Cog Psych Final Essay Questions

Explain how heuristics or cognitive biases have influenced 3 separate decisions that you have

personally made. Provide a brief description of each of the scenarios and the cognitive biases

/ heuristic(s) that may have been involved. Each section should include a clear definition of

the heuristic / bias and how it applies to that scenario. You should discuss how this may have

been helpful or harmful in your decision making. You may include more than one bias or

heuristic for each scenario if it is necessary, you must describe three separate biases or

heuristics. Decisions that were discussed in the book or class will not be counted

Heuristics: Simple cognitive shortcuts that are easy to apply and usually yield acceptable decisions but can lead to errors

Availability heuristic: Likelihood of an event evaluated by the ease with which examples of the event can be called to mind

ex:

Someone asked me if I was for or against nuclear powerplants. The first thing that came to mind when hearing about nuclear power plants was the Chernobyl disaster. Thinking about the Chernobyl disaster, I responded that I was against nuclear power plants because they are dangerous.

This may not have been an informed decision because I am ignoring all of the instances in which nuclear power plants ran safely and effectively, and instead only focusing on a time that a nuclear power plant failed simply because that instance comes to mind easier than any other examples.

Representative heuristic: making the assumption that in general the instances of category will resemble the prototype

ex: I saw an older person on campus who was dressed more formally than everyone else. I assumed that this person was a proffessor because stereotypically, proffessors are older and more professional than students are.

I feel like this was a fair assumption, because in a lot of cases, when I see an older, more professional individual on campus, they turn out to be a member of the faculty.

Affect Heuristic: making decisions based on emotions and feelings

ex: I have been buying Aveeno lotion since I was young. I like it and it has worked really well for me. Once, my sister told me that Equate lotion has the exact same ingredients as Aveeno lotion. However, I just feel like Aveeno lotion is better, so I continued buying Aveeno instead of equate.

This is probably not the best decision because Equate is less expensive than Aveeno, but instead of making my decision based on the cost of the product, I made my decision based on my feelings toward the brand.

Describe how the cognitive system deals with too much information and how the cognitive

system deals with too little (i.e., ambiguous or uncertain) information. Consider three

different domains/chapters. Describe relevant research in support of your answer. Identify

general themes that hold across domains regarding how we deal with too much, and too little,

information

Domain 1: sensation and perception

• perception goes beyond the information given

• background knowledge influences interpretations

• brain uses schemas to fill in gaps

Domain 2: attention and memory

• WM has limited capacity

• attentional bottlenecks

• selective and divided attention

• cocktail party effect: some information is privelaged

Domain 3: reasoning, problem solving, and language

• brain uses mental shortcuts (heuristics) to make decisions without exceeding cognitive capacity

• cognitive economy sacrifices accuracy for efficiency

• heuristics usually work but can lead to errors

briefly describe five cognitive tricks/illusions/demos we have learned about and explain

what they illustrate. For each one, explain why the trick/illusion/effect occurs and what it

illustrates about cognitive processing. Pick one of these tricks/illusions and describe a real-

life implication of the illusion.

1. light-dark mach bands: lateral inhibition- edge enhancement

2. Invisible Gorlilla simmons 2005: limited

   cognitive capacity

3. the dress- black and blue/white gold: color constancy Adaptation / Stabilization- filtering out

4. composite effect: holistic perception of faces

5. necker cube: perception goes beyond the information given

A real world example of the invisible gorilla demo is inattentional blindness while driving. There are a lot of things that drivers need to pay attention to while on the road such as speed, signs, exits, and light changes. However, over focusing on any of these things can lead to inattentional blindness which inhibits the drivers ability to see other stimuli such as other cars.

heuristic

Simple cognitive shortcuts that are easy to apply and usually yield acceptable decisions but can lead to errors

Availability heuristic

Likelihood of an event evaluated by the ease with which examples of the event can be called to mind

Representative heuristic

making assumptions based on stereotypes

Affect Heuristic

making decisions based on emotions and feelings

Affect Heuristic example

I have been buying Aveeno lotion since I was young. I like it and it has worked really well for me. Once, my sister told me that Equate lotion has the exact same ingredients as Aveeno lotion. However, I just feel like Aveeno lotion is better, so I continued buying Aveeno instead of Equate.

This is probably not the best decision because Equate is less expensive than Aveeno, but instead of making my decision based on the cost of the product, I made my decision based on my feelings toward the brand.

Representative heuristic example

I saw an older person on campus who was dressed more formally than everyone else. I assumed that this person was a proffessor because stereotypically, proffessors are older and more professional than students are.

