Exam 3 Memory and Cognition

What does it mean to be able to detect covariation?

The likelihood of an event happening AND Detect relatedness and then act on such knowledge

What are illusory correlations?

Cognitive bias where people perceive a relationship or connection between two unrelated variables when none actually exists.

What explanations have been provided for illusory correlations?

Considering only a subset of the data

Allowing confirmation bias to limit the evidence that we include in our analysis

Failing to consider base-rate information

Why is there a need to examine the base-rate when observing a covariation?

Base-rate information is about how frequently something happens, in general

Avoids false positives, establishes true correlation, prevents misleading diagnostic judgments

What is proposed by the dual-process model?

How people make decisions and solve problems, differences in cognitive processing between the two types.

Type 1 Dual-Process Model

Automatic and intuitive. High capacity for processing information and rapid responses in complex situations

Type 2 Dual-Process Model

Slower and more effortful thinking. Requires conscious effort, logical reasoning, complex problem solving. Limited capacity for processing information but more accurate, requires more mental energy.

Inductive Reasoning

Empirical foundation: making judgments about the bigger picture from individual

Deductive Reasoning

Filtering reality through our lens of beliefs, a rational foundation. Making judgments about specific instances from initial, big picture claims and theories.

Confirmation Bias

Our sensitivity to evidence that confirms our beliefs as compared to evidence that challenges our beliefs

Different forms of confirmation bias

a.   Seeking to confirm

b.   Inflexible beliefs

c.    Different interpretations if confirmed or disconfirmed

d.   Recall factors

e.   Just don’t think about that to the contrary

What is the gain in confirmation bias?

a.   Conserves mental energy

b.   Speeding up decision making

c.    Reducing doubt

d.   Automating routine actions

How does confirmation bias relate to belief perseverance?

Seeking out or interpreting data that fits your views leading to the tendency to hold onto that established belief even when confronted with undeniable evidence

The Illusory Truth Effect

Believe false information is true simply because we’ve heard it multiple times

Confirmation bias and misinformation from news

a.   Avoid conflicting information from news

b.   More drawn to negative news, emotional state is related to confirmation bias

c.    Thinking more deeply, sought out info that reinforced their beliefs

The Availability Heuristic and Misinformation from News

Frequently see dramatic news about crime, we might believe crime is rising, even though statistics show crime is declining

Watson Selection Task (Four-Card Task)

Deductive reasoning study, finding human confirmation bias. Context changes our ability to solve logical problems.

Four Card Task

Rule: if a card has a vowel on one side, then it must have an even number on the other side.

Not the rule: if a card has an even number on one side, then it must have a vowel on the other side.

Affective Forecasting

Predicting future emotional states, both the intensity and duration of future feelings. Over or underestimation of their duration and intensity.

Somatic Markers

Physical sensations, reliance on “gut feelings” to assess options

Availability Heuristic Uses

Events that are frequent in the world are likely to be more available in memory but can lead to errors because many factors other than frequency in the world can influence availability from memory

Representativeness Heuristic

Many categories are uniform enough so that the category members do resemble one another, but many categories are not identical.

Hypothetical use of the availability heuristic to boost students’ evaluation ratings of a course

It was more difficult to come up with more examples of how to improve the class, thus students judged the course more positively when they had trouble coming up with a large number of improvements.

The Person-Who Argument and Misinformation from News

Single isolated anecdote to draw a broad conclusion

Representativeness Heuristic and Misinformation from News

Draw broad conclusions from a single case

Decision making and framing

Focus on the decision and aware of the options, but the framing of the decision in the way the options are described and the way the question is posed

What does risk aversion mean?

A tendency toward avoiding risk, especially when contemplating gains but choosing to hold on to what they already have

What does risk seeking mean?

Tendency towards seeking out risk, especially when contemplating losses because they are willing to gamble in hopes of avoiding their losses

How do reason based choices fit into Figure 12.11 - award or deny custody

Asked which parent would be AWARDED custody, the way evidence or questions are framed greatly influences reason based choices

What is problem solving?

Process of search in which you seek a path leading from a starting point to the goal

Hill-climbing problem solving

Whenever their efforts toward solving a problem give them a choice, they will choose the option that carriers them closer to the goal

Means-end analysis problem solving

The person is guided by the difference between the current state and the goal state, asking what operations are available for reducing that difference

Visual imagery problem solving

generating, inspecting, and manipulation mental pictures to overcome obstacles, plan future actions, or simulate physical scenarios

Storytelling problem solving

framing problem as a narrative, analyze complex obstacles from an objective perspective

What is an analogy?

Comparison between two things, typically for the purpose of explanation or clarification

How do analogies fit into problem solving?

Interested in using analogies such that by referencing similarity

The Tumor Problem

Participants likely engaged in thinking along the lines of what else they knew about tumors and in doing so, they missed other ways of looking at the problem

What does it mean to define a problem?

