Thinking

Introduction Cognition (thinking) Cognitive psychologists

Draw the first thing you think of when you hear the words below: Tree Car Chair

Concepts Concepts Category hierarchies prototype

Tree

Car

Chair

Solving Problems Creativity Strernberg’s five components Expertise Imaginative thinking skills A venturesome personality Intrinsic motivation A creative environment

Solving Problems Obstacles to Problem Solving Fixation Mental set Functional fixedness

Mental Set 1. By moving only ONE glass, how could you arrange them so that the full and empty glasses alternate?

Mental Set 2. How can you physically stand behind your father while he is standing behind you? 3. What occurs once in every minute, twice in every moment, yet never in a thousand years?

The Sunk Cost Fallacy You and a friend just spent $10 to see a movie. About a half hour into the movie, you both realize that it’s “two thumbs down”—a really bad movie. What do you do? List some good reasons for staying until the end of the movie, then list some good reasons for leaving after a half hour.

Making Decisions and Forming Judgments The Belief Perseverance Phenomenon Consider the opposite

Belief Perseverance Description: Once we have decided that we believe something, we will tend to keep on believing it, even in the face of disconfirming evidence. Particularly if other people know of our belief, it can be embarrassing to climb down from our previous assertions. It is also difficult to remove a belief which has been woven into a wider web of belief, without disturbing those other beliefs. Using It: Do not get people to describe their beliefs publicly if you want to change them. Get people to describe the beliefs you want them to keep publicly. Pay attention to evidence. Avoid skipping past what you see just because you have already concluded something.

Solving Problems Obstacles to Problem Solving Read the scenario under confirmation bias and social judgments. Then answer the question. Confirmation bias

Making Decisions and Forming Judgments The Effects of Framing Framing experiments Complete handout 7B-8

Solving Problems Strategies Algorithms Step-by-step Heuristic Insight

Algorithms

Making Decisions and Forming Judgments Using and Misusing Heuristics The Representative Heuristic Linda is 31, single, outspoken, and very bright. She majored in philosophy in college. As a student, she was deeply concerned with discrimination and other social issues, and she participated in antinuclear demonstrations. Which statement is more likely? A. Linda is a bank teller. B. Linda is a bank teller and active in the feminist movement. A die with four green sides and two red sides will be rolled several times. You can be paid $25 if one of the following sequences appears. Which do you choose? A. GRGRRR B. RGRRR

Making Decisions and Forming Judgments Using and Misusing Heuristics The Availability Heuristic Complete Handout 7B – 5 Confidence estimates can range from 50% (total guess) to 100% (completely confident)

Making Decisions and Forming Judgments Using and Misusing Heuristics The Availability Heuristic Deaths per 100,000 All accidents (37.7) vs. strokes (51.1) Suicide (10.9) vs. blood poisoning (11.2) Homicide (5.9) vs. diabetes (24.5) Motor vehicle accidents (15.3) vs. colorectal cancer (17.8) Drowning (1.3) vs. leukemia (7.1) Chicago (15.6) vs. Kansas City (26.1) Las Vegas (11.3) vs. Stockton, CA (14.6) Miami (13.9) vs. Phoenix (15.0) Honolulu (1.7) vs. Raleigh (6.0) New York (6.6) vs. Aurora, IL (9.5) Death rate and population data from 2009 World Almanac and Book of Facts. Crime rate data from Federal Bureau of Investigation Uniform Crime Rates (see www.fbi.gov/ucr/cisu2009/index.html).

Making Decisions and Forming Judgments Overconfidence What percentage of your answers were correct? What was the average percentage of your confidence level?

The Anchoring Heuristic Answer the questions about San Jose. What area did you write (in sq. mi)? What population size did you write?

