to seek out info that supports our hypothesis (and ignoring info that doesn’t support it…bad thing)

how do you not get confirmation bias?

• ask questions that eliminate other possible options/items instead of ignoring them and only focusing on your hypothesis

heuristic

• mental shortcut used to solve problems quickly (and often correctly)

• reduce effort and simplify decision making

availability heuristic

• tendency to make rapid decisions based on the info that is most quickly available to us

  • e.g. we think of a lottery winner as someone who wins a very big jackpot, when in reality most people win small amounts, and its because big jackpots winners are publicized immensely (quicker for us to access)

representativeness heuristic

• tendency to assume that what we are seeing is representative of the larger category we have in our mind

• e.g. if you flip a coin 10 times and get heads 2 times and tails 7, you would automatically assume the next flip should be heads (to make the overall # of flips more random and not so heavily leaned towards tails), even though in reality there is an equal change of either happening

availability vs representativeness heuristic

anchoring