Clarify or articulate the problem in such a way to enhance the possibility of finding a solution

Ill-defined problems

a problem for which the goal is specified in general terms with the operators minimally stated

Well-defined problems

a problem for which the goal is clearly specified with the operators clearly identified

What are mental sets?

brain’s tendency to rely on familiar successful strategies when solving problems or making decisions

Fixedness in thinking

The inability to see a problem from a new perspective

Functional fixedness

a tendency to be rigid in how one thinks about an object’s function

Einstellung - problem solving set

refer to a rigidity that can grow out of early efforts in solving a series of problems

Distant-association view and problem solving effectiveness

innovative lies on associations that are distant from the concepts of the problem, aka stepping back

How can representation-change view help with problem solving?

we adopt incorrect or incomplete representations of a problem and must change these representations to solve the problem, aka revising

Mother of Invention

Necessity, when faced with an urgent problem you will be driven to find creative solutions

What are some of the commonalities given case studies on great creative thinkers across time?

great knowledge and skills in their domain

a willingness to take risks and ignore criticism

an ability to tolerate ambiguous situations

an inclination to not follow the crowd

intrinsic motivation

the fortune of being in the right place at the right time

What are the four stages of creativity according to Wallas (1926)?

Preparation: gather information and resources about the problem, often frustrating and with little success
Incubation: set problem aside and rest in thinking about it
Illumination: the moment new ideas emerge
Verification: confirmation that the solution solves the problem

What does the literature/data say about the effectiveness of incubation?

Acknowledges there is insufficient data to confirm or disconfirm whether incubation works

1. timing is key, most effective at start

2. allowing the mind to wander, resets the network activation

3. setting something aside allows our frustrations to subside

4. forgetting about previous attempts may prompt new attempts

5. consolidation operates below the surface during incubation

What are some explanations for how/why incubation works?

How does the research from Smith and Blankenship (1991) on p. 494 illustrate the role of incubation?

fixation, a block to successful problem solving, may develop during initial solution attempts and persist, interfering with immediate extra work more than with delayed extra work.

Why do experts have an advantage over novices in the context of creativity?

With experience comes enhanced ability to attend to the deeper structure

Creativity and Divergent Thinking

an approach in which we attempt to generate as many different ideas as possible about a topic

Convergent Thinking and Creativity

approach that requires us to come up with a single, correct answer to a problem

Attributes of Highly Creative People

Intelligence Quotient

The IQ test measures a ratio of someone’s mental age - level of development reflected in test performance - and their chronological age

Questions about Intelligence

Reliability and Intelligence

consistency across time, individuals, and conditions, can be fairly easy to measure

Validity and Intelligence, example

the extent to which an assessment is accurate in measuring what it is supposed to measure

Example of an intelligence test having predictive validity

the SAT and ACT, predicts a future behavior or performance for college

What is the general intelligence vs. specialized intelligence debate about?

A general capacity that can be applied across multiple mental tasks versus the idea that there is no such thing as an overall intelligence but that individuals have a collection of specific talents and abilities

How is the tool factor analysis relevant?

Identifies items that correlate with one another creating a unique factor

Hierarchical model of intelligence

Ordering specialized abilities: ability to work with numbers, verbal/written skills, spatial ability, fast paced mental tasks, and the ability to learn new material

Fluid Intelligence

associated with one’s ability to deal with novel problems, our ability to reason across scenarios and skills are utilized in the absence of habit

Crystalized Intelligence

Inspection Time Arguments

Working Memory Capacity Arguments

Combined Operation of Different Capacities Arguments

Practical Intelligence Arguments

Emotional Intelligence Arguments

Gardner’s (1983) theory of multiple intelligences

Figure 14.7 and with which genetic relatedness and intelligence is examined

How does Figure 14.8 show how a positive change in environment can increase IQ scores?

American Blacks versus American Whites Intelligence Complexity

Stereotype Threat:
Racial Bias:
Economic Status:

Access Consciousness

The extent to which we are aware of types of information and have access to that information

Phenomenal Consciousness - Qualia

Instances are subjective and conscious experience. The qualitative feel of an experience such as what an experience feels like to you. The taste of coffee, the smell of a rose, how you see the color red

“Unconscious processes and conscious products” examples from the text

After the fact reconstruction

Tendency to make up explanations after the fact when not really having an idea as to why something has occurred

Blind sight unconscious processing

Subliminal perception unconscious processing

Figure 15.3 Unconscious Processing

What are the four prerequisites for (executive) control?

How can unconscious control be both learned (in some cases) and innate (in other cases)?

Metacognitive Skills

skills that allow people to monitor and control their own mental processes

Metamemory

People’s knowledge about, awareness of, and control over their own memory. Includes beliefs about memory.

Neural Correlate and the study of consciousness

We can examine the relationship of brain function with a psychological construct. Level of alertness, independent of what you are currently sensitive to. Content of consciousness that which you are thinking about

Neuronal workspace hypothesis, specifically, that “the integrated activity, made possible by the workspace neurons, provides the biological basis for consciousness” (p. 556).

The sustained part allows us to continue and maintain thought, even in the absence of the thought provoking stimulus.

Attend to the role of synchronization, competition, amplification, and controlled flow of information.

Connection between the neural workspace and executive control

What is the inverted spectrum (see figure 15.9) and what idea is being presented?

If someone was born perceiving colors inversely from ourselves, we would never know they experienced things differently than we do

What is mindfulness?

What is the burden of consciousness?

We may become aware of things we didn’t wish to know as we try to raise our consciousness

There is knowledge in this world that will burden us

The knowledge of our own death may bring anxiety
The knowledge of the death of a loved one may bring sadness
The knowledge of mass suffering may bring us guilt

Alex is a blind sight patient. He does not reach out for objects, but he avoids them when walking. He was (blank) consciousness but not (blank) consciousness

access ; phenomenal

Erin, who has Korsakoff’s amnesia, is asked to perform in a memory experiment. Erin is likely to…

be capable of learning but do poorly in explicit tests of memory