Cognition

Problem Solving Heuristics vs Algorithm

● Algorithm: a way of solving a problem through following a set method, whether it be step-by step or another method.

○ Formal reasoning (Slow thinking) was an idea developed by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky follows a specific set of rules, steps, or methods

○ Examples: a doctor’s diagnosis, grid searches

○ Elaboration likelihood: the probability that a person will think deeply about a problem

■ We usually don’t because this takes time

○ Bottom-up thinking: see definition above. Putting parts into a whole in a methodical way

○ Syllogism: a step-by step process of moving from true one statement to another ■ Ex: if A = B and B = C, then A = C

● Heuristic: a way of problem solving through common sense and without a set, logical method. This is also result oriented and is the most common method of problem solving. ○ Informal reasoning (Fast Thinking) was an idea developed by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky

○ Faster and more efficient than true logical thinking which may lead to errors, but does work often.

○ Important parts of Heuristic Solving:

■ Schema (Piaget’s idea) mental set: a way of thinking or a point-of-view. ■ Script: an expected prediction of what will occur in a given situation ● This is why pranks work. We don’t automatically wonder if a can

of beans has a plastic snake inside

■ Mental Models: the learned assumption of how specific things work

● If someone throws a brick at your head, you duck. You don’t

assume that it is a foam brick.

Creative Thought

To be creative…

● You must have a domain of specific knowledge about the topic (you need to have experience with it), you must have skills, intrinsic motivation (you must want to be creative through your own drive), a safe/supportive environment (without being afraid of failure), and you must use cross pollination (using an odd idea) and avoid confirmation biases (a tendency to search for information that confirms one's preconceptions)

○ Overjustification effect: offering more motivation for a behavior that a person generally admires will lead them to associate that behavior with a reward that they believe is “less than” what their admiration is worth; weakens intrinsic motivation

■ If someone gives blood out of their own good will, they’re actually likely to stop if you pay them two dollars. Is being so nice that I donate my

blood only worth two dollars?

● Divergent thinking: the cognition of multiple solutions to an issue or question ○ How many ways can you use a piece of paper?

● Lateral thinking: using a different or unique process to think differently or uniquely ○ Think outside of the box!

○ How many uses for a paper clip are there for your grandmother?

● Convergent thinking: selecting the most efficient, straightforward solution from a list of solutions.

○ Choosing the best solution

● Occam’s Razor: the idea that simplest solution is the one that should be used ○ Getting rid of everything that doesn’t work leads you to what does work

Bias and Errors in Thinking

Stress: the physical and psychological response to factors that challenge homeostasis and functioning.

● Yerkes-Dodson Theory: while small amounts of stress do inspire creativity, too much of it ends up plateauing and eventually decreasing creativity.

○ This curve is called an inverted U or a diminishing results curve

Ruminative thinking: cognition that repeats in a negative pattern that hinders creativity or the creation of new solutions

Catastrophizing: the name for thinking of the worst possible outcome to a given scenario. When a person does this, they hinder creativity.

Mental set/Schema: the description that if a proposed solution does not fit preconceived notions, it will not be considered as a possible option.

Functional Fixedness: assuming that a device or an object serves only one purpose or may only be used in one way (Life hacks!) . Overcoming this is creative, but being stuck in this is not creative.

Biases

● Anchoring bias: the tendency to jump to conclusions by thinking of an improbable yet scary solution rather than the reasonable outcome. For example, many people are afraid of flying even though driving is more dangerous and therefore they choose to take a road trip instead of flying

● Availability bias: the tendency to rely on available (known) information and find a solution that is easy. For example, when you lose your keys, you probably keep looking in the same location because that is where you found the keys in the past

● Confirmation bias: the tendency to look for information that confirms an existing belief. For example, consider how people choose to view news sources that agree with their opinions.

● Hindsight bias: the tendency to see past events as predictable, called the “I knew it all along” effect. For example, after watching a football game, a fan might claim that he knew the coach’s decision would be wrong even if the fan did not believe so originally.