Answers San Jose is 179.96 sq. mi San Jose has a population of 945,942 (answers according to Wikipedia)

The End

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Teacher Information Hyperlink Slides - This presentation contain two types of hyperlinks. Hyperlinks can be identified by the text being underlined and a different color (usually purple). Unit subsections hyperlinks: Immediately after the unit title slide, a page (slide #3) can be found listing all of the unit’s subsections. While in slide show mode, clicking on any of these hyperlinks will take the user directly to the beginning of that subsection. This allows teachers quick access to each subsection. Bold print term hyperlinks: Every bold print term from the unit is included in this presentation as a hyperlink. While in slide show mode, clicking on any of the hyperlinks will take the user to a slide containing the formal definition of the term. Clicking on the “arrow” in the bottom left corner of the definition slide will take the user back to the original point in the presentation. These hyperlinks were included for teachers who want students to see or copy down the exact definition as stated in the text. Most teachers prefer the definitions not be included to prevent students from only “copying down what is on the screen” and not actively listening to the presentation. For teachers who continually use the Bold Print Term Hyperlinks option, please contact the author using the email address on the next slide to learn a technique to expedite the returning to the original point in the presentation.

Teacher Information Continuity slides Throughout this presentation there are slides, usually of graphics or tables, that build on one another. These are included for three purposes. By presenting information in small chunks, students will find it easier to process and remember the concepts. By continually changing slides, students will stay interested in the presentation. To facilitate class discussion and critical thinking. Students should be encouraged to think about “what might come next” in the series of slides. Please feel free to contact me at kkorek@germantown.k12.wi.us with any questions, concerns, suggestions, etc. regarding these presentations. Kent Korek Germantown High School Germantown, WI 53022 262-253-3400 kkorek@germantown.k12.wi.us

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Definition Slides

Cognition = the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating.

Concept = a mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people.

Prototype = a mental image or best example of a category. Matching new items to a prototype provides a quick and easy method for sorting items into categories (as when comparing feathered creatures to a prototypical bird, such as a robin).

Algorithm = a methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem. Contrasts with the usually speedier – but also more error-prone – use of heuristics.

Heuristic = a simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently; usually speedier but also more error-prone than algorithms.

Insight = a sudden and often novel realization of the solution to a problem; it contrasts with strategy-based solutions.

Creativity = the ability to produce novel and valuable ideas.

Confirmation Bias = a tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence.

Fixation = the inability to see a problem from a new perspective, by employing a different mental set.

Mental Set = a tendency to approach a problem in one particular way, often a way that has been successful in the past.

Functional Fixedness = the tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual functions; an impediment to problem solving.

Representativeness Heuristic = judging the likelihood of things in terms of how well they seem to represent, or match, particular prototypes; may lead us to ignore other relevant information.

Availability Heuristic = estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; if instances come readily to mind (perhaps because of their vividness), we presume such events are common

Overconfidence = the tendency to be more confident that correct – to over-estimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgments.

Belief Perseverance = clinging to one’s initial conceptions after the basis on which they are formed has been discredited.

Intuition = an effortless, immediate, automatic feeling or thought, as contrasted with explicit, conscious reasoning.

Framing = the way an issue is posed; how an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and judgments.

Language = our spoken, written, or signed words and the ways we combine them to communicate meaning.

Phoneme = in language, the smallest distinctive sound unit.

Morpheme = in a language, the smallest unit that carries meaning; may be a word or a part of a word (such as a prefix).

Grammar = in a language, a system of rules that enables us to communicate with and understand others.

Semantics = the set of rules by which we derive meaning from morphemes, words, and sentences in a given language; also, the study of meaning.

Syntax = the rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences in a given language.

Babbling Stage = beginning at about 4 months, the stage of speech development in which the infant spontaneously utters various sounds at first unrelated to the household language.

One-word Stage = the stage in speech development, from about age 1 to 2, during which a child speaks mostly in single words.

Two-word Stage = beginning about age 2, the stage in speech development during which a child speaks mostly two-word statements.

Telegraphic Speech = early speech state in which a child speaks like a telegram – “go car” – using mostly nouns and verbs.

Linguistic Determinism = Whorf’s hypothesis that language determines the way we think.