Thinking: thinking, or cognition, refers to a process that involves knowing, understanding, remembering and communicating

• Involves concepts, problem-solving, decision making, judgment formation

• Metacognition: thinking about thinking, when you become aware of your own thoughts and how you process information

• Executive Functions: managers of the brain, help you get stuff done and make good decisions

  • Help you come up with ideas and solutions to problems; brainstorming different ways to tackle a task

  • Important for things like schoolwork, work projects, and everyday tasks; help you stay organized, make good decisions and achieve your goals

Concepts: the mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas or people/ there are a variety of chairs but their common features defined the concept of a chair

Category Hierarchies

We form concepts with definitions. Mostly, we form concepts with mental images of typical examples (prototypes).

Problem Solving

• Strategies: trial and error, algorithms, heuristics, insight

• Algorithms: time consuming, exhaust all possibilities before arriving at a solution. Computers use algorithms

• Mental Set: tendency to approach a problem in a particular way

• Heuristics: simple thinking strategies that allow us to make judgements and solve problems efficiently, less time consuming but more error prone than algorithms.

  • Representative Heuristic: judging the likelihood of things or objects in terms of how well they seem to represent, or match, a particular prototype

  • Availability heuristic: judging based on how readily we retrieve information

• Insight: involves a sudden novel realization of a solution to a problem. Humans and animals have insight (“aha!” moment)

  • Brain imaging and EEG studies suggest that when an insight strikes, it activates the right temporal cortex. Time between not knowing the solution and realizing it is about 0.3 seconds

• Convergent thinking: focusing on finding the single, correct solution

  • using logic, also called critical/vertical analytical/linear thinking

  • Functional Fixedness: cognitive bias that limits a person to using an object only in the way that it is traditionally used; restricts problem solving by hindering the ability to see alternative uses for familiar objects

• Divergent thinking: essential for innovation, creative thinking, etc

  • using imagination, also called horizontal thinking

Schemas:

• Assimilation: a process that involves fitting new experiences into our existing cognitive schemas without altering the schemas significantly

  • “Adding to existing”: cognitive process of fitting new information into existing schemas

  • Simplifies new information, making it easier to understand and remember by integrating with what is already known

• Accommodation: adjusting our schemas when new information cannot be fit into them

  • “Adjusting”: modifying existing schemas or creating new ones in response to new information

  • Allows for more accurate understanding of the world by adjusting schemas when they no longer fit with new information

Cognitive Bias: unconscious and systematic errors in thinking that occur when people process and interpret information in their surroundings and influence their decisions and judgements

• Gambler's Fallacy: cognitive bias that occurs when individuals believe that the outcome of a random event is influenced by previous outcomes, even though each event is independent and has no bearing on future results

• Sunk Cost Fallacy: making decisions about a current investment based on the cumulative prior investment rather than on the future value or potential of the investment

Dual-Process Theory:

• System 1 (fast, intuitive): most everyday decisions made this way

• System 2 (slow, deliberate): complex problems require this way

Prospect Theory: explains how people make decisions under uncertainty, emphasizing the tendency to weigh potential gains more heavily than potential losses

Bounded Rationality: suggests that humans make decisions based on limited information and cognitive abilities, aiming for "good enough" solutions rather than optimal ones

Priming: exposure to one stimulus influences the response to a subsequent stimulus, without conscious guidance or intention

Confirmation Bias: tendency to search for information that confirms a personal bias.

Overconfidence: tendency to overestimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgments.

Exaggerated Fear: opposite of  having overconfidence

Framing: How information is presented influences decisions and perceptions

Belief Perseverance Phenomenon: our tendency to cling to our beliefs in the face of contrary evidence