Last Class in Review
•
STM  LTM
– Encoding
•
Rehearsal:
–
–
•
•
Maintenance: repetition, rote rehearsal
Elaborative: associate with personal experiences or old
memories
» Aids in retrieval
Mnemonic devices: acronyms, rhymes, method of loci
Theories of why we forget
1.
2.
3.
Decay = use it or lose it
Replacement = new memories push out old memories
Interference:
•
•
4.
5.
Retroactive (affects things in the past),
Proactive (affects things subsequently)
Cue-dependent = not encoded well = bad retrieval cues
Amnesia = brain injury, disease, psychogenic
Learning Objectives
•
Cognition:
1. What are the distinctions among a concept,
prototype, proposition, schema, and mental
image?
2. What is the difference between deductive and
inductive reasoning?
3. What is the difference between an algorithm and
a heuristic?
4. What are the barriers to reasoning rationally?
5. What are the availability heuristic, the hindsight
bias, and the confirmation bias?
chapter 7
Elements of cognition
Concept
Proposition
Cognitive Schema
Mental Image
chapter 7
Elements of cognition
Concept
Mental category that groups objects, relations,
activities, abstractions, or qualities having
common properties
General ideas that allow us to categorize stimuli
Prototype:
best or most typical example of a category
Chair
Adapted from Cognitive Psychology, 2nd ed, Kellogg (2002)
Elements of cognition
Propositions
Represent the relationship of concepts to one
another to express a single idea
Cognitive Schemas
• Mental models of the world, that link together
propositions and concepts
• An integrated mental network of knowledge,
beliefs, and expectations that defines the properties
of an object or event
• Organizes information and aids in retrieval
• Scripts – like how to behave in a restaurant
Adapted from Cognitive Psychology, 2nd ed, Kellogg (2002)
Cognitive Schema: Script
• To get a haircut. I make an
appointment with the hairdresser. Drive
to the salon. Tell the receptionist I am
there and wait until I am called. Get my
hair washed and conditioned. The
hairdresser combs and cuts my hair.
The hairdresser puts gel in my hair and
dries it. I pay for the haircut. I drive
home.
Elements of cognition
Mental Image
A mental representation that resembles what it
represents
Occurs when the relevant object, event, or scene is
not actually present
• Indirect measurement:
• How long it takes a person to rotate an image
chapter 7
Your turn
“To get a hamburger, go to a fast-food restaurant and wait in
line behind the counter. When it is your turn, tell the person by
the cash register that you want a hamburger. He/she will tell
you how much it costs. Give him/her enough money. In a few
minutes someone behind the counter will give you a
hamburger.” This kind of mental representation is best
described as a:
1. Concept
2. Proposition
3. Schema
4. Image
chapter 7
Reasoning
The drawing of conclusions or inferences from
observations, facts, or assumptions
Formal Reasoning
Information needed to draw a conclusion is available
There is a right and wrong answer
1. Algorithms
2. Formal Logic
• Deductive reasoning
• Inductive reasoning
Informal Reasoning
No clear cut answer or correct solution
• Heuristics
• Dialectical Reasoning
chapter 7
Formal Reasoning
Information needed to draw a conclusion is available
You must find the right (or best) answer
Algorithms:
A set of instructions for accomplishing a task that produces a solution
Don’t need to understand how/why it works
- recipe for baking bread
- how to solve a math problem
- how to calculate molarity (chemistry)
Formal Logic:
Deductive reasoning: provide complete support for a conclusion
Inductive reasoning: provide some, but not complete support for a
conclusion
chapter 7
Deductive Reasoning
A tool of formal logic in which a conclusion
necessarily follows from a set of premises.
Examples:
• All dogs are mammals. All mammals have kidneys. Therefore all dogs have kidneys.
• Since all squares are rectangles, and all rectangles have four sides, all squares must
have four sides.
• All apples are fruit. All fruit grows on trees. Therefore all apples grow on trees.
chapter 7
Inductive Reasoning
A tool of formal logic in which a conclusion probably
follows from a set of premises.
Examples:
• All swans we have seen have been white; therefore all swans are white.
• I always hang pictures on nails; therefore all pictures hang on nails
chapter 7
Reasoning
Informal Reasoning
No clear cut answer or correct solution
Heuristics:
A rule of thumb that suggests a course of action or
guides problem solving but does not guarantee an
optimal solution
Mental shortcut; allows us to solve problems and make
decisions more quickly
Dialectical Reasoning:
Comparing, contrasting, weighing and evaluating
opposing points of view to determine the best solution
Heuristics
Well known:
Anchoring and adjustment
Availability heuristic
Representativeness heuristic
Less well known:
Affect heuristic
Effort heuristic
Fluency heuristic
Peak-end rule
Scarcity heuristic
Simulation heuristic
Take-the-best heuristic
Contagion heuristic
Familiarity heuristic
Gaze heuristic
Recognition heuristic
Similarity heuristic
Social proof
chapter 7
Dialectical Reasoning
A process in which
opposing facts or ideas
are weighed and
compared, with a view
to determining the best
solution or resolving
differences
Trial Jury
Prosecution
Defense
Eye Witness
Alibi
DNA
Murder Weapon
with defendants
fingerprints
Claim DNA was
contaminated
It was his knife
so of course it
would have his
fingerprints
chapter 7
Reflective judgment
Skills

Question assumptions
 Evaluate and integrate evidence
 Relate evidence to theory or opinion
 Consider alternative interpretations
 Reach defensible conclusions
 Reassess conclusions in face of new evidence
chapter 7
Stages of reflective
judgment
Middle-Late 20s
chapter 7
Barriers to rational reasoning
Affect Heuristic
Availability Heuristic
Avoiding loss
Fairness bias
The confirmation bias
The hindsight bias
Mental sets
Cognitive dissonance
chapter 7
Exaggerating the improbable
Affect Heuristic
The tendency to consult emotions instead of
estimating probabilities objectively
• Your current feeling or emotion influences your decision
Availability heuristic
The tendency to judge the probability of an event by how
easy it is to think of examples.
