Team Project in Psychology:
Cognitive Illusions
Akhil Dondapati, Kendall Liang, Rose Maisner, Kali Rigby, Zachary
Rissman, Cailey Talbot, Ralph Tancredi Jr., David Tong, Asrita Vattikonda,
Amy Vonder Haar, Alan Zhang
Advisor: Patrick O. Dolan, Ph.D
Assistant: Stephanie Hojsak
What is Cognition?
● Our brain’s mental processes
Thought
o Memory
o Perception
o Behavior
o Judgement
o
● Lower-level thinking
o
Basic perception, attention, and memory
● Higher-level thinking
o
Reasoning, comprehension, and significance
Hypothesis
● Lower-level, perceptual illusions should fool
all participants equally
● Higher cognition tasks should give NJGSS
scholars an edge
General Methods
● Participants
o
o
73 NJGSS scholars
71 MTurk participants
● Materials:
o
Qualtrics survey
● Design:
17 cognitive tasks
o Personality questions
o
● Distribution:
Monitored sessions (NJGSS)
o Independently (MTurk)
o
McGurk Effect
What do you hear?
McGurk Effect
False Memory
● Recollection of non-existent events
● List of words
o
Related to unstudied critical word
False Memory
● 15 medical words
o
Critical word: “doctor”
● “Personality test”
● Hypothesis: NJGSS scholars are just
as susceptible to false memory
False Memory
● Results confirmed hypothesis
o
NJGSS scholars just as likely to recall “doctor”
o
But scholars better at remembering correct words
Falsely
recalled
“Doctor”
% of Correctly recalled
Words (out of 15)
NJGSS
55%
42%
General
Public
56%
34%
Intuitive Physics
● “Naive theories”
● Predict ball trajectory
Intuitive Physics
Results:
Answered
Correctly
Taken a Physics
Course
NJGSS
70%
73%
General Public
35%
45%
Anchoring
● Cognitive Bias
o
Decision-making
● Making estimations
● Initial Value: “Anchor”
● Anchoring-and-adjusting
o
Insufficient
Anchoring
● Was Gandhi older or younger than 9 when
he died?
● Was Gandhi older or younger than 140 when
he died?
Anchoring
Anchoring
● Is the mean temperature in Tanzania higher
or lower than 51°F?
● Is the mean temperature in Tanzania higher
or lower than 106°F?
Anchoring
Moses Illusion
● A subtly distorted question
o No correct answer
● Most plausible explanation: assume what question is asking
o Other possible explanations
Moses Illusion
● Introduced section as “lightning round”
● Two straightforward, easy questions
● Random selection of one of two questions:
o What shape has a circumference of πr2?
o What is the name of the man in the red suit and long white beard who
rides a sleigh and gives out birthday presents?
Moses Illusion
● Santa Question:
o General Public: 72% mistakenly answered “Santa”
o NJGSS scholars: 76% mistakenly answered “Santa”
● Circle Question:
o General Public: 68% mistakenly answered “circle”
o NJGSS scholars: 28% mistakenly answered “circle”
● Conclusion
Lake Wobegon Effect
● Also known as “Illusory Superiority”
“Welcome to Lake Wobegon, where all the
women are strong, all the men are goodlooking, and all the children are above
average.”
● Mathematically impossible!
Lake Wobegon Effect
Lake Wobegon Effect
Lake Wobegon Effect
● NJGSS Scholars are more susceptible to the
Lake Wobegon Effect than the general
public.
o
Theories?
Personality Types
Type FBA
You have a need for other people to like and admire you, and yet you tend to be critical
of yourself. While you have some personality weaknesses, you are able to compensate
for them with your strengths. You have considerable unused capacity that you have not
turned to your advantage. Disciplined and self-controlled on the outside, you tend to be
worrisome and insecure on the inside. At times you have serious doubts as to whether
you have made the right decision or done the right thing. You prefer a certain amount of
change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and
limitations. You also pride yourself as an independent thinker; and do not accept others'
statements without satisfactory proof. But you have found it unwise to be too frank in
revealing yourself to others. At times you are extroverted, affable, and sociable, while at
other times you are introverted, wary, and reserved. Some of your aspirations may seem
unrealistic but you have a strong motivation and drive.
