lOMoARcPSD|10386832 Lecture 11- Reasoning and decision making Cognition in Clinical Contexts (University of Sussex) StuDocu is not sponsored or endorsed by any college or university Downloaded by Jeruel Luminarias (leurej.sem@gmail.com) lOMoARcPSD|10386832 Lecture 11- Reasoning and decision making Thinking and reasoning - Judgement- Calculates the likelihood of certain events Decision making- selecting one out of a number of potential options Problem solving- the cognitive process that takes us from recognising that there is a problem to developing a solution Reasoning- concerns determining what conclusions can be drawn given various statements are assumed to be true We use the frontal cortex for these Judgement (under uncertainty) - - - We are particularly bad at estimating the likelihood of things Kahneman and Tversky Availability Heuristic- used when we estimate frequency/ probability based on the ease with which examples come to mind e.g. are there more words with r at the beginning or as the third letter We don’t always use this e.g. which name is more common bush or Stevenson? It’s the latter and 88% of people got this right (Oppenheimer, 2004) Representativeness heuristic- is used when events that are representative or typical of a class and are assigned a high probability of occurrence The Tom W experiment- extract written by a psychologist sounds like a typical computer nerd. Asked if the person graduated in computer scientist or humanities. Correct answer is humanities. Answers didn’t consider the base rate which is that three times more people graduate in humanities Anchoring and adjustment- is used when we begin with an initial estimate of the answer and then attempt to adjust to this estimate Tversky and Kahneman, 1974- spin a wheel to get a random number. Asked is percentage of African countries in UN smaller or greater than number produced by wheel of fortune? Then asked what is the likelihood that a country selected at random from UN is from Africa? Found when wheel number was 65 the average estimate was 45%. When wheel number was 10 the average estimate was 25% Decision making - - - Utility theory- we should choose the option which has the greatest utility (value to us) Khaneman and Tversky, 1984- developed prospect theory to explain situations where utility theory is not true. Has the assertion that we are ‘loss averse’ meaning we pay more attention to potential losses than potential gains Prospect theory can explain the framing effect- Tversky and Khanenman, 1987. A bird flu epidemic is expected to kill 600 people can choose two options a) treatment that will save 200 people b) treatment that has 33.3% chance of saving everyone but a 66.6% chance of saving no one. Option b emphasises losses so people tend to choose a despite the fact the two are equivalent Somatic marker hypothesis (Damasio)- conscious deliberation is supplemented by more unconscious process based on gut feelings Associations between possible routes of action and the emotional state they resulted in on previous occasions are stored Downloaded by Jeruel Luminarias (leurej.sem@gmail.com) lOMoARcPSD|10386832 - These somatic markers are there before we become aware of them Problem solving - - It is goal directed An immediate solution is not available It involves conscious cognitive processes Three parts of a problem o The problem itself o The thing you might do o The solution Insight- the aha experience resulting in a transformation of the problem Functional fixedness- see certain objects as having a fixed function which prevents us from seeing solutions Tower of Hanoi- shows that we don’t like stepping away from a goal e.g. coming to university to earn money but getting into loads of debt in the mean time Reasoning - - - Deductive reasoning- when the conclusion is certain if premises are true Inductive reasoning- when conclusions are likely to be valid but require further evidence and can be regarded as a hypothesis Syllogisms Conditional reasoning Two valid inferences o Modus ponens- mode by assertion o Modus tollens- mode by denial Two invalid inferences o Affirming the consequent o Denying the antecedent Hypothesis testing- we exhibit confirmation bias a tendency to seek information that confirms a theory rather than that which might falsify it Wason’s selection task Downloaded by Jeruel Luminarias (leurej.sem@gmail.com)
