1. Cognition & Language Mod 36: Acquisition and Use of Language
Mod 34: Thinking, Concepts, & Creativity
We are here
Mod 35: Solving Problems & Making Decisions
Unit 7:
Cognition & Language
Concept Maps Due:
Friday, 12/18!
Concept Maps will be due 12/18
Mod 36: Acquisition and Use of Language

2. Cognition A fancy word for “thinking.”
Cognitive psychologists study mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, & communicating.
Why study it? Psych is… We’ve already studied some of it in the Memory Unit. Subfield Plug. Does the way we think even matter?

3. Let’s get you thinking…
Draw this on your paper..connect all 9 with 4 straight lines w/o lifting your pencil.

4. One more…
A ball and a bat cost $1.10 total. Bat costs $1 more than the ball. How much is the ball?
I’ll tell you the answer at the end of the video!

5. Concepts In order to think about the world, we form……..
A mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas or people.
Concepts are similar to the idea of….
Review schemas
Schemas
These animals all look different, but they fall under our concept of “dogs”.

6. OBJECTIVE 2| Describe the roles of categories, hierarchies, definitions, and prototypes in concept formation.

7. Prototypes We base our concepts on ….
Our concept of men may include all of the following guys….
Prototypes
A mental image or best example of a category.
Shoe, bird, vehicle, justice, college.
But they are based on our prototype (ideal) male…..

8. The problem with prototypes: IS THIS A BIRD?
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9. Prototypes can make concepts fuzzy…
Is a whale a mammal?
Are 17 year old people children or adults?
Heart attack symptoms?
Is a tomato a fruit or a vegetable?

11. Thinking We think by forming Concepts Help form Help form Definitions
Prototypes

12. Problem Solving

13. APPROACHES TO PROBLEM SOLVING: SPLOYOCHYG
Trial & Error
Randomly move letters looking for answer.
Algorithm
Step-by-step procedure that guarantees a solution
Problem: time consuming, not always practical
Trying each letter in each position requires 907,200 combinations
Heuristic
Simple thinking strategy that allows us to make judgments & solve problems efficiently (rule of thumb)
Problem: error-prone
Ex. Eliminate vowels, exclude multiple letters at same time, etc.
Insight
“Aha!” moment when solution appears; usually makes us happy
Battleship, grocery store for algorithm/heuristic, babysitter
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14. Insight Using boxes to obtain food
Humans and animals have insight. Insight is shows itself in the right temporal lobe.
Using boxes to
obtain food

15. Problem-Solving Strategies
Trial & Error
Algorithm
Problem-Solving Strategies
Heuristic
Insight

16. Answers!
Ball costs $.05

17. Imagine that you and your friends are planning to see a movie tonight
Imagine that you and your friends are planning to see a movie tonight. Given the options to the right, and that you want to pick a film that has the highest likelihood of being enjoyable, how would you use these strategies to make a decision:
Trial and Error, Algorithm, Heuristic, Insight

18. Hurdles/Obstacles to Problem Solving
What cognitive factors impair our judgement?

19. Confirmation Bias = eagerness to search for information that confirms our ideas
Disconfirming info avoided/dismissed
Maybe swap for activity where students generate example? Since this is review?
Example: Administration analysts in 2003 had a tendency to accept info which supported their presumptions about WMDs more readily than info which contradicted them.
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20. Example: Confirmation Bias
Imagine that you are the judge in an only-child sole-custody case following a relatively messy divorce. The facts of the case are complicated by ambiguous economic, social, and emotional considerations, and you decide to base your decision entirely on the following facts.
Question: To whom would you award sole-custody of the child?
Parent A: who has an average income, average health, average working hours, a reasonable rapport with the child, and a relatively stable social life;
Parent B: who has an above-average income, minor health problems, lots of work-related travel, a very close relationship with the child, and an extremely active social life.

21. Confirmation Bias
For example, teachers say kids are crazy on Fridays…so and so is a “bad” kid/”good” kid

22. 2. Fixation
Fixation: An inability to see a problem from a fresh perspective. This impedes problem solving. Two examples of fixation are mental set and functional fixedness.

23. Match Problem
Can you arrange these six matches into four equilateral triangles?

24. Match Problem Fixation
The inability to see a problem from a new perspective.

25. Functional Fixedness The inability to see a new use for an object.
Think of as many uses as you can for a ……

26. The Jug Problem

27. B – A – 2C = desired amount of water
The Jug Problem
B – A – 2C = desired amount of water

28. The Jug Problem
For problems 6 and 7 (20 and 18), there are easier ways than using your formula from your mental set.
“We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”  Albert Einstein

29. Mental Set
A tendency to approach a problem in a particular way, especially if it has worked in the past.
May or may not be a good thing.

30. Motivation
If you don’t attempt to solve a problem you won’t.

32. Making Decisions & Forming Judgements

33. Representativeness Heuristic
Who went to Harvard?
Dan is a smart dude, but did not go to Harvard (but he looks like he did).
Judging a situation based on how similar the aspects are to the prototypes the person holds in their mind.
Like thinking someone with glasses is nerdy, or a blonde is not smart.
Heuristic: episode from the office that features a basketball game against the warehouse (Michael wants Stanley on the team but not Phyllis, even though she turns out to be the better player).
If I tell you that Sonia Dara is a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model, you would make certain quick judgments (heuristics) about her…like about her interests or intelligence.
She is an economics major at Harvard University.

34. In reality, all 3 options are equally likely.
Which answer sequence do you think is most likely to appear on a True/False Quiz:
T T T T T T
F F F T T T
T F F T F T
Chances are, you picked “C” because it best fits with your idea of what a random sequence looks like.
In reality, all 3 options are equally likely.
Also, students often get anxious when they find themselves filling in the same letter for multiple choice questions many times in a row, even though this sequence is just as possible in a randomized key as any other combination.

35. Chances are, she is a beautician!!!
Below is Linda. She loves books and hates loud noises. Is Linda a librarian or a beautician?
Chances are, she is a beautician!!!

36. Availability Heuristic
Which place would you be more scared of getting mugged or even murdered?
Judging a situation based on examples of similar situations that initially come to mind.
Vivid examples in the news often cause an availability heuristic.
The Bronx, NY
Presented people with a single vivid case of welfare abuse. Then with statistical reality. The case had a bigger influence on opinions when people were polled (Duncan 1988)
The crime rate of Gary, Indiana is MUCH higher than the Bronx. But when you think of crime, which town comes to mind?
Gary, Indiana

38. If it comes to mind easily (maybe a vivid event) we assume it is common.
Although diseases kill many more people than accidents, it has been shown that people will judge accidents and diseases to be equally fatal. This is because accidents are more dramatic and are often written up in the paper or seen on the news on t.v., and are more available in memory than diseases.

39. Good Morning 
Please take and fill out the worksheet on the front DESK (not table)

40. Heuristics can lead to Overconfidence…
The tendency to be more confident than correct.

41. Framing
90% of the population will be saved with this medication…..or
10% of the population will die despite this medication.
You should not drink more than two drinks per day….or
You should not drink more than 730 drinks a year.
Look at the following question and think about how the question is worded may effect the way it is answered.
How can businesses become more socially responsible?
The way a problem is presented can drastically effect the way we view it.
80% lean vs. 20% fat. Another example of framing: In politics, each side of a debate is always FOR something POSITIVE. (e.g. Pro- life vs. Anti-Women’s Reproductive Rights; Pro-Choice vs. Anti-Baby or Pro-Death). Death tax vs. estate tax
Global warming vs. climate change . Remember the Jimmy Kimmel video we watched of wording effects: Affordable Care Act v. Obama Care

42. Example: Framing Situation 1: Situation 2:
Imagine that you are a physician working in an Asian village, and six hundred people have come down with a life-threatening disease. Two possible treatments exist. If you choose treatment A, you will save exactly two hundred people. If you choose treatment B, there is a one-third chance that you will save all six hundred people, and a two-thirds chance that you will save no one. Which should you choose? A or B?
Situation 2:
Imagine that you are a physician working in an Asian village, and six hundred people have come down with a life-threatening disease. Two possible treatments exist. If you choose treatment C, exactly four hundred people will die. If you choose treatment D, there is a one-third chance that no one will die, and a two-thirds chance that everyone will die. Which should you choose? C or D?
May be important for distinguishing from “wording effects”

43. Belief Perseverance
Example:
Read article about political scandal
“That guy’s a scumbag!”
Article retracted; read corrections.
Clinging to your initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited.
If you see that a country is hostile, you are likely to interpret their ambiguous actions as a sign of hostility. Student-relevant example of belief perseverance: you hear a rumor that a person cheated on his/her significant other. Later, you find that this was just a rumor and totally untrue. Then, a year later when you are both single, the person asks you out, but you find yourself having a difficult time trusting him/her to be faithful.

44. Belief Bias
The tendency of one’s preexisting beliefs to distort logical reasoning by making invalid conclusions.
Democrats support free speech
Dictators are not democrats
Dictators do not support free speech.
God is love.
Love is blind
Ray Charles is blind.
Ray Charles is God.
We more easily see the illogic of conclusions that run counter to our beliefs than those that agree with our beliefs.
OBJECTIVE 8| Explain how our preexisting beliefs can distort our logic.

46. See if you can figure out what these seven words all have in common. 1
See if you can figure out what these seven words all have in common? 1. Banana 2. Dresser 3. Grammar 4. Potato 5. Revive 6. Uneven 7. Assess
Take first letter, move it to the end and it makes the same word!

47. CREATIVITY

48. Convergent vs. Divergent Thinking
One Solution
Convergent
Problem
Divergent
Creative; many possible answers
Analytical; clear answer
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49. Divergent Thinking
Imagine that you are the consultant for a brickyard that makes common red construction bricks and is having financial difficulty. The manager of the brickyard is interested in new uses for her product and has asked you to provide her with some. Spend a few minutes thinking about the problem and then write down as many new uses for the bricks as you can think of.