Cognitive Illusions Amongst
the High Achieving
Akash Adani, Brian Hou, Sabrina Jordan, Juliana Kemenosh, Kaitlyn MacMillan,
Kiera McKay, Anjali Prabhat, Astitva Soni, Aditya Venkatesh
Advisor: Patrick Dolan
Assistant: Bezalem Lemma
Introduction
● Cognition: mental processes involved in learning, memorizing,
and decision making
● Cognitive Illusions: deception of
senses to elicit false interpretation
Introduction
● Comparison of NJGSS students and the general
population
● Hypothesis:
NJGSS students will be less susceptible to memory
and
logic related questions, but will be equally as
susceptible to visual and lower-level illusions.
Methodology
● Participants:
o 75 Governor’s School scholars (NJGSS)-7/18/2015
o 75 anonymous subjects from Amazon Mechanical
Turk (MTurk)
● Procedure:
o Online survey disguised as a personality test
o Link to survey released online for MTurk subjects
o Administered in half-hour sessions for NJGSS
subjects
Methodology
● Statistical Analysis:
o 2-proportion z-tests: analyze the difference
between two proportions
o 0.05 significance level
Cognitive Tasks
● 16 different tasks/illusions
● 24 “filler” personality questions
● 4 main categories of tasks:
o Sensation/Perception/Attention
o Memory
o Judgment/Decision-Making
o Self-Perception
● The following slides present a summary of
6 out of the 16 tasks
Change Blindness
● Subjects shown a video of a conversation
o
o
Some were warned of editing mistakes
Some were told to simply watch carefully
● Several major changes in the video
Change Blindness
● Statistical difference between warned NJGSS students and
the control group
Moses/Semantic Illusion
●
●
●
●
Semantic similarity- similar denotation/logic
Brain does not pick up on change of key word
Easy questions first
Semantic Questions:
○ Not math related
○ Math related
Moses/Semantic Illusion
What is the name of the man in the red suit and long white
beard who rides a sleigh and gives out birthday presents?
Blue= NJGSS
Red= Control
Moses/Semantic Illusion
What shape has a circumference of 𝛱r2
Blue= NJGSS
Red= Control
Memory for Words
Lawyer
Clinic
Health
Medicine
Sick
Stethoscope
Cure
Nurse
Surgeon
Patient
Hospital
Dentist
Physician
Ill
Office
False Memory
● A list of words, similar in either topic or a particular word
○ Associative memory causes subjects to put word not
on list
● Subjects asked to read list and pick out favorite word
○ Used to distract from real question
● Tests two key skills:
○ Number of words able to memorize
○ Whether or not they put doctor or not
Memory
Anchoring and Adjustment
● Anchoring Effect: data subconsciously influences decisions
● low anchor: 9
● high anchor: 140
Anchoring and Adjustment
● low anchor: 51
● high anchor: 106
Lake Wobegon Effect
● Self-Enhancement Bias
● Task:
○ Subject shown a list of 14 skills
○ Asked to rate level of skill:
1
2
3
4
5
Less Skilled
Average
More skilled
● Hypothesis: NJGSS subjects more likely to rate themselves as
above average
Lake Wobegon Effect
● Results: 89% of NJGSS vs. 79% of control group
NJGSS
Control
Barnum/Forer Effect
Barnum/Forer Effect
What is it?
- Introduced by P.T. Barnum, a stage performer known for hoaxes
and tricks.
- Studied by Bertram R. Forer in a study that administered one
vague personality "analysis" based off of general characteristics
applicable to anyone.
- People are meant to rate the personality description on an
accuracy scale, and most people give the description a high rating
because they resonate with the description and fail to see the
generalities and double ended statements within the passage.
Why do people fall for it?
- Skewed self-perception, lack of attention, authority bias (ethos)
Barnum/Forer Effect
Conclusion
● Skills required to succeed academically do
not ensure success in cognitive tasks
4 tasks NJGSS did better
o 4 tasks NJGSS did worse
o 8 tasks had equal performance
o
● Good for NJGSS: Judgement/Decision
making
● Bad for NJGSS: Self Perception
What Does it all Mean?
● People do not always understand their
experiences as much as they think they do
● And no, being smart does not help
Acknowledgements
●
●
●
●
●
Dr. Patrick Dolan
Bezalem Lemma
Dr. Surace
Adam Cassano
NJGSS scholars
● AT&T
● Bayer Healthcare
● Independent College Fund of New Jersey/Johnson & Johnson
● The Overdeck Family Foundation
● NJGSS Alumnae, Parents, and Corporate Matching Funds
● The State of New Jersey
Table Top Illusion
Kiki and Bouba
Priming of Ambiguous Pictures
McGurk Effect
“Fa”
“Ba”
Penny Identification
Conjunction Fallacy
Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken and very bright. At university
she studied philosophy. As a student she was deeply concerned with
issues of discrimination and social justice and also participated in antinuclear demonstrations.
Now rank (click and drag) each of the following three statements from
most to least likely, with 1 being the most likely.
● Linda is a bank teller
● Linda is active in the feminist movement
● Linda is a bank teller and active in the feminist movement
Coin Toss Probability
Imagine a person tossing a fair coin six
times in a row. In every toss, the
outcome can be head (H) or tail (T).
Which of the following series is most
likely?
A) H T H H T T
B) H H H H H H
Hospital Birth Estimate
A certain town is served by two hospitals. In the larger hospital,
about 45 babies are born each day, and in the smaller hospital 15
babies are born each day. As you know, about 50% of all babies
are boys. However, the exact percentage varies from day to day.
Sometimes, it may be higher than 50%, sometimes lower. For a
period of one year, each hospital recorded the days on which
more than 60% of the babies born were boys. Which hospital do
you think recorded such days.
Large Hospital
Smaller Hospital
About the same (that is, within 5% of each other)
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