Note
Studied by 45 people
Ch.8 Learning and Intelligence
8.1 What is Cognition?
Cognition - the ways information is processed and manipulated in remembering, thinking, problem-solving, and knowing.
Comp sci was a key initiator for the start of cognitive psychology research
Computer analogy to understand the brain and cognition
Physical brain: Computer’s hardware
Cognition: Software
Sensory and perceptual systems: data entered into the computer
provides an input channel
Mental processes act on senses: computer’s software acts on data
Information to memory: a computer storing what is worked on
Information retrieved from memory: printed out/displayed
Difference: most computers receive information from a human who already has the information encoded → less interpretable, each neuron can respond to ambiguous information through sensory receptors → more interpretable
Ai: machines capable of performing activities that require intelligence when humans do them
8.2 What Is Thinking?
Thinking: manipulating information mentally by forming concepts, solving problems, making decisions, and reflecting critically.
What Are Concepts:
-Mental categories that are used to group objects, events, and characteristics
items that belong to a category or group differ in various ways but we still recognize they belong together
Why are concepts Important?:
Allows us to generalize
we don’t need to stop and think about something like a new experience ex. evaluating whether a rabbit is a threat or not
Allow us to associate experiences and objects
ex. sports (concept) we group basketball, football, track, etc. into that concept
Make memory efficient
We don’t have to think about how to do something every time we come across new information (ex. we naturally know how to sit on a chair instead of thinking about how to sit on it )
Provide clues about how to react to a particular object or experience (memory)
Ex. if you’re trying a new food and you’re friend is like its good you know that with the concept, of food, it is okay to consume
Prototype Model: when people evaluate whether a given item belongs to a certain concept, they compare the item with the most generic item in that category and compare what is familiar with the items properties.
People use characteristic properties to to create a representation of the average model for each concept
ex. birds fly, chirp, and build nests
all the birds who do this, ex. robins, sparrows, we group into the category: bird
What Is Problem Solving?
Finding an appropriate way to attain a goal when the goal is not readily available
What are the 4 Steps of Problem Solving?
How do you find and frame problems?
Recognize that there is a problem
Being aware of and open to experiences
Listening carefully to your mind telling you there’s probably a better way
How do you develop good problem-solving strategies?
Subgoals: intermediate goals/problems that we use to put us in a better position to reach the final goal
Create a subgoal then work backwards
Divide your work into sections
Algorithms: strategies that typically lead to a solution to a problem
formulas, instructions, trial-and-error
Heuristics: shortcut strategies that suggest a solution to a problem but don’t guarantee an answer
Help us narrow down the possible solutions and to find one quickly that works
How Do You Evaluate Solutions
Have a clear standard to judge the effectiveness of the solution
How do you rethink and redefine problems and solutions over time?
refine and rethink the solutions to find possibly a better solution \
How Does FIxation Prevent Us From Solving Problems?
Fixation: using a prior strategy and pailing to look at a problem from a fresh new perspective
Functional fixedness: when individuals fail to solve a problem because they are fixated on an object’s usual functions
Maier String Problem: overcomes functional fixedness
figure out how to tie two strings at the same time
You use the pliers as weight on one string and swing around the other
Past experience with the use of pliers may make the problem difficult to solve
Cognitively flexible: recognize that options are available and adapting to the situation
What Are Reasoning and Decision Making
includes the higher-order mental processes
require rich connects among neurons and the ability to apply judgement
End results → conclusion, evaluation, or decision
The Two Types of Reasoning:
Inductive Reasoning: reasoning from specific observations to make generalizations (like bottom up processing)
Starts with incoming information then draws conclusions
Important way that we form beliefs about the world
ex. when you sip milk and it tastes bad and throw it away, you know that the milk has gone bad despite not drinking every single drop
Always involves generalization
Often includes psychological research
Deductive Reasoning: reasoning from a general principle that we know to be true to a specific instance.
We draw conclusions based on facts
ex. If all Canadians love poutine, we would assume that John would like poutine, but in order for that to be true, the first statement MUST be true. If the first statement is false we can conclude that there’s no guarantee the second statement is true
Occurs when using theories to make predictions and evaluate predictions by making further observations
What Is Decision Making?
involves evaluating alternatives and choosing among them
Different from reasoning: reasoning follows rules to make a conclusion. decision making may not have such rules
Weighing information and coming to a conclusion that will maximize our outcome
What Are the Two Systems of Reasoning and Decision Making?
Automatic (system 1):
rapid, heuristic, associative and intuitive
follows someones intuition about solving a problem
knowing that something feels right even if you don't know why
Controlled (system 2):
slower, effortful, and analytical
the type of thinking needed to solve a difficult math problem
Gut feelings - product of learned associations; of overlearned automatic processes and of implicit memory.
How Can Biases and Heuristics Lead to Bad Decisions?
can lead to biased decisions and errors.
Loss Aversion: Weighing potential losses more heavily than gains
ex. an investor chooses not to buy a stock for a company even though there is a higher chance for financial gain for him than loss
Endowment effect: people put greater value to things they own than things owned by others
Confirmation Bias: searching for and using information that supports instead of refuting someone’s ideas
ex. a politician goes onto a news show that supports their views and dismisses evidence that counters their views.