I feel like this was a fair assumption, because in a lot of cases, when I see an older, more professional individual on campus, they turn out to be a member of the faculty.

Availability Heuristic example

Someone asked me if I was for or against nuclear powerplants. The first thing that came to mind when hearing about nuclear power plants was the Chernobyl disaster. Thinking about the Chernobyl disaster, I responded that I was against nuclear power plants because they are dangerous.

This may not have been an informed decision because I am ignoring all of the instances in which nuclear power plants ran safely and effectively, and instead only focusing on a time that a nuclear power plant failed simply because that instance comes to mind easier than any other examples.

Color constancy demo

An image of a dress went viral in 2015 because of the discourse surrounding the color of the dress. Some people thought the dress was white and gold while others thought the dress was black and blue.

This illusion illustrates how adaptive stabilization relates to color constancy. The people who perceived the dress as photographed outside in natural light (lots of blue wavelengths) automatically filtered out the blue light and perceived the dress as white and gold. The people who perceived the dress as photographed inside in artificial light automatically filtered out the yellow light and perceived the dress as blue and black.

This illustrates the effects of color constancy, which relates to how the brain sees an object as having the same color under different lighting conditions.

composite effect demo

When two halves of different faces are aligned (ie hugh jackman and justin timberlake), people often find it difficult to recognize the individual halves separately.

This effect highlights how our brains process faces holistically rather than as a collection of individual features.

Invisible Gorlilla simmons 2005 demo

Participants count passes from players with white shirts and ignore those with black shirts. While focusing on counting passes, participants do not notice the gorilla.

This phenomenon demonstrates selective attention and inattentional blindness. Selective attention allows people to focus on one input or one task while ignoring other stimuli or tasks. This facilitates desired input and inhibits unwanted input. Inattentional blindness occurs when people over focus on one thing which takes attention away from something else.

People focused so intently on counting passes and ignored other stimuli like the gorilla.

A real world example of the invisible gorilla demo is inattentional blindness while driving. There are a lot of things that drivers need to pay attention to while on the road such as speed, signs, exits, and light changes. However, over focusing on any of these things can lead to inattentional blindness which inhibits the drivers ability to see other stimuli such as other cars.

mach bends demo

The transition from light to dark appears exaggerated. This is because of lateral inhibition.

Lateral inhibition is a pattern in which cells, when stimulated, inhibit the activity of neighboring cells. In the visual system, lateral inhibition in the optic nerve creates edge enhancement.

Lateral inhibition makes the light side of the gradient appear even lighter and the dark side of the gradient appear even darker in order to enhance the edge.

necker cube demo

The Necker cube is an ambiguos figure of a cube that can be interpreted as either being viewed from above or below but the brain can only view one interpretation at a time.

This illusion demonstrates that perception is not an exact copy of reality but rather a combination of real world stimuli and how the brain interprets that stimuli.

3 different domains

Domain 1: sensation and perception

Domain 2: attention and memory

Domain 3: reasoning, problem solving, and language

attentional bottleneck

describes the limitations of our attentional capacity. It suggests that there is a point at which the amount of information we can process becomes constrained.

Domain 1: sensation and perception

perception goes beyond the information given

background knowledge influences interpretations

brain uses schemas to fill in gaps

perception goes beyond the information given

Perception is not an exact copy of reality but rather a combination of real world stimuli and how the brain interprets that stimuli.

background knowledge influences interpretations

interpretations of real world stimuli are affected by background knowledge

brain uses schemas to fill in gaps

when faced with too little information the brain uses previous knowledge (schemas) to fill in the gaps

Domain 2: attention and memory

WM has limited capacity

attentional bottlenecks

selective and divided attention

cocktail party effect: some information is privelaged

WM has limited capacity

working memory has limited capacity meaning there is only so much we can attend to at a time

selective attention

Selective attention allows people to focus on one input or one task while ignoring other stimuli or tasks. This facilitates desired input and inhibits unwanted input.

cocktail party effect: some information is privelaged

the ability for some information to pass through the bottleneck such as hearing your name being called over the chatter of a cocktail party, suggests that certain kinds of stimuli are privelaged

Domain 3: reasoning, problem solving, and language

brain uses mental shortcuts (heuristics) to make decisions without exceeding cognitive capacity

cognitive economy sacrifices accuracy for efficiency

heuristics usually work but can lead to errors

brain uses mental shortcuts (heuristics) to make decisions without exceeding cognitive capacity

cognitive economy sacrifices accuracy for efficiency

heuristics usually work but can lead to errors