● Overconfidence bias: the tendency for a person to place too much faith in his or her opinion even in the absence of a reasonable explanation. For example, a gambler tends to continue betting even though he or she has lost the last ten hands of a poker game.

● Self-serving bias: the tendency to make decisions based on what allows people to feel good about themselves. This is similar to the fundamental attribution theory. ● Belief Perseverance: emotion-based reasoning of an idea that has been proven wrong or has significant evidence against it. Not always bad because consistency and loyalty are good

● Sunk Cost Fallacy: erroneous idea that to persevere through an issue will keep from previous efforts being wasted.

● Framing: the way the problem or solution was proposed has an affect on your notions or decisions about that problem or solution.

○ We already ate, Grandma. We already ate Grandma.

Language

● Critical period: if the brain has not learned a specific skill in a given amount of time, it will never be learned or will take significant effort to do so.

● Sensitive period: the length of time in which the brain is more susceptible to learning, therefore making it easier to learn.

● Linguistic determinism: the idea that words, grammar, and syntax determine what type of thoughts a person has

● Linguistic relativism: words, grammar, and syntax influence what type of thoughts a person has

● Some concepts do not translate easily due to structure, this means people will think in different ways

● Language Acquisition Device (L.A.D.): an idea brought up by Noam Chomsky that says that humans must learn language/communication in some way, despite biological hindrances.

● Culture also affects language. Some cultures encourage cooing and babbling and crying while others do not. Some will teach nouns first, some will teach verbs.

○ You can’t learn while you are talking vs talking yourself through the problem ● Universal Listener:

○ babies don’t hear accents, but the more they are exposed to certain sounds and not others, the more their brain develops in a certain way.

○ Long-term potentiation (see above). Language will be developed and strengthened over time so that the primary language takes precedence over others

● Mechanical ability to produce sounds such as cooing (Vowels first because they’re easier) or babbling (consonance).

Intelligence

● Intelligence is based on cultural and environmental factors.

Factor Analysis: complex statistical technique that finds a relationship between items of information

● These relationships, when considered a general group, are only general to that specific culture

People in Intelligence

● Louis Thurstone said there were 56 aspects of intelligence

● Howard Gardner said there were 8 (musical, spacial, verbal, logical-mathematical, kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalistic)

○ Multiple Intelligences (Howard Gardner): while most other tests emphasize math and linguistics, Gardner’s theory expands intelligence to include eight factors (see above).

○ Daniel Goleman expanded on the interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligences and came up with four things in emotional intelligence (aka being intelligent in the matters of emotions): delay gratification, self-soothe, know your own emotions, and know other’s emotions

■ Emotional Intelligence (EQ): a controversial form of intelligence in the field of psychology. It is similar to Gardner’s multiple intelligences and

highlights the importance of intrapersonal and interpersonal intelligence

(such as a person's ability to delay gratification, self-soothe, know their

own emotions, and know other’s emotions)

● Robret Sternberg said there were 3 (Triarchic theory: analytic, creative, and practical) ○ Sternberg suggests a three-pronged triarchic theory of intelligence: analytical, creative, and practical.

● Charles Spearman said there were 2 (General intelligence and specific intelligence) ○ Spearman’s theory proposes that intelligence is measured by a general ability, the g factor.

○ G = general mental ability: an idea of Charles Spearman. Where there is an above average ability in one area, there is probably an above average ability in others. ○ Raymond Cattel expanded this

■ Fluid vs Crystallized Intelligence theory: Cattel was known for his

distinction between fluid intelligence (biologically influenced intelligence) and crystallized intelligence (learning-based intelligence)

■ Gf - Fluid Intelligence: an idea that says that the brain quickly processes large amounts of information.

■ Gc - Crystalized Intelligence: an idea that supports that some intelligence is learned through experience and uses heuristics to develop.

