Decision making Wk 1: Introduction to judgements, decisions and rationality

Kahneman 6 till 9

Moses illusion

Cognitive phenomenon where people fail to notice errors in a question because the general context seems plausible, leading them to answer the question as if it were correct

Homo economus

A person who is rational, selfish and make no mistakes

2 requirements of rationality

Consistentency and transitivity

Herb Simon on rational models

Ignore situational constraints (time pressure) and personal constraints (cognitive capacity)

What do we prefer instead of maximizing, and thus do not follow rationality

Satisficing

Heuristic

Shortcut to make decision (not irrational, but result in different outcomes)

Normative view on decision making

Analytical, using logical and formal rational theories (How we ought to make decisions)

Descriptive view on decision making

How we actually make decisions through heuristics (How we actually make decisions)

Prescriptive view on decision making

Based on design and providing rules (How to improve our decisions)

Difference between system 1 and system 2

Automatic, fast and effortless (skills, procedural and implicit memory) vs. deliberate, slow, effortfull (reasoning, logic, explicit memory)

Read through

System 1 gives impressions and intuitions, system 2 gives beliefs and actions

Larger pupil dilation is related to … effort (more or less)

more

High effort causes inattentional …

blindness

Ego-depletion definition

When system 2 has depleted resources to control other things, system 1 will make new suggestions, system 2 does not have self control to check and accepts suggestions from system 1

implicit associative memory: priming

Gyessins words or phrases differently because you have been primed by context

Difference between implicit and explicit memory

operates without conscious awareness vs. where you consciously recall facts or events

(implicit associative memory involves connections between concepts or stimuli that are activated automatically, often based on past experiences. These associations are not consciously retrieved but can still influence thoughts, behaviors, and decisions.)

Priming definition

Priming is a process where exposure to a stimulus influences your response to a subsequent stimulus, often without conscious guidance (It shows how your cognitive processes are influenced by prior exposure to stimuli, shaping both how you retrieve information and how you interpret new input)

Example of connection between priming and implicit memory

If you see the word "doctor," you are more likely to recognize or respond to the word "nurse" faster than an unrelated word like "chair". This happens because "doctor" and "nurse" are strongly associated in your memory network.

What are the underlying concepts of ‘use familiarity to guess answer on MC test’ on p62 from Kahneman

Recall vs. recognition

What is the underlying concept of ‘using a rhyme to make it memorable’ on p.63 of Kahneman

Encoding specificity

What is the underlying concept of ‘Choose a name easy to pronounce’ on p.64 of Kahneman

Chunking (word superiority effect)

Difference norm theory and normative theory

Norm Theory (psychology) explains how people judge outcomes by comparing them to imagined alternatives or norms, shaping emotions like regret or satisfaction. Normative Theory (philosophy/decision sciences) defines how decisions or actions should be made based on ideal standards of rationality or ethics.

Norm theory definition

People judge how surprising, good, or bad an outcome is by imagining what "could have been”.

Your … system resolves ambiguity without awareness

Associative

Connectionism lab

a simulated environment or practical setting where connectionist models are explored to understand cognitive processes like learning, memory, and perception.

Look up: positivity effect, matlin theme 3

Halo effect definition

We use one aspect of an object to judge the whole object

In the context of halo effect, definition of ‘use wisdom of the crowds’

relying on the aggregated judgments or opinions of a group rather than the potentially biased perception of an individual

Judgements: which one of the following type of judgement is created by system 2? Automatic assessment and selective attention

Selective attention

Intensity matching definition

Comparing two things on a different dimension to make better judgements (give murder a more intense colour than theft)

System 1 & 2: Substitution definition

A difficult question (system 2) is replaced by an easier question (system 1)

System 1 is a ‘mental shotgun’, why?

Similarly to a shotgun that spreads pellets in a wide, indiscrimante pattern, processes information broadly and quickly, producing multiple judgments at once, even when only one is needed (Example: You only need to assess trustworthiness. However, System 1 also evaluates their facial symmetry, confidence, attractiveness, and other traits, which might unconsciously skew your judgment)

Stroop task

Acknowledge word itself by system 1, system 2: actively override system 1 and name colour

Incongruent

The state or condition of not being in agreement, accordance

Which of these belong to system 1: beliefs, intuitions, impressions and actions

Intuitions and impressions

System 1 bad guy system 2 good guy

True in acting upon your beliefs (such as eatier healthier).

Why would ego-depletion not show its effects in experiments

Extrinsic motivation to keep functioning during experiments. Task performance depends also on motivation

Eldery priming experience had a … replicability

low

What can influence system 2 to be less controlling over system 1

repeated experience, clear display, primed idea and good mood

False memory due to the norm theory

Because the sentences describes an incidence of pickpocketing they recognise that instead of remembering the original sentence

A 13 C vs 12 13 14 example

Your associative system resolves ambiguity without awareness

We tend to not/do believe things from our nature

Do

Which of these sentences are literally true - experiment (slide 45)

Since sentences 1 and 3 are metaphors, people recognise the non metaphor sentence as literally true