Lecture 6 - Dual Processes (Blinking vs. Thinking)

what are the two types of mental processed discussed in lecture?

• controlled

  • controllable

    • intentional start and stop

  • inefficient

    • slow and serial (one at a time)

  • effortful

    • requires memory, attention, effort

  • flexible

    • used in novel situations, modifiable, combinable

• automatic

  • uncontrollable and ballistic

    • begins and ends spontaneously

  • efficient

    • fast and parallel (many at once)

  • effortless

    • requires little processing resources

  • inflexible

    • tightly linked chain (e.g., chants, prayers, alphabet, etc.

what are some of the examples of automaticity in everyday life discussed in lecture? (stroop, cocktail party effect, complex skills)

• any complex skill moves from controlled to automatic

  • driving, swimming, reading, golfing, drumming

• cocktail party effect

  • in a noisy room, you notice your name even if you don’t pay attention

• stroop effect

  • more practiced (automatic) reading interferes with a novel task

  • asked to name color of ink in which the word is written

    • BLACK

    • YELLOW

    • RED

what is the difference between intuitive judgements vs. deliberative judgements? what characteristics were associated with each one?

• Intuitive Judgements

  • def: quick, often unconscious decisions based on experience and gut feelings

  • Perception-like, associative, fast, direct, automatic, heuristic, System I, non-analytic, Reflexive

• Deliberative Judgements

  • def: are more conscious, deliberate, and analytical processes

  • thinking-like, rule-based, slow, indirect, controlled, systematic, System II, analytic, Reflective

what are some examples of the benefits of deliberation given in lecture?

• GRE Problems

  • study w/ two groups

    • cognitive load while solving GRE problem

    • no cognitive load while solving GRE problem

  • Result: more problems solved with no cognitive load

• Cognitive Reflection Correlates with Behavior on Twitter

  • people given cognitive reflection tests

  • study analyzed their behavior on twitter

  • results: Cognitive reflection correlates with behavior on Twitter

    • people with higher CRT share more trustworthy news sources

Describe the Willis Todorov (2006) study that analyzed the effect that the presentation duration of faces has on trait judgements.

• Background

  • participants showed faces at varying durations 100ms, 500ms, 1000ms

  • they were then asked to make trait judgments on each of the faces

• Results

  • relatively stable judgment from 100ms to 1000ms

    • unchanging right after 100ms

• Conclusion

  • we detect important social traits in 100ms

Describe the (Wilson et al., 1993) poster study.

• Background

  • participants evaluate several posters

  • think/no think about the reasons for choosing (two separate groups)

  • 3 week follow up interview to ask their satisfaction with their selection

• Results

  • for groups that gave reasons for their poster selection, they showed lower levels of satisfaction with their choice

• conclusion

  • evidence for intuition being better than deliberate thinking

Describe the (Wilson & Kraft, 1993) “Why-do-I-love-thee” study.

• Background

  • couples were asked to analyze reasons for their relationship or think about something else

• Results

  • Those asked to provide reasons are later less satisfied and more likely to break up

• Conclusion

  • further evidence, for deliberate thinking being TERRIBLE lol haha jk idk

Describe the Halberstadt & Green (2004) study about think vs no think judgement on divers.

• Background

  • participants asked to watch clips of eight dives in women’s 10m event

  • two groups

    • control: rate quality of dive

    • reasoning group: analyze and list reasons why they thought each dive was good or bad

  • scores were then compared to olympic judges

• Results

  • control group was closer to judgement of olympic judges than the reasoning group

• Conclusion

  • deliberate thinking brings you further away from god

Describe the Wilson & Schooler (1991) jam study.

• Background

  • Participants taste jam

  • Two Groups:

    • think about jam and then rate it

    • don’t think about jam and just rate it

• Results

  • after analyzing reasons, participants chose worse jams (as rated by taste experts from Consumer Reports

  • no think group got closer to GOD

• Conclusion

  • deliberate thinking brings us further away from jesus

Describe the Melcher & Schooler (1996) study about wine.

• Background

  • participants (non-expert & expert) sample two varieties of red wine

  • some participants verbalize, others just taste

  • followed by a recognition test with four wines

    • objective is to guess which two they sampled earlier

• Results

  • For non-experts, wine recognition was worse after verbalization

  • verbalization focused them on few features

  • experts were not affected by verbalization

what is a possible answer to question of why “thinking” sucks ass?

• one idea: intuition is holistic and global whereas thinking (verbalization) is linear and local

how can verbalizing hurt our eyewitness memory? how does the concept of verbal overshadowing relate to this?

• verbal overshadowing: a cognitive phenomenon where describing something, like a face or an event, can impair the ability to later recognize or recall it

  • this happens because the act of verbalizing a non-verbal experience can interfere with the original memory trace and make it harder to access the visual or other non-verbal information

• Research to support this

  • subjects who were asked to write a description of the face, were worse at picking the right person out of a lineup (Engstler-Schooler, 1990)

  • people who “describe” switch from an effect holistic “global” recognition strategy to less effect “local” feature-based recognition strategy