● Longitudinal study

Intelligence Tests

Alfred Binet (& Theodore Simon)

● Binet Simon Test: a popular test to measure cognitive abilities in five areas: knowledge, quantitative reasoning, visual-spatial processing, working memory, and fluid reasoning. ● Compared children against what most children his age has the ability to do ● IQ is based on the mental age divided by chronological age turned into a percent. 100 is the normal.

○ Ratio-based

○ Doesn’t get as specific as age increases (what is the difference between a 34 and 35 year old? None)

Lewis Terman

● Stanford-Binet Test (Revised): a popular test to measure cognitive abilities in five areas: knowledge, quantitative reasoning, visual-spatial processing, working memory, and fluid reasoning.

● Compared a child against a large bank of acquired scores.

○ Deviation based (how far from 100 (normal) are you?)

David Wechsler

● Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale: considered one of the best intelligence tests, assesses a range of intellectual abilities in verbal comprehension, reasoning, working memory, and processing speed.

● 15 subtests

● Gives a general score and subtest scores

Components of an Intelligence Test

● Standardization: when results from a test are compared to scores from similar tests done with different subjects. This comparison gives us a bell curve (symmetrical curve). ● Reliability: the consistency of scores in a test to determine its ability to be accurately considered.

○ Split-in-Half technique: splitting a test into equal parts and determining the separate scores on those halves in order to determine the reliability of the test. ○ Necessary but not sufficient

○ Flynn Effect: an idea that proposes that each generation seems to score higher on tests even when those scores are adjusted

Types of Validity

Validity: the extent that a test measure what it intends to measure, calculated by comparing how well the results from a test correlate with other measures that assess what the test is supposed to predict.

● Content validity: when the test contains relevant and pertinent elements that are representative of the construct.

○ Example: does the test ask about all the things that fall into the area that the test should be asking? What if the AP Psych test only asked about neural activity? That would have low content validity

● Construct validity: the degree to which the test accurately measures what it was designed to measure.

○ Example: how can the abstract idea of intelligence be translated into something that can be measured?

● Criterion validity: measures how well the test correlates with the outcome. ○ Ex: does the test match an independent measure? If a student is a genius on an online test but consistently misspells the word “intelligence,” the online test has low criterion validity.

● Predictive validity: the measure of how well a test predicts the future performance ○ SAT has a high predictive validity if the data set is large enough. If 100,000 people take the SAT those who score higher will, on average, do better in college. Note: these tests lose their accuracy as the data set gets smaller or if it is used to predict a single individual.

● Face validity: when the construction of the test is consistent in meaning and interpretation.

○ Example: the AP psych exam curriculum is divided into units. Does the exam have a proportional number of questions to match the curriculum gu8de? ● 100 is the average! That’s why it has the highest curve.

● The standard unit of difference (standard deviation) is 15 points.

○ 2 standard deviations above? Score = 130

● 34% of any given population will be between 100 and the first standard deviation. ● 13.5% of any given population will be between 100 and the second standard deviation.

Intellectual disability: a condition of limited mental ability that may be genetic, chemical, or neglectful factors.

● Hinders abstract abilities (skills in language, reading, writing, math, reasoning, knowledge, and memory), social abilities (refers to empathy, social judgement, communication between persons), practical skills (centers on self-management: personal care, job responsibilities money management)

Prodigy: a child who has an amazing, adult-like ability.

Savant Syndrome: the quality of having a genius-like ability in a narrow area Genius: scoring two standard deviations above the mean on the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (above 130).

Psychometric Tests: tests and considers the participant’s knowledge, which may be culturally biased or different than those who made the test.

Stereotype Threat: the idea that memory of groups who are thought to have one quality will conform to that expectation when tested or asked about that quality.

● Use deception to avoid this (don't tell them it’s an intelligence test; ask them to look it over or “see if it’s too hard)

● Framing: label the test as something it’s not

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: the tendency for a person to act a certain way because they are expected to or they expect themselves to