Cognition

Unit 7B

Cognition

All the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating

Cognitive Psychologists study these activities

Concepts

Mental groupings of similar objects, events, ideas, people

Without concepts, we would need different words for everything

Concepts formed by

Hierarchies – Maps

Nation State County City Neighborhood Street

Definition – – Shapes– Prototypes

Mental images

Mental Concept Challenge

Can you draw what is seen forming a mental prototype while it described?

Problem solving

Strategies– Algorithms

Step by step procedures that guarantee a solution

– Heuristics Making judgments Faster, but error prone

– Insight Sudden realization of a solution Eureka Moment

Creativity

The ability to produce ideas that are both novel and valuable

Cannot be measured on an intelligence test– Convergent thinking – one correct answer– Divergent thinking

5 Components to Creativity

1. Expertise– A well developed base of knowledge– Ideas– Phrases– Images

All serve as the building blocks to creativity

5 Components to Creativity

2. Imaginative thinking skills– Provides the ability to see things in novel ways– Recognize patterns– Make connections

5 Components to Creativity

3. A venturesome personality – Seeks new experiences– Tolerates risk– Exploring new cultures

5 Components to Creativity

4. Intrinsic motivation– Driven more by interest, satisfaction and

challenge than by external pressures– Less deadlines for work and more pleasure from

work

5 Components to Creativity

5. A creative environment– Sparks, supports and refines creative ideas

– Support contemplation

Obstacles to problem solving

Confirmation Bias– We look for information that backs up our ideas

more than info that goes against it– Watson

“People defend themselves against the threat of new information relevant to the issue”

WMD’s in Iraq

Obstacles to problem solving

Fixation– The inability to see a problem in a fresh

perspective

– MENTAL SET – Approaching a problem in a way that has worked before What comes next?

– T-E-T-T-F-?-?-?– J-F-M-A-?-?-?

Fixation– Functional Fixedness

Thinking only in terms of objects usual functions

Inability to think outside the box to use tools available in a different way to solve a problem

Making Decisions and Forming Judgments

Using Heuristics– Making quick decisions – mental shortcuts– Instantaneous decisions

Sometimes bad judgments

Representative heuristics– Judging the likelihood of things in terms of how

well they fit in particular prototypes

Heuristics

Availability Heuristics– Judgments based on how much information is

available

– If it can be thought of quickly, vividly memorable Casinos – attract gamblers with bright flashing lights

– Easy to forget that there is a ton of $ being lost Stereotypes – terrorists Jaws

We often overfeel and underthink– Mother Theresa

“If I look at the masses, I will not act. If I look at one, I will”

– Feed the Children “This is________. For only a dollar a day, you can help”

Overconfidence

The tendency to overestimate the accuracy of our knowledge and judgments

People who are 100% confident are often wrong about 15% of the time

How quickly can you turn out a quality paper/project– Procrastination

Valuable? – People who are more overconfident live happier lives– Easier time making tough decisions

Belief Perseverance

Clinging to initial beliefs, even after they have been proven wrong

The more we hold our beliefs to be true, the tighter we hold onto them– Learning disabilities

“consider the opposite”– A way to reduce the bias of groups

Intuition

Effortless, immediate, automatic feeling or thought

Stranger looks dangerous, we react to them

Which is larger – Frankfurt or Bremen– San Diego or San Antonio

Intuition

Thinking is always taking place Intuition is adaptive Being able to size up a situation in an instant

– Nurses, firefighters, art critics, mechanics, athletes

– All can make decisions in split seconds that can have immediate impacts

Framing

The way an issue is posed will have an impact on decisions and judgments– 10% of operations result in death– 90% of operations survive

– 1 in 20 more surprising than 10 in 200

– Exposure to a virus will kill 10 out of 10 Million– Exposure to a virus will kill .000001%

Framing in Politics

Aiding the needy vs Welfare

SALE!!!– Mark up regular price, looks like a better deal

Cash price vs Credit at the gas pump

Framing with options

Used to push people in a certain direction when giving them options– Portion sizes at restaurants

Regular vs “small size” Small size vs “Supersized”

– Organ donations If default is yes, nearly all will do it If you have to opt out, less likely to say no

Language

Spoken, written, or signed ways of communicating

Phonemes – The smallest part of spoken language – In about 500 languages, there are 869 different

phonemes English uses about 40

Phonemes

Varying the vowel sounds between b and t – How many different words can you come up with?