Rate Neglect: Ignoring information about general principles in favour of specific information
Hindsight Bias: report falsely after the fact that someone accurately predicted an outcome
ex. you read the results of a psychological study and say “i always knew that” even if you have little knowledge about the issues in the study
Representativeness Heuristic: make judgments about group membership based of stereotypes than available information
ex. You’re asked to find the suspect on the given photos but they all look similar to each other so you choose the person who looks the most messy
Availability Heuristic: prediction about the chance of an event based on the ease of recalling similar events
ex. A teen who’s from a family of farmers who didn’t go to college tells their parents they wanna be an engineer and their parents can’t imagine them doing that
Divergent Thinking: produces many solutions to the same problem
Convergent thinking: produces the single best solution to a problem
8.3 What Is Intelligence?
Intelligence: an all-purpose ability on how well one can solve problems, and to learn from experience.
Spearman’s view of intelligence: performance in a variety of areas
Against his view: Savant syndrome: when an individual expresses outstanding ability in one area even if they show overall poor mental abilities.
How Do We
Lecture Notes
language is a system of symbols, sounds, meanings that allow for communication between humans
phonemes: the smallest unit of sounds (40)
less than 200 of sounds in known universe are associated with human speech from all languages ever spoken
we can recognize the phonemic speech sounds from like 12 months old
we’re born with the ability to recognize all human speech sounds. The human speech sound must come from an original group of sounds
first 4-12 months of life: critical point to be exposed to human speech sounds
younger you learn the sounds, the easier it will be to pronounce them for the rest of your life (birth-16 years old)
morphemes: the smallest units of meaning
phrases are composed of morphemes
putting s in front of a noun makes it plural → has meaning
how we put together the sounds
sentences: strings of morphemes and phrases that express thought or intention
“s” - agreed upon meaning.
we can take a child raised by wolfs but they can still develop a language, based on sounds they know
written language - not natural, need to be taught to read and write
talking languaging - natural
nonverbal communication
includes:
vocal intonation (tone?)
- allows us to have connotation and denotation
- denotation: what the word means
- connotation: what YOU mean
ex. vacuum sucks up the dirt (the denotation and connotation are the same)
this class sucks -> the connotation is different than the denotation
Children have now consistently lost the ability to understand sarcasm
ex. when the sound of the last syllable goes up → initiates question
body language
easy to learn
crossing arms: doing the lecture with arms crosses → standoffish → less likely to pay attention the lecture
gestures
hands, fingers, etc.
ex. when you want to “hammer a point home” you’ll hit/hammer your hand
physical distance
we have a personal space zone → has different levels depending on how close you are with the individual
stranger → 4 ft away from us. if they closer, you’re on guard
acquaintance
intimate other/friend
facial expressions
the original language of humans
communication of emotion
touch
depends on how its used, when, and where
Language Development
100 basic phonemes
babbling (6-18 months)
(dada./baba/papa and mama most common phonemes)
words (10-13 months)
vocabulary spurts (18-24 months)
receptive vs productive vocabulary
receptive: what you know
productive: what you can say
fast mapping
hearing a word and just being able to use it
over and under/extensions
we create broad categories and little them down
sharp categories than expand them
under extensions:
“wawa” meant something that could be drinked but like water from pool was not “wawa”
overregularizations
either we’re already born with all the sintax??? rules
(Behaviourists) Skinner argued that children initiate the utterances of their parents
Children receive differential reinforcement for speech sounds
they can be helpful but not necessary
(Nativists) Chomksy argued that language acquisition appears to be universal across culture (could not be accounted for by learning) → more humanistic view, not good researchers
nature: you must be exposed to human speech sounds
if you don’t, you’ll end up developing one language that only you can understand
Interactionist
lets look wat the structure of the brain
Critical periods assume that an organism must develop a function within a limited time frame or it will not develop at all
Children easily learn second languages, and adults have great difficulty
Isolated children have language impairments
critical: all or nothing
sensitive period: some
Genie: was able to develop two-word speech (telegraphic speech) → was not exposed to language but from 12-15 she was able to develop speech
Problem-Solving
refers to the process by which we transform one situation into another to meet a goal
Problems vary in definition: well defined vs ill-defined
ex. problem: what are you going to eat, what are you going to wear: you need to solve them
well defined: a correct answer
ex. math problem 2 + 2 = 4. That’s how we tend to think about problems.
ill defined: there is no right answer
ex. where should you sit, (better answers but not answers are right)
Strategies:
algorithms are systematic procedures that will solve a problem
we tend to rely on them like in math, academics. They’re useful but we’re only thinking that problems are only well-defined problems.
don’t work for most problems
Hypothesis testing: make an educated guess about a problem; then test it.
not good if trial and error
mental stimulation: mental rehearsal of the steps needed to solve a problem
based on anecdotal data.
Problem Solving Barriers
irrelevant information
functional fixedness
mental set
unnecessary constraints
when tell your unconscious something like i’m not good at math it wont want to study math, do math tests, etc.
bird is to fly as dog is to ____?
walk (not run because it would be like bird to fly faster as dog is to run)
Approaches to Problem Solving
Algorithims
Heuristics
Forming sub-goals
Working backwards
Searching for Anaglogies
Changing the representation of the problem
Base Rate Fallacy
Fear of flying vs driving
availability heursitics
Covid vs Influenza
Flu is the biggest killer of humans in our history but we’re not as afraid of the flu and we are with covid bc covid is new