Thinking and Problem Solving

Thinking IS Cognition Primarily a frontal lobe activity –Drawing info from throughout the brain (memory) and then working with it –Process, understand, and communicate info

Concepts Redux Concepts: Mental groupings of similar objects, events, people/animals Definition: mental category that groups things Category Hierarchy for schematic recognition: –Superordinate – PRODUCE –Basic – APPLES –Subordinate – GRANNY SMITH APPLES

Prototypes: best example of a concept –Apples (basic) – prototype (_____?_____) –Bird (basic) – prototype (______?_____) Schema – mental framework, paradigm, model

Solving Problems: Insight: –“ah ha!” – the solution just pops into your brain

Solving Problems Algorithms –Systematically try every possibility –Slow but extremely accurate –Ex: breaking into a safe and trying EVERY combination –More suited to computers than humans Examples from stations?

Trial and error: –Similar to algorithms, but without the system –Example?

Heuristics: –Mental shortcuts that arrive at a solution using past experience –Short cut that may not offer a solution –Ex: looking both ways before crossing the street, what you do when the power goes out

Heuristic Obstacles Representative heuristic: –Prototype to make decisions about things, people, or animals –Who was a cheerleader, Cameron Diaz or Janet Reno?

Heuristic Obstacles Availability heuristic: –Using most vivid memory to make judgments –We may be afraid to go to certain parts of DC, yet we eat at McDonalds. Which is more likely to hurt you?

Obstacles to solving problems With the person sitting next to you, see if you can come up with three examples or definitions for: –confirmation bias, overconfidence, and belief perseverance

More obstacles Fixation: –Inability to see a problem from a new perspective Example from stations?

Mental set: –Repeating problem solving techniques that have worked in the past, but don’t work now Breaking set (add to mental set notes) –Looking at the problem differently or trying unique solutions

Functional fixation: –Seeing a tool as only have one function – Kwhttp:// Kw

Overconfidence Effect ADD THESE NOTES IN THE SPACE BELOW BELIEF PERSERVERENCE AND MENTAL SET Human tendency toward confirmation bias, belief bias, and use of heuristics, makes us more sure of our decisions than we actually are correct

Overconfidence: Which death is more likely? Deaths: All accidents combined vs. Strokes 35,900,000 vs. 61,400,000 Deaths: Homicide vs. Diabetes 5,700,000 vs. 23,600,000 Crime rates: Detroit vs. San Juan 572 vs. 665 Manhattan vs. Gary, Indiana 184 vs. 556

Intuition Effortfuless, immediate, or automatic feeling or thought (no reasoning) How his this different from cognition?

Framing What’s the point? - The way a question is asked will affect our decisions and judgments –How is this like memory? –Wording effects

Intuition’s Dozen Deadly Sins 1.Hindsight bias 2.Illusory correlation 3.Memory construction 4.Representativeness and availability heuristics 5.Overconfidence 6.Belief perseverance and confirmation bias 7.Framing Covered in future units… 8. Interviewer illusion 9. Mis-predicting our own feelings 10. self-serving bias 11. Fundamental attribution error 12. Mis-predicting our own behavior

Creativity Ability to produce novel (new) and useful ideas Convergent thinking: narrow down a list of alternatives to come up with a single solution (i.e. multiple choice test) Divergent thinking: expand the range of alternatives by generating many possible solutions

Divergent and convergent thinking Creativity is usually considered which? Which one explains answering a multiple choice question using process of elimination? IQ and creativity? –Weak positive correlation

Are right brained people going to rule the world? Reese’s Peanut Butter – Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind qZUX0http:// qZUX0

Riddles: Jackdaws love my big sphinx of quartz. What extraordinarily unusual occurrence happened on the 6 th of May, 1978?

River Crossing Problem crossing-puzzle-hard/ crossing-puzzle-hard/