Fairness Bias
• Motivation for cooperation and fairness
outweigh the need to avoid loss and to win
chapter 7
The hindsight bias:
“I knew it all along” effect
The tendency to overestimate one’s ability
to have predicted an event once the
outcome is known.
• Inclination to see events that have occurred
as more predictable than they were before
they took place
– Politics, games, medicine, relationships
– “Hindsight is 20/20”
– “We’re all Monday morning quarterbacks”
chapter 7
The confirmation bias
The tendency to pay attention only to information that
confirms one’s own beliefs
– avoid information and interpretations that contradict our beliefs
5, 7, 9
Goal: To find the rule to which these numbers conform
chapter 7
Mental Set
Tendency to solve problems using procedures that
worked before on similar problems
- finding patterns in events
• Why are mental sets good?
– Make learning and problem solving more efficient
• Why can mental sets be bad?
– Not helpful when problem calls for new approach
chapter 7
The nine-dot problem
Connect all 9 dots.
Use only 4 lines.
Do not lift your
pencil from the page
after you begin
drawing.
chapter 7
Cognitive Dissonance
A state of tension produced
when a person holds two
contradictory cognitions or
when a person’s belief is
inconsistent with his/her
behavior
chapter 7
When are you more likely to try
and reduce cognitive dissonance?
1.
When you need to justify a choice or decision
you freely made
•
Postdecision dissonance: second guessing a decision
after it is made
»
“buyers remorse”
2.
When you need to justify behavior that
conflicts with your view of yourself
3.
When you need to justify the effort put into a
decision or choice
•
Justification of Effort: Hard work makes goal more attractive,
even if once we attain the goal we realize it really wasn’t that
good to begin with
Last Class in Review
• Elements of Cognition
– Concept: mental category of commonalities
• Prototype: most typical example of category/concept
– Propositions: connect concepts together, represent relationships
– Cognitive Schema: mental network of concepts, scripts
– Mental Image: experience that resembles a perception from any sense mode, but
the stimuli is not currently present
• Reasoning
– Formal reasoning
• Algorithms: set of rules or instructions used to solve a problem
• Deductive (must be true) vs. Inductive reasoning (possibly true)
– Informal reasoning
• Heuristics: rules of thumb
• Dialectical reasoning: trial jury, voting, debates
– Barriers to reasoning
•
•
•
•
Affect & Availability Heuristic
Loss aversion, Fairness, Hindsight, Confirmation bias
Mental Set
Cognitive Dissonance
Learning Objectives
• Intelligence:
1. What are the three components of the Triarchic
theory of intelligence?
2. What evidence is there that intelligence is
influenced by both genetics and the environment?
• Group Exercise – Cognitive Dissonance
chapter 7
Defining intelligence
Intelligence
An inferred characteristic of an individual, usually defined as the
ability to profit from experience, acquire knowledge, think
abstractly, act purposefully, or adapt to changes in the
environment
g factor
A general intellectual ability assumed by many theorists to
underlie specific mental abilities and talents
chapter 7
The Invention of IQ
tests
• 1904 – French Ministry of Education asked
Alfred Binet to find a way to identify children who were slow
learners so they could be given remedial work
• Mental age (MA) and Intelligence Quotient (IQ)
• MA = level of intellectual development relative to other kids
• IQ = MA divided by chronological age times 100
» Now we use norms and tables to compute IQ
• Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale
• Established norms for American children
•Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)
• General IQ, plus scores for specific types of abilities
chapter 7
Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory
The skills and knowledge needed for success
in life, according to one’s own definition of
success, within one’s own sociocultural
context
chapter 7
Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory
Three aspects of Intelligence:
1.
Componential Intelligence (analytic)
Comparing, analyzing, and evaluating
This type of process correlates best with IQ
Metacognition: Knowledge or awareness of one’s own cognitive processes
2.
Experiential Intelligence (creative)
Inventing solution to new problems
Transfer skills to new situations
How you deal with novel (new) situations
3.
Contextual Intelligence (practical)
Applying the things you know to everyday contexts
Tacit knowledge: strategies for success that aren’t explicitly taught
chapter 7
Emotional Intelligence
(EQ)
The ability to identify your own and other people’s emotions
accurately, express your emotions clearly, and manage emotions in
self and others
Appears to be biologically based (Damasio, 1994)
Intelligence:
Nature or Nurture?
• Heritability: A statistical estimate of the
proportion of the total variance in a trait that is
attributable to genetic differences among
individual within a group
– Genetic studies
• Children and adolescents = 0.50
• Adults = 0.60-0.80
– Adoption and Twin Studies
• Score similarity: Identical twins > Fraternal twins
• Adopted children’s scores correlate better with biological
parents
Intelligence:
Nature or Nurture?
• What environmental influences can reduce
mental ability?
–
–
–
–
Poor prenatal care
Malnutrition
Exposure to toxins
Stressful family circumstances
• What environmental influences can raise
mental ability?
– Healthy, stimulating environment
• Remember neurogenesis and stem cells?