Type ABF
You have a need for other people to like and admire you, and yet you tend to be critical
of yourself. While you have some personality weaknesses, you are able to compensate
for them with your strengths. You have considerable unused capacity that you have not
turned to your advantage. Disciplined and self-controlled on the outside, you tend to be
worrisome and insecure on the inside. At times you have serious doubts as to whether
you have made the right decision or done the right thing. You prefer a certain amount of
change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and
limitations. You also pride yourself as an independent thinker; and do not accept others'
statements without satisfactory proof. But you have found it unwise to be too frank in
revealing yourself to others. At times you are extroverted, affable, and sociable, while at
other times you are introverted, wary, and reserved. Some of your aspirations may seem
unrealistic but you have a strong motivation and drive.
Type BFA
You have a need for other people to like and admire you, and yet you tend to be critical
of yourself. While you have some personality weaknesses, you are able to compensate
for them with your strengths. You have considerable unused capacity that you have not
turned to your advantage. Disciplined and self-controlled on the outside, you tend to be
worrisome and insecure on the inside. At times you have serious doubts as to whether
you have made the right decision or done the right thing. You prefer a certain amount of
change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and
limitations. You also pride yourself as an independent thinker; and do not accept others'
statements without satisfactory proof. But you have found it unwise to be too frank in
revealing yourself to others. At times you are extroverted, affable, and sociable, while at
other times you are introverted, wary, and reserved. Some of your aspirations may seem
unrealistic but you have a strong motivation and drive.
Forer Effect
● NJGSS average rating: 4.16
o
57% rated 5 out of 5
● General public average rating: 3.87
○
35% rated 5 out of 5
● NJGSS students were more susceptible
Forer Effect
You have a need for other people to like and admire you, and yet you tend to be
critical of yourself. While you have some personality weaknesses, you are able to
compensate for them with your strengths. You have considerable unused capacity that
you have not turned to your advantage. Disciplined and self-controlled on the outside,
you tend to be worrisome and insecure on the inside. At times you have serious doubts
as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing. You prefer a
certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by
restrictions and limitations. You also pride yourself as an independent thinker; and do not
accept others' statements without satisfactory proof. But you have found it unwise to be
too frank in revealing yourself to others. At times you are extroverted, affable, and
sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, and reserved. Some of your
aspirations may seem unrealistic but you have a strong motivation and drive.
Conclusion
● Our results generally matched our hypotheses
○ NJGSS Scholars excelled in math/science oriented
questions
○ Scholars were still susceptible to lower-level cognitive
illusions
● For certain tasks, there was a statistically significant
difference between NJGSS Scholars and the general
public
○ False Memory, Intuitive Physics, Moses Illusion (circle
problem), Lake Wobegon
Thank You!
Team 2 would like to thank:
●
Our leaders, Dr. Dolan and Steph
●
Dr. Cassano, Dr. Surace, Anna Mae
●
The New Jersey Governor’s School in the Sciences and all its generous donors.
o
Independent College Fund of NJ/Johnson & Johnson
o
AT&T
o
Actavis Pharmaceuticals
o
Celgene
o
Novartis
o
Bayer Healthcare
o
Laura (NJGSS ’86) and John Overdeck
o
NJGSS Alumnae and Parents of Alumnae
o
Board of Overseers, New Jersey Governor’s Schools
o
State of New Jersey
o
Drew University
Thank you!
Presentation References
Pictures
● http://bestclipartblog.com/clipart-pics/student-clipart-3.jpg
● http://bestclipartblog.com/clipart-pics/-test-clipart-9.jpg
● http://www.creativekeys.net/storytellingpower/bigcomputerart.jpg
● http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/santa-claus-flying-sleigh-christmas-eve21780223.jpg
● http://cf.badassdigest.com/_uploads/images/18111/moses__span.jpg
● http://www.audioeditions.com/audio-book-images/l/News-from-LakeWobegon-283516.jpg
● http://thoughtfullyprepping.wordpress.com/2014/02/05/a-single-word-wow/