PHIL 275 FINAL EXAM

cognitive psychology

Study of how people take in information, process it, store it, and use it

Behaviorism 

Study of behavior and how it is determined by environment, especially through the mechanism of conditioning (classical and operant)

Cognitive Illusions 

Each illusion is a mistaken belief we have about our cognitive abilities.  Such mistakes are persistent (they are difficult to correct, even when we are aware of them) and everyday (they affect our behavior on a daily basis)

Illusion of Attention 

The mistaken belief that we will notice all salient objects within our perceptual field. Such a belief is shown to be mistaken by (among other things) the phenomenon of inattentional blindness

Inattentional Blindness 

failure to notice objects within our visual field due to our attention being focused elsewhere. Applies even to salient, potentially important objects

Invisible Gorilla Experiment 

Viewers asked to count the number of times the players with the white shirts pass the ball 50% failed to notice a person in a gorilla suit who appears in the center of the image

Attention as zero sum 

Cognitive resources, including attention, are finite. The more resources one devotes to one task, the fewer resources one has for other tasks.

Multitasking and Cell Phone Study 

Studies show that driving while talking on a cell phone is comparable to driving while drunk. Impairment is NOT diminished by the use of hands-free device. Impairment is due to inattentional blindness. Cell phone conversation places cognitive demands on us, leaving fewer cognitive resources for driving 

Multitasking:

Performance of several discrete tasks at once. If each task requires significant attentional resources, then it involves switching attention among tasks. Attention can only be focused on one task at a time

Illusion of Memory 

The mistaken belief that memory accurately records and stores all significant details of experience without alteration. Events and experiences impress themselves in memory as they are without any significant contribution on the part of the individual. Once forced, memories are more or less fixed and stable. 

Memory as finite

Most people can store a very limited number of discrete pieces of information (7) in short-term memory. Very little of what is stored in short-term memory becomes stored in long-term memory. Can be affected by stress trauma, aging, disease, brain damage, etc

Memory as inaccurate

Much of what we remember fades over time.   This applies to both information and experience. 

Memory as active 

Memories are actively constructed by the mind not possibly recorded. Memories are constructed to constitute coherent narratives. Because memories are constructed, they can be distorted or false

Memory as fluid

Every time we remember an event, we must reconstruct it. Each time we reconstruct it, we do so differently. We do so in light of new information and experience. As a result, memory is always changing.

Misinformation Effect 

Memory is distorted because of information/experience that is obtained after the event 

Flashbulb Memories 

detailed , vivid memories formed during highly significant, emotionally resonant events. 

Challenger Space Shuttle Study 

Nasser & Harsh collected written reports from undergraduate students the day after the shuttle disaster concerning where they were, what they were doing, and who they were with when they heard the news.  Students were contacted again 2.5 years later and asked to report the same information. Comparison of reports consistently showed significant changes in detail.  When students were shown these differences, most expressed surprise and some insisted on the accuracy of the later report over the original report

Change Blindness 

Because we do not take in and retain all details in our environment, we often fail to notice changes or discontinues in that environment from one moment to the next. We thus experience the world as being more continuous than it is

Door Study 

1998 study by Daniel Simons and Daniel Levin in which a participant fails to notice when the person he is talking to is replaced by someone else.  The study was among the first to display change blindness outside of the lab 

Illusion of Confidence 

Overestimation of one’s own qualities or abilities relative to other people. Also known as overconfidence bias, tendency to interpret confidence in others as a sign or indication of competence 

Dunning-Kruger Effect 

cognitive bias in which people overestimate their knowledge, skill, or ability in a specific area. The effect is most pronounced among those who are least competent. 

Overconfidence Bias 

a cognitive error where someone overestimates their own abilities, knowledge, or skills

Chess study

103 players were asked two questions: 1. what is your most recent ranking? 2. what do you think your raking should be to reflect your actual ability? and results were the following: 21% thought they were correctly rated, 4% thought they were overrated, and 75% thought they were underrated.

Dual Burden of Ignorance 

Incompetence leads to mistakes and errors and incompetence prevents recognition of incompetence 

problem of metacognition 

Individuals are not good at assessing their own cognitive abilities, lower cognitive ability correlates to lower metacognitive ability 

Illusion of Knowledge 

The mistaken belief that we know far more than we in fact know

Bicycle Study 

Asked participants to rate their knowledge on how a bicycle works on a scale of 1-7 (Average rating = 4.5). Asked participants to fill in pedals, chain, and missing parts of the frame. Most bikes did not match

Information and Knowledge

Access to information may lead to overestimation of how much one genuinely understands about something:

• Too much information may obscure the big picture, large-scale trends, most significant takeaways, etc. 

• Information does not equal understanding.

• Information must be processed and analyzed to yield understanding

Familiarity masks ignorance:

familarity with something often causes us to overestimate how much we know about it. knowing that such and such is the case may lead us to assume we know why such and such is the case, and knowing how to use something often causes us to assume that we know how that thing works

Portfolio Management Simulation - Richard Thaler

Participants were asked to distribute funds between two investment portfolios, A and B.

• Portfolio A was designed to stimulate a stable bond fund having a low rate return 

• Portfolio B was designed to stimulate a volatile stock fund having a high rate of return (participants were not given this information)

Participants were divided into three groups

• Group 1: monthly reports on fund performance

• Group 2: yearly reports

• Group 3: five-year reports 

After each report, participants have the opportunity to redistribute their investments. 

Results of portfolio management situation

group 3 had returns that were more than double of those of group 1. This was so despite group 1 having 60 times more information about fund performance. Participants in group 1 saw the volatility in fund b and tended to shift money from B to A, whereas participants in Group 3 saw the higher long-term gains in Fund B and tended to shift money from A to B.the access to information does not guarantee a higher understanding of how something works.

Illusion of Cause 

Tendency to detect meaning/significance/pattern where none exist, tendency to infer causal relations among events that occur together, and tendency to interpret prior events as causing posterior events

pareidolia

A psychological phenomenon where the brain misinterprets random stimuli, such as random patterns or ambiguous images, as recognizable faces, objects, or other meaningful patterns (perceiving inanimate objects as having a face)

Positive correlation:

two variables directly correlate (height and weight, demand and price)

Negative correlation:

two variables inversely correlate (exercise and body fat)

Experimental Studies 

A method of scientific inquiry where the researcher systematically manipulates one or more variables to determine their effect on a specific outcome. This approach allows for controlled conditions, which can establish causality between the manipulated variables and the observed results 

Randomized Double-Blind Studies 

gold standard in determining a causal link between one variable, called the independent variable, and another variable, called the dependent variable. Neither the participants nor the researchers must know who has received the treatment and who has received the placebo.  Such knowledge might bias the reporting and interpretation of results.

Confirmation Bias 

The tendency to seek and overvalue information or evidence that confirms one’s existing beliefs and to ignore and undervalue information or evidence that disconfirms those beliefs. Results in overconfidence in the truth of what one believes.

Epistemic Bubbles 

an informational network from which relevant voices have been excluded by omission

Echo Chambers 

A social structure in which other relevant voices have been actively discredited. Relevant information does not inform one’s views, not because it is excluded by omission, but because its sources have been undermined. 

Social Epistemic Reboot

suspension of belief: particularly with respect to who and what to trust, reconsideration of all possible sources of information with an open mind.

Post hoc, ergo propter hoc 

After this, therefore because of this. tendency to interpret prior events as causing posterior events (the rooster crowed, the sun came up. therefore, the rooster made the sun come up)

correlation

two variables are correlated just in case they co-vary, either directly or inversely

causation

one variable directly influences or causes change in another