Intro to Thinking

The limits of Human Intuition A man bought a horse for $60 and sold it for $70. Then he bought the same horse back for $80 and again sold it, for $90. How much money did he make in the horse business?

Super simple, right? Most common answer: $10 –You actually make $20 How do you do it? Comparing total amount paid out with total amount taken in ( =20) Most American college students answer incorrectly Most German banking executives get it wrong

Let’s try again A man bought a horse for $60 and sold it for $70. Then he bought firewood for $80 and then sold it, for $90. How much money did he make?

Information processing model Organize items into mental groupings –Called concepts Form concepts from prototypes –Representative of the most typical member of a category Complex concepts = schemas

How do you give someone directions? What mental processes do you go through?

Let’s try some more logic puzzles All members of the cabinet are thieves. No composer is a member of the cabinet. What conclusion can you draw? Is there one? Yes! There is a valid conclusion –Some thieves are not composers or there are thieves who are not composers

How about another… Some archaeologists, biologists, and chess players are in a room. None of the archaeologists are biologists. All of the biologists are chess players. What follows? What conclusions can you draw? most people will say that none of the archaeologists are chess players – not valid What is valid is to say that some chess players are not archaeologists.