– Bait, bat, beat/beet, bet, bit, bite, boat, boot, bought, bout, but

Phonemes

Consonants carry more meaning when we speak

“The trerth ef thes stetement shed be evedent frem thes bref demenstretien”

I cnduo't bvleiee taht I culod aulaclty uesdtannrd waht I was rdnaieg. Unisg the icndeblire pweor of the hmuan mnid, aocdcrnig to rseecrah at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mttaer in waht oderr the lterets in a wrod are, the olny irpoamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rhgit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whoutit a pboerlm. Tihs is bucseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey ltteer by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Aaznmig, huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghhuot slelinpg was ipmorantt! See if yuor fdreins can raed tihs too.

Phonemes

Works in sign language too?

You can tell where a person is from by the different types of signing they do– More than 200 types of sign language

Morphemes

Smallest part of language that carries meaning

I S, to understand a plural Include prefixes (pre), suffixes (ed)

Grammar

System of rules that enables us to communicate with each other

Semantics – rules that allow us to derive meaning from morphemes, words and sentences– ed means it happened in the past

Grammar

Syntax– Rules we use to put words in order in a sentence

The English language has 616,500 words (in the dictionary)– How we put these words together, allows us to

create an infinite number of sentences

Language Development

After 1 year old, you learn about 3500 words a year

Rarely do we form sentences in our minds before we speak them– They are put together as we are speaking

When do we start learning language?

Infants – In fantis “without language”

Babies can recognize speech– They look for the one speaking– Recognize ‘ah’ and ‘ee’ sounds and mouth

position

Productive Language– Ability to produce words – Babbling stage – spontaneously start uttering sounds

Not imitating adult speech – Nature allows speech, nurture cultures it

Receptive language – They can take words and start to break them into segments

of each sound– 7 months

Language

By 10 mos, a trained ear may be able to pick up what a baby is saying

1st Bday – one word stage– Using one word to convey meaning

2 yrs. – telegraphic speech– 2 word phases

Skinner and Language

Operant Conditioning – – Learning principles can explain language

acquisition– Association – seeing things and hearing words– Imitation – words and syntax used by others– Reinforcement – rewards for correct use

Chomsky

Kids learn way to fast to be explained by just Skinner’s rules

Language acquisition device– Language happens to a child

Universal grammar– Nouns, verbs, adjectives are similar in any language– Arrangement may be different– Start speaking in nouns in most languages

Statistical learning and critical periods

At 7 mos, babies can recognize syllable patterns through exposure and repetition

They come with built in programming?

Childhood seems to be the only time we can do this– Critical period for language development– The older you get, the harder it becomes to learn languages– Deaf children – born deaf vs becoming deaf

Linguistic determinism

Language determines the way we think – B. L. Whorf– “language itself shapes basic ideas”– The Hopi and the past

Bilingual people will respond to questions differently when taking a test in different languages

– Influences how we think more than it determines our personality

Increased word power

Bilingual advantage– More aptly find the important information when

communicating than those who speak one language

– Students immersed in elementary school, we more creative, had higher aptitude scores, better English and more appreciation for other culture

Thinking in images

Implicit memory– Thinking with images, not words– Mental picture of how you do something– Chi Kung

Watching videos can activate the brain’s ability to simulate it– Sports, Music, Pain

Thinking in images

Outcome simulation vs process simulation– Which is better to imagine for 5 minutes a day?

Celebrating a good grade on a test Visualizing good study habits

Language does affect our thinking, but thinking also affects language – that’s how